SAS Day at Texas A&M

Event Details

Date: October 8, 2013 from 8:30am to 1:30 p.m. CST

Location: Houston, TX - CityCentre Three, Suite 200 (Texas A&M University-Mays Business School facility)

Cost: There is no cost to attend this event.

SAS Day at Texas A&M

An event hosted by the Department of Statistics at Texas A&M University and led by Dr. Simon Sheather, Professor and Department Head of Texas A&M University’s Department of Statistics.

This event will highlight speakers from the SAS Institute, Inc. and industry experts that will discuss topics including analytics and data mining to make better business decisions. A panel of experts from a variety of industries will discuss how their companies are using big data and analytics, and how they are fostering a fact-based decision making culture in their companies. The number of participants is limited.

Participants will hear how big data and analytics are being used in companies in:

  • Oil/Gas
  • Energy supply and distribution
  • Government
  • Sports

Participants also gain insight into:

  • The benefits from using big data and analytics in your business
  • Common obstacles to big data and analytics
  • How companies build a culture of using big data for better decision making
  • The types of data, software and statistical methods used in analytical decision making

Reserve your seat any time before October 1st. Dress is business casual. Continental breakfast and light lunch will be available free of charge.

Agenda

 

Breakfast

8:30am

Welcome

9:00am

Plenary Session: Dr. Stephen A. Holditch, P.E.

9:10am

Breakout Session I

10:00am

Breakout Session II

11:05am

Lunch with Keynote Speaker: Dr. John Brocklebank

12:15pm

Featured Speakers

Dr. Stephen A. Holditch, P.E. Professor Emeritus of Petroleum Engineering Texas A&M University

Explore how statistics has been used to determine the volume of natural gas that can be produced in the world in the coming century. Also hear about hydraulic fracturing and how to develop tight oil and gas reservoirs in an environmentally responsible manner.

Dr. John Brocklebank Vice President SAS® Solutions OnDemand

Learn how big data is used to devise technology solutions to critical state and local government issues, such as fraud, waste, tax collection, public safety, and education.

Charles Chase Chief Industry Consultant Demand Solutions SAS Manufacturing & Supply Chain Global Practice

Smart organizations share common goals and performance metrics. They are also nimble and work collaboratively, focusing on sustainable strategic objectives. They take a more balanced approach that looks horizontally across the supply chain, virtually eliminating silos and optimizing the process from market-to-market and supplier-to-supplier’s supplier. The new focus on the value supply chain is how companies can listen to their customers, assess the market, and then create a more accurate demand response.

Joe Indelicato Senior Strategic Architect SAS Institute, Inc.

His presentation will take a look at novel and proven approaches to using the power of analytics for decision making within the National Football League. Traditional football is driven off the gut feelings of coaches and front office personnel, making decisions based off of previous experiences in regards to calling plays, personnel decisions and salary cap management. These decisions tend to be biased towards personal experiences and lead to sub-optimal conditions and often ultimately result in a poor performing organization and game play.

Dr. Michael Thompson Managing Director & CEO First Analytics

Dr. Thompson will discuss what it means to compete on analytics, strategies for getting started and specific case examples, including fuel price optimization and industrial safety analysis. 

Keith Holdaway Principal Solutions Architect SAS Global Oil & Gas Business Unit

The oil and gas industry is engulfed by a plethora of disparate data collated across multiple geoscientific and siloed disciplines. Moreover, the data are growing exponentially as digital oilfields are being implemented in some fashion to manage conventional and unconventional assets. Performing exploratory data analysis and generating data marts tailored to specific advanced analytical workflows are cornerstones to enable development and deployment of predictive models that are data driven, both in real-time and across historical data sets. Keith will discuss strategies for decreasing costs and reducing risk while maximizing shale gas production as well as advanced analytical capabilities that provide a comprehensive understanding of the reservoir heterogeneity.

Josh Wills Senior Director of Data Science  

Hadoop is an open source framework that consists of a file system that allows organizations to manage large amounts of data and process computation across many computers. Because of its ability to scale and run on ‘commodity hardware’, Hadoop is drawing tremendous interest as a low-cost alternative for data storage. Organizations increasingly are seeking to expand use for Hadoop as an important infrastructure component for analytics. SAS users in particular have a heighted interest in understanding how big data administration can be simplified so that more analytics can be run against more data for better results. Session attendees will gain a better understanding of the considerations needed for integrating Hadoop into an overall high performance analytics strategy.

John Doran Global Director of Trade Monitoring and Surveillance ConocoPhillips

Co-presenting with Patrick Woody on compliance issues, Doran brings more than 20 years of experience providing advisory services and analytical modeling methods to his global responsibilities at Conoco, the world’s largest independent exploration and production company.

Patrick Woody Senior Strategist for Regulatory Risk Compliance RiskAdvisory, a division of SAS

Co-presenting with John Doran on compliance issues. Wall Street regulation and enforcement is very prominent in the headlines of today’s financial news. Particularly in the energy trading sector where record-setting fines have been assessed against the largest names in the oil, gas and power trading business. This presentation will examine the role of analytics in market monitoring, regulatory surveillance and the Big Data issues confronting the regulators of energy trading. FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) and the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trade Commission) rely on analytical methods to detect market anomalies and provide the forensic evidence to prosecute cases of commodity price manipulation and other forms of abusive trading behavior. Market surveillance is a Big Data challenge of looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. This presentation will discuss how analytics is being used as the metal detector in the Big Data haystack.

Register here!

Location: CityCentre Three, Suite 200 (Texas A&M University-Mays Business School facility)
842 W. Sam Houston Pkwy North, Suite 200
Houston , TX 77024

Date: Oct. 8, 2013, 8:30 a.m. - Oct. 8, 2013, 1:30 p.m.