14/02/2020

Finance and Market sectors are seeking mathematical talent.

Tiago Pereira, do ICMC-USP, falou sobre críticas a partir de dados

Mathematical talent is wanted. Companies in the finance and marketing sectors are seeking professionals in the field of mathematics to fill positions related to innovation and technology. The second day of the Mathematics and Industry Workshop highlighted the business sector, and featured presentations from companies and researchers from major centers across the country.

The convergence of these fields is happening at universities abroad, as Vinicius Carrasco, chief economist at the payment operator Stone.Co, a partner of the event, pointed out. “In Stanford's geology department, you can see oil and gas companies funding basic research. In the computer science department, there's research funding from private entities. The step we're taking here today is fundamental to moving in this direction as well.” Vinicius believes that this interaction, “beyond solving short-term problems associated with specific issues, can generate long-term scientific knowledge.”

Good business for entrepreneurs and academics. “It’s no use someone coming to us with the problem and already having the solution. We look for competent people who will study the problem and provide a solution that will probably be better than what the client imagined,” said Carlos Rios, business developer at the online agency Hurb, which also supported the workshop. “This only happens when the professional has autonomy.”

For those looking to enter the business world, one of the positive aspects is the variety of career paths offered by large companies. “We value intellectual progress, learning new things, and moving between areas. This is always strongly encouraged. We operate in Brazil and Latin America, and our focus for growth is the search for new talent. We are looking for new applications of data science for industries. And the key question is to think about the added value,” said Thomaz Cortes, associate partner at McKinsey & Company, another partner at the event.

André Carvalho, do ICMC-USP, em apresentação sobre ciência de dados e aprendizado de máquina

Computer science and data science were the topics of the lectures.

According to Luiz Velho, a researcher at IMPA and lead researcher at Visgraf (the institute's Computer Graphics Laboratory), applied computational mathematics has much to contribute to new media. In his presentation, the mathematician showcased the group's projects in the areas of virtual reality, digital animation, computational photography, and multi-resolution models.

“What are the mechanisms for bringing the technology developed in research centers to society?” the researcher asked. “It’s a difficult equation, but we’re trying to solve it. We have to deliver these products not only through IMPA or Brazil, but to the world.”

André de Carvalho, from ICMC-USP, highlighted the shortage of professionals in the field of data science and machine learning in Brazil. "We have a high demand for jobs and we can't train enough people to meet the companies' needs," commented the speaker, who receives daily calls from companies seeking referrals. Carvalho discussed the experiences and contributions of the ICMC-USP Analytics laboratory in these sectors and presented some tools developed by the group, such as those for data mining challenges.

Blockchain was the topic addressed by IMPA researchers Diego Nehab and Augusto Teixeira. They explained the context in which the tool was born, which allows the creation of decentralized currencies, such as Bitcoin, among other functions. “Unfortunately, the current reality is that the development of this new type of application is an extremely complex, specialized process, full of limitations and obstacles,” commented Nehab. The researchers presented the project they are developing on Cartesi, a platform for the development and deployment of decentralized applications composed of blockchain and off-chain technologies.

Language and image processing has applications in the justice system, tourism, the environment, and even retail. This was demonstrated by researcher Krerley Oliveira, from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL). At the institution's Statistics and Data Science Laboratory, Kerley and his collaborators have developed several projects in this area. One of the group's challenges was to analyze the oil spills on the Alagoas coast using aerial drone images and deep learning .

Tiago Pereira, from ICMC-USP, spoke about critical transitions based on data. "The ability to predict sudden changes in the dynamics of complex systems, known as critical transitions, from data is essential to avoid disastrous consequences," he commented. In his presentation, Tiago analyzed the issue for data series generated by dynamic systems, building a model network from the probabilistic treatment of the dynamics.