Nov 24, 2016
Who is Mohammad Elteibi?
Mohammad has 16 years of experience in data mining, customer analytics, loyalty, marketing and health research. As the Head of Data Science at TEG Analytics, he is responsible for driving the direction and execution of the data science capability to deliver on customer expectations and business outcomes. The TEG Analytics data science team is the heart of the business providing it with the analytical products to support its clients to achieve their goals.
Prior to TEG Analytics, Mohammad worked in various industries from marketing & sensory research to financial and insurance industries. During his years in these industries he has managed analytics teams mentored junior analysts presented at conferences and local meetups and above always pursued his passion to always learn and constantly improve.
Has an uncanny ability to improve on the status quo. A big believer in the paramount importance of constant improvement which earned him a CEO award for his work at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
How did you find yourself working in Data?
Mohammad: My first job in data was in Jerusalem whereas a research assistant working on a national nutrition survey I was part of a team of people doing data entry. I had to enter records of people surveyed where they recorded every single item they had to eat or drink during the previous 24 hours. Not the most exciting job in the world but it did open my eyes to how data is used to answer some very important questions. Since then I have always been interested in answering question with data.
Who has been the biggest inspiration (mentor) in your career and why (within data)?
Mohammad: Prof. Ziad Abdeen was the professor at Al-Quds University who I worked with on the very first national nutritional survey in the Palestinian territories. He has a passion for academic research and a gift for making data talk to people. Before working with him I had done a course in statistics and I did not enjoy it at all. It was taught as a very theoretical mathematics subject while to me statistics is much more practical and fun than that. After seeing what can be done with data and how it is used in a very real way I was hooked. I subsequently returned to Australia and used the data from the research in my thesis for my Masters of Food Science at UNSW where I looked at the food intake of pregnant women in the survey. I also went on to study Biostatistics and complete my masters in applied statistics at Macquarie University.
What personal development do you do to keep yourself sharp?
Mohammad: I am a big believer in practice makes perfect!
So, I practise whenever I can. The things I practise are not just analytics but any programming. For example, about a year ago I got myself a raspberry Pi and started to play around with it to see what I could get it to do I managed to get it to play a song every time I walked in front of its camera… it was great fun until everybody at home got sick of the song!
Other than the technical side of analytics it is important to have good skills in explaining complex things simply. For this, I practise on my son who is 8. Every time he sees me doing something he always asks what am I doing so I do my best to explain it in a way he can understand. If he gets bored before I finish I know I am not doing too good.
Do you find that organisations are changing in the way that they view data and how it can be used for strategy?
Mohammad: Organisations across all industries are starting to recognise that data is important which is a great thing! Of course, they will quickly find out that data is just the raw material. It’s what you do with the data that really counts. Where ever you go there are the numbers quoted from the US that show enormous sums invested in analytics but there are plenty of examples closer to home too. The Commonwealth bank comes to mind in the financial sector. Being a huge tennis fan I couldn’t help but notice how IBM during the 2016 Australian Open where advertising their Big Data capabilities which I should add they make great use of during the open itself. A big number of organisations in Australia now have Chief Data officers which show the emphasis analytics has in these organisations. This all shows how the interest in analytics is very real and very important to a lot of businesses.
What can be done to ensure Australia is a market leader in data analytics?
Mohammad: This is a very important question. When I think of this I always come back to 2 things.
The first is innovation. To be a leader in the analytics space you must innovate!
There are some very healthy signs of this all around the country with start-ups rising all around. Despite a lot of the negativity about the economy the analytics industry is growing which makes it a great space for investment. The second thing is there needs to support from both the private and public sectors to encourage and support innovation