InQA: Investment and Quantitative Analytics

InQA Limited

data analytics, innovative financial software and digital services

  • Another Microsoft course completed: Orchestrating Big Data using Azure Data Factory

    I am delighted to have completed my latest course on the Microsoft Professional Program for Big Data with 100%: Orchestrating Big Data using Azure Data Factory.

    I have one more course left on the program, which I aim to complete in April.

    PJLeeMicrosoftDAT223.3xOrchestratingBigDataWithAzureDataFactoryFinalMark(100PC)11Mar2019.jpg

  • Making the move online? Key tips

    Are you an entrepreneur wanting to move a new or existing business online? We can help! Here are some key tips to get started:

    • If you are confident with using computers and technology, then we recommend using WordPress: they claim to power about 30% of the web and provide a very comprehensive service, including a custom domain (your very own address on the web), encryption (making your site safe for your customers), a built in blog, and  the ability to add ecommerce and custom themes.  (If you don’t want to use  WordPress, there are similar competitor websites out there too!).
    • If you need help setting up your website in WordPress (or similar) we can help you do that.  Similarly, if you need help in editing a site after it has been set up, or adding extra functionality.
    • If you need a more complex website (e.g. because it needs to perform calculations, or manipulate data) then we can help you do that, via building a bespoke website for you in the cloud (Microsoft Azure).  It will use a responsive design, meaning that the layout will automatically adapt to the device that your site visitors are using (e.g. a mobile phone, a tablet or a computer).
    • Make sure you have chosen some good marketing collateral (that is to say images and text which conveys your message clearly and attractively).  Again, we can help you choose some suitable materials from your existing documents, or help you create new ones.
    • After that, we recommend you set up suitable social media channels (including Twitter and Facebook) so that you can reach a wider audience and to keep your content fresh and engaging!

    We wish you the very best of luck in your exciting online journey. If you need any help in making this important first step in putting your products and services online, please contact us!

     

     

  • Marketing via social media – some key pointers

    If you are new to social media marketing, this post is for you!

    Social media via channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Instagram and blogs, can be a very powerful addition to more traditional forms of marketing.  We can help you with this.  Here are some key pointers:

    • add impact to your posts with well chosen images. Visitors to your posts/tweets/blogs are far more likely to read, engage with and remember your content if it has a suitable image!
    • post regularly but make sure your content remains relevant to your customers
    • initially, you can just dip a toe in the water by merely pushing content out to your target audience to excite their interest, without engaging in dialogue. (But do respond to any criticism or praise from your site visitors!)
    • however, for maximum impact, engage with those who visit your social media platforms, e.g. by taking part in discussions with relevant hashtags. Be aware that this is a more demanding strategy which will require you to spend more time, but if you engage well with customers and prospects, this can lead to significant new interest in your business or organisation!
    • a major strength of social media over traditional advertising is that it can help you reach target audiences in a much more effective way (e.g. by filtering audiences by age, location and interests).

    Good luck with your social media journey – please contact us if you would like us to help you, or with any other aspects of enhancing your presence online!

     

  • Another Microsoft course completed: Processing Real-time Data Streams in Azure

    I am delighted to have passed the above course with a mark of 100%.  This was the 8th course on the Microsoft Professional Program for Big Data, and means that I am on track to complete the entire program by the end of April 2019.

  • 5 suggested draft principles for Ethical Use of Data Analytics and AI

    (Written on a personal basis – no endorsement or approval is implied by any organisation that I am associated with.)

    Over the past couple of months I have been reading and thinking quite a lot about ethics in data analytics and artificial intelligence, as well as completing a Microsoft course on it.

    What follows is my current suggested shortlist for 5 key principles for Ethics and Data Analytics and AI. I try to bring together in this list what I consider to be the most important principles arising not only from the Microsoft course, but also from several existing published frameworks (see note * below for a list).  These frameworks tend to be much longer documents which while very useful as reference documents, don’t to my mind meet the need for a quick document that practitioners and executives sponsoring, using or building AI projects are far more likely to read.

