Geospatial Analysis and Data Science–Actuaries Podcast

Claim your CPD points

Head of Actuarial and Analytics at World Nomads, Jacky Poon interviews Andrew Xu, Actuary at Finity Consulting, on his entry into the Weapons of Mass Deduction video competition that focused on cutting edge geospatial analysis techniques.

Andrew created an impressive entry that incorporated animation, Google Maps street view and motion graphics to explain the importance of geospatial analysis and how it is used by actuaries for geographical models.

He is one of the Top 3 entrants along with Minh Phan and Queenie Chow who created entries on CatBoost and open source data respectively.

Jacky and Andrew touch on the wider aspects of geospatial analysis, including it's changing application over the years, and how Andrew uses different analysis tools and techniques, including in R, which he learned in his current role at Finity:

Jacky asks a range of question including:

  • How are you feeling about the [competition winner] announcement?
  • Tell me a bit about yourself?
  • Tell me about your hobby [in video production]?
  • How did you get into R for analysis?
  • What other areas have you applied R in?
  • What lead you to choose geospatial analysis as your topic?
  • How would you begin to do geospatial analysis?
  • Where do you see the edge for actuaries as data analysts?
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The winner of the Weapons of Mass Deduction (WOMD) competition will be announced this week at the opening of the 2018 Data Analytics Seminar!

Watch:

and view all the WOMD shortlisted entries .

View the Seminar Program Snapshot  and register to attend or view the webinar!

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About the authors
Jacky Poon
Jacky is the current Chair of the Young Data Analytics Working Group and the Head of Finance - nib Travel, the Travel Insurance division of nib Health Funds. He is an editor of the monthly Data Analytics Newsletter for Actuaries Institute members. He is also member of the IFoA Machine Learning Reserving Working Party and has a keen interest in research on the use of data analytics and machine learning techniques to complement the traditional actuarial skillset in insurance.