Big Data: Business Intelligence and Your Privacy

Presented by the Boston University Alumni Association

Featured Speaker:
Dr. Azer Bestavros, Warren Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Founding Director of the Hariri Institute for Computing at Boston University

When:
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Event Start Time: 6:00 pm
Event End Time: 9:00 pm

Where:
Convene, 810 Seventh Ave, New York, NY

Schedule:
6:00 pm doors open
6:30 pm Welcome and introductions
7:15 pm Audience Q&A
7:45 pm Networking reception
9:00 pm Program ends.

Price: $20

Big Data analytics, Machine Learning, and AI are driving the future of business success (whether in healthcare, FinTech, e-Commerce, or other social and public good endeavors) and your privacy is at stake. Azer Bestavros, Founding Director of the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing, will discuss new technologies and best practices that allow multiple organizations to collectively mine data assets in their possession without the need for such data to ever being shared or directly accessed, hence eliminating the risks associated with theft of personal and confidential data while also conforming to the increasingly complex regulatory and disclosure requirements.

Bio: Azer Bestavros is a Warren Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Founding Director of the Hariri Institute for Computing at Boston University, which was set up in 2011 as an incubator for high-risk, high-reward cross-disciplinary collaborations. Prior to his role at the Hariri Institute, he chaired the Computer Science Department from 2000 to 2007, having joined it in 1991 after completing his PhD at Harvard University. His research in networking, distributed computing, cybersecurity, and high-assurance systems led to seminal contributions that include pioneering web push caching and content distribution networks, self-similar Internet traffic characterization, game-theoretic cloud resource management, and safety certification of networked systems and software. His current research is focused on design, implementation, and deployment of scalable software platforms for privacy-preserving big-data analytics, and the use of edge clouds for control of cyber-physical systems. Funded by over $44M from government and industry sponsors, his research has yielded 19 PhD theses, 8 issued patents, 2 startups, and hundreds of refereed papers with over 20,000 citations and an H-index of 60. He received a number of awards for distinguished teaching, research, and service, including the ACM Sigmetrics inaugural Test of Time Award for 1996 research work “whose impact is still felt 15 years after initial publication” and the 2010 United Methodist Scholar Teacher Award in recognition of “outstanding dedication and contributions to the learning arts.” In 2017, he was named a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, the highest distinction bestowed upon senior faculty members at Boston University for “representing our community with distinction, enriching the academic experience for our students, and raising our stature as a major research university.”