Western NSW Branch Meeting 2023-3

“Behavioural data science as a game changer for understanding the interface between human and digital systems in the new digital economy”

Professor Ganna Pogrebna
Executive Director, Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Futures Institute
Charles Sturt University

Date: Wednesday, 16 August 2023, 6.00 — 8.00 pm (AEST)
Venue: Engineering Building, Building 1305, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst
Video presentation: YouTube video
All are welcome

This meeting is a joint presentation of Charles Sturt University and the Western NSW Branch of the Royal Society of NSW

Summary: Behavioural data science refers to a new field, combining cross-disciplinary methods from behavioural science, economics, psychology, data science, and computer science to design new modelling approaches in order to better understand and predict three strands of behaviour: (i) human behaviour (e.g., consumer decision making); (ii) algorithmic behaviour (e.g., detecting and preventing algorithmic bias as well as understanding the interactions between algorithms and humans); and (iii) systems behaviour (e.g., designing complex but effective systems to maximise people’s potential). This talk will introduce the field as well as discuss its impact on a number of domains including cybersecurity, financial services, talent management, leadership, and others. Using concrete practical examples, it will demonstrate how behavioural data science not only offers new models and methods, but also changes the game across a number of applications, providing major innovations in the context of the New Digital Economy and Industrial Revolution 4.0, which are delivered to citizens and customers in effective, transformative, and disruptive ways.

Professor Ganna Pogrebna is a pioneer in behavioural data science and is the Executive Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Futures Institute at Charles Sturt University. Blending behavioural science, AI, computer science, data analytics, engineering, and business model innovation, Ganna helps businesses, cities, charities, and individuals to better understand why they make the decisions they make and how they can optimise their behaviour to achieve higher profit, better social outcomes, as well as flourish and bolster their wellbeing. Her recent projects focus on smart technological and social systems, cybersecurity, human-computer and human-data interactions and business models. Her most impactful projects concentrated on cybersecurity as a behavioural science as well as applications of behavioural data science to the media industry. Her digital security risk-tolerance scale (CyberDoSpeRT) is widely used in Australia and abroad. Ganna’s contributions to risk analytics and modelling was recognised by the Leverhulme Research Fellowship award. In January 2020, she was also named as the winner of TechWomen100 — the prize awarded to leading female experts in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in the UK. She has also been named as one of 20+ Inspiring Data Scientists by the AI Time Journal. Ganna runs the Data Driven blog on YouTube as well as Inclusion AI blog. Her work is regularly covered by the traditional as well as social media. Ganna is one of the contributors to the Oxford Handbook of AI Ethics. She is also currently co-editing the Cambridge Handbook of Behavioural Data Science, which is due to be published in 2023 by Cambridge University Press.