In a new development, the FINOPOLIS 2018 business programme will feature a series of open lectures given by world-renowned experts.

The first two lectures on 18 October will be given by George Westerman from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Vasant Dhar from the Stern School of Business. 

George Westerman is a Principal Research Scientist with the MIT Sloan Initiative on the Digital Economy. He leads research programmes on digital transformations, innovations, and IT leadership. Westerman teaches the Essential IT for Non-IT Executives course at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and is the Co-Chair of the MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Awards. Each year, these awards honour executives who have delivered exemplary levels of business value through the innovative use of IT.

Westerman is also a board member for the Technology Business Management Council, a non-profit organization made up of CIOs and senior IT executives with a mission to establish and promote business management standards in the technology sphere.

Westerman is the author of three books which have in past years topped lists in industry magazines. His book Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation was a silver-medallist at the 2015 Axiom Book Awards.

Vasant Dhar is a professor at the Stern School of Business and the Center for Data Science at New York University. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Big Data journal. Dhar teaches courses on trading strategies, prediction, data science, and the foundations of FinTech. 

Dhar is a pioneer in data research. His work covers various areas, such as situations in which a computer is capable of making better decisions than humans. Using artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies, Dhar has studied the possibility of using computers to take decisions in various spheres, such as on financial market trading floors, emergency healthcare departments, preschool classes, and sports dressing rooms. He was also the first to use machine learning for modelling and forecasting on Wall Street. 

As well as having written over 70 research articles, Dhar is the author of the books Seven Methods for Transforming Corporate Data into Business Intelligence and Intelligent Decision Support Methods: The Science of Knowledge Work. His research has been published in Harvard Business Review, The Financial Times, Wired Magazine, and Big Data, amongst others.