For decades, data and analytics have played an important role in our economy. The process of analyzing data, however, remains labor intensive. Even with the most advanced techniques, data scientists spend countless hours developing, testing and retooling analytic models one step at a time. Worse yet, most organizations cannot find enough data scientists to complete this labor-intensive work. The impact is that we have not yet fully realized the promise of continuous intelligence; until now.

What does a data-driven business look like? Is it endless lines of code and algorithms running on cloud infrastructure, sending signals back to a predictive analytics lab? Is it a huddle of Ph.D. data scientists poring over graphs that no one else can understand? Both experts and technologies have a place in it, but relying too much on either can blow the whole thing. A business that runs day-to-day on data needs a culture that meshes machine intelligence and human business sense.

If you could have any superpower, which would it be? For Hilary Mason, it's not a question of if, because she already has one: She uses technology to unearth hidden insights, from how to catch people's attention online, to where you can find the best burgers in New York City. She has been at the forefront of machine learning, AI, and analytics. Hilary will discuss how your business can use these tools to move from insight to action to competitive advantage faster than a speeding bullet. She is the co-founder of Fast Forward Labs, Data Scientist in Residence at Accel and is the former Chief Scientist at Bitly.

Bob Picciano, senior vice president at IBM Analytics, spoke at IBM's World of Watson conference in October, 2016. "Insight is the new currency for success," said Bob Picciano, senior vice president at IBM Analytics. "And Watson is the supercharger for the insight economy." Picciano, speaking at the World of Watson conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, unveiled IBM's Watson Data Platform, touted as the "world's fastest data ingestion engine and machine learning as a service." The cloud-based Watson Data Platform, will "illuminate dark data," said Picciano, and will "change everything--absolutely everything--for everyone."