I help organisations recognise, embrace and optimise for the next industrial revolution: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Process Automation. I help with identifying potential uplift and benefits; getting the foundations right (data governance, model governance, AI ethics); and selecting use cases, POCs, and MVPs and taking pilot projects into production.

Enterprise AI Strategy is now the differentiator in Information Management, and will determine who wins and who loses in the next wave of disruption. I approach AI Strategy as an evolution as well as a revolution in information management, requiring sustainable processes and methodologies across data management, data governance, model governance, knowledge management, AI ethics, AI lifecycle management, and organisational maturity.

My Topics

Mark presented the opening keynote at the BCI Australasia Summit 2019. His talk on “Solving world hunger one business at time” was very well received by delegates, with much positive feedback, some reporting that it made them think and others that it connected with them emotionally. His talk set the scene for delegates to think outside the box for the rest of the conference. I would highly recommend Mark to other event organisers.

Tammie Horton

Summit Organising Committee Member

Solving World Hunger, one Byte at a time

In our idealistic 20’s many of us dreamed of changing the world.

We may have even volunteered for a year or two in community projects locally or overseas.

Have you ever felt that your dreams of changing the world have been left unfulfilled, and if you want to make a difference now it will have to wait until you’re financially independent or retired, so you can then make an impact on issues like world hunger?

In the last 30 years, over 3 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty and hunger.

There are three very concrete ways in which the work we do every day, as unglamorous as it may seem, is in fact part of this economic miracle. By getting out bed each day, dragging yourself to your data day job, you are part of this miracle.

We are now on the cusp of the greatest productivity accelerator that the world has ever seen: Big Data, the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. While this will disrupt industries and make some jobs redundant, Mark explains the uplift that has resulted from the previous three productivity revolutions and unpacks the implications for the next one. As data workers, we have the privilege of front-row seats to what will be the greatest uplift in living standards across the globe!

By the end of this talk, you will never feel the same way about your day job – because you (and your day job) are solving world hunger.

The Future of Leadership in the age of Artificial Intelligence

Leadership in the age of analytics is increasingly about appreciating and navigating uncertainty and complexity. The promise of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is not that it will make us all redundant, it’s that tasks of lower complexity (that were previously too difficult to automate) can now be automated with AI and ML.

Skilled workers must move further up the value chain in order to be able to add value an an increasingly automated world.

Is your team ready? This keynote provides a practical introduction to the emerging world of AI and ML, unpacks the implications for different types of roles, and provides ways to prepare and equip ourselves now for leadership in the future.

Ethics and the Future of AI

Just because something CAN be done, does not mean that it SHOULD be done. (“Men like you invented the Hydrogen Bomb,” says Sarah Conor to the scientist working on SkyNet in Terminator 2.) What of the future of Artificial Intelligence? It may be possible to monitor an entire population, but should this be tolerated? Transhumanism may become a reality – where do we draw the line? What legislative frameworks at national and international levels will be needed to ensure that the benefits of AI outweigh its potential abuses? More importantly, is it possible to anticipate the moral dilemmas and challenges that developments in AI will present us with, and create these frameworks proactively rather than after some intolerable outrage? This provocative keynote explores these questions.

Garbage & Data

Mark has lived on the largest garbage dump in Asia, eaten rat with hilltribes in the Golden Triangle (it would have been rude to refuse), and smuggled pro-democracy literature into communist dictatorships. He is also a consultant and strategist, and has advised companies in Australia and internationally on data management, data strategy and data governance. He is an international speaker, futurist, and specialist in the future of data management, data governance, big data, IoT, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

The Future is Awesome!

In just the last 30 years, over 3 billion human beings have been lifted from and avoided extreme poverty and hunger.

Since the first industrial revolution, human productivity, and the ability to create wealth and value, has grown exponentially.

As we face the fourth wave of world-changing innovation, what some call the fourth industrial revolution, we are staring at the greatest opportunity to lift quality of life even further, for both rich and poor. Come on a journey through these revolutions, and discover how your business, your work, your drag-myself-out-of-bed-every-day job, contributes to lifting the poorest out of abject poverty.

A motivational keynote like no other!

Keynotes, Training

My signature keynotes are noted above.

I also provide training on

Data Governance (2 day masterclass),

Data Literacy (1 day bootcamp), and

Introduction to Data Science and Analytics (1 day)