    5 Suggested key principles for Data Analytics and AI work (DRAFT v0.2)

    1. Avoid harm to others (including by respecting their privacy, equality and autonomy, and speaking up about potential harm/violations of these principles)
    2. Increase societal well-being (including by sharing prosperity from AI benefits widely, and taking extreme care before introducing advanced AI that might lead to supremacy of AI intelligence)
    3. Professionalism: clean the data, treat data as an asset, comply with legal requirements and any applicable professional body codes, thoroughly assess and balance benefits v risks, keep models under review, and be flexible. Builders and owners of AI systems must take responsibility for outcomes.
    4. Act to preserve or increase trust (including via explain-ability as far as possible, transparency and accountability – particularly where explain-ability is impossible, engage widely with diverse stakeholders, build ethics into design)
    5. Retain human control: humans should choose how and whether to delegate decisions to AI systems, to accomplish human-chosen objectives.

    Comments/criticisms most gratefully received!

    Note (*): the sources I have drawn on in compiling the above list include:

    Ethics and Law in Data and Analytics (Microsoft edX Course)

    Discussions (still ongoing) with colleagues on the joint Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and Royal Statistical Society Data Science Focus Group, including outputs from joint workshops considering the Industrialisation and Professionalism of Data Science. Any errors in the draft principles are mine and mine alone however, and they should not be taken as being endorsed by anyone else at this stage!

    The Partnership of the Future (Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s 6 principles for future AI work, June 2016).

    Data Ethics Framework (from the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, published 13 June 2018 and updated 30 August 2018).

    Seven IEEE Standards Projects Provide Ethical Guidance for New Technologies (from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, IEEE, May 2017).

    Ethical Guidance for Applying Predictive Tools within Human Services (MetroLab Network, September 2017).

    AI Now 2017 Report (Alex Campolo, Madelyn Sanfilippo, Meredith Whittaker, Kate Crawford, AI Now 2017 Symposium and Workshop, January 2018).

    Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (Association for Computing Machinery, July 2018, see also here).

    AI Principles (Asilomar conference, Future of Life Institute, January 2017).

    I am grateful to Leisha Watson, Regulatory Lawyer at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries for drawing most of the above to my attention.

  • Let your users ask “What’s my next step?” – a very useful AI addition to your apps

    One example of how #AI can make it easier for your staff, customers or suppliers to interact with your software tools is to add a combined”Next Step / Tell me what you want to do” facility.

    This uses natural language processing (NLP) combined with knowledge of who the user is (and what their role is, e.g. whether they are a member of staff, a customer, or a supplier, or a user with admin rights for example) and the context (which page or part of the app they are on, and what data they have stored in the system), to add two powerful new ways for the user to interact (with minimal training) with the app:

    What’s my next step?

    On any page, simply clicking the Go button asks the system “What’s my next step?”.  The system then look intelligently at the user’s identity, role, data and location within the app and makes one or more suggestions as to what the user could usefully do next to make the most of the app.

    Here are a couple of examples, taken from InQA’s WebPocketMoney application (referred to in this previous post).

    Read More “Let your users ask “What’s my next step?” – a very useful AI addition to your apps”

  • Some reasons why your company/organisation should start using AI now!

    AI built in to the heart of user interfaces

    Within a few short years, some companies and organisations will have adopted Artificial Intelligence (AI) in at least one part of their work: interfacing with their customers.  (I’m using customers in the widest sense of the word: it could be students in education, or patients in healthcare for example).

    Imagine the following:

    • Instead of having to log in to a website or an application, the application simply recognises the user’s face or voice
    • Instead of having to click on a menu to navigate the app, the user can just talk to it, either by speaking or using a chatbot type interface.
    • Instead of calling customer service (and being told “you are currently number two in a queue” or “Our business hours are 0900 to 1700 Monday to Friday, please call back during those times” ), they can get an immediate response (24 hours a day, 365 days a year) from a chatbot.

    If customers have a choice between interacting with one organisation in that way, or another in the more traditional way, I think they will vote with their feet.

    It’s a straightforward matter of economics

    Read More “Some reasons why your company/organisation should start using AI now!”

  • Why adding chatbots makes financial sense for your organisation

    Adding a chatbot to your organisation’s website can provide a more interactive experience for your users while at the same time reducing demands on your staff’s time. Chatbots can help to:

    • free your team to deal with more complex enquiries or tasks
    • speed up employee training by providing a very accessible and intuitive source for staff to obtain information internally
    • automate complex workflows (such as providing quotes or booking services)
    • provide availability 24/7, 365 days a year
    • provide an alternative user interface for your apps than the traditional point and click menu/button system

    Read More “Why adding chatbots makes financial sense for your organisation”

  • Microsoft Teams definitely DOES allow Guest users, and this is fantastic!

    Further to my previous post about this, we have managed to get this working successfully now with a variety of guest users (with email addresses which are outlook.com, or associated with Azure Active Directory or Azure ADB2C accounts).

    Why is this so useful? Because it means that in order to collaborate with users outside your organisation (including being able to share files, hold online conversations, video chats, do online voting within your team), all you need is one of the following Office 365 subscriptions (see this Microsoft link)

    Guest access is included with all Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 Enterprise, and Office 365 Education subscriptions. No additional Office 365 license is necessary. Guest access is a tenant-level setting in Microsoft Teams and is turned off by default.

    This should not only be much cheaper than alternative collaboration software (e.g. box.com) but also allows your staff and guest users to use tools that they will increasingly become familiar with (Office 365).

     

     

     

     

  • Why do data scientists use R and Python, as opposed to other languages like C#?

    As a “proper” programmer, used to programming in heavy duty, compiled languages like C# (and before that C++ and C), my reaction on discovering during my Data Science journey that R and Python are heavily used by data scientists was: why??

    Why would anyone use an interpreted language, which is therefore bound to be slower, and why would anyone go to the trouble of using yet another language when there are perfectly good compiled languages around like C#, F# and VB.net?

    The answer seems to be partly that R and Python are free (open source), and also because R and Python have excellent visualisation tools, which the other languages currently lack.

    Read More “Why do data scientists use R and Python, as opposed to other languages like C#?”

Want to go digital/move your business to the web/cloud or add chatbots to your site?Contact us

Products

Pensions Concerto

Are you finding key information about defined benefit pension plans expensive and slow to come by?

Pensions Concerto is designed for you!

  • For advisers, trustees and plan sponsors
  • Secure online valuation and cashflow projection tool
  • Powerful dashboards to see the effect of what ifs

IFA Tools

Are you finding it difficult to navigate the maze of pensions freedom in the UK?

IFA Tools is designed for you!

  • For UK IFAs and other financially aware individuals
  • Secure easy to use and secure wealth planners
  • Powerful dashboard to see the effects of what ifs
  • Powerful reporting facility for IFAs to produce automated reports to give to clients
Digital assets and services

CompanyAdmin

Do you need an easy to use online tool to help you and your staff to record and keep track of expenses?

CompanyAdmin is designed for you!

  • Secure online tool for small to medium companies to enable employees to log expenses, holidays and time records

WebPocketMoney

Parents: do you wish there was an easy to use online tool to help you manage your children’s pocket money and encourage them to spend and save wisely?

WebPocketMoney is designed for you!

  • Secure online system for parents and children to manage pocket money
  • Children can read but not amend their balances
  • Helps teach children to save!
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Services

As well as providing support for our products, we have extensive experience of developing for the web and in particular for Microsoft’s Azure cloud offering. In particular we can help you with the following:

  • Improving your online presence (via an improved website and social media presence)
  • Migrating desktop applications to the web or the cloud (Microsoft Azure)
  • Using machine learning/data analytics to help you build predictive models for your business
  • Making the most of your data by extracting insights from your financial and/or marketing data
  • Building chatbots to reduce the demands on your staff’s time and provide a more immediate response for your clients/visitors
  • Migrating databases from Microsoft SQL Server to Microsoft Azure
  • Migrating databases from Microsoft Access to SQL Server
  • Training in the use of Microsoft technologies VBA, C#, SQL Server, ASP.NET MVC and Azure.
Contact us for more info.

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Need help with data analytics/building a machine learning model or chatbot? Contact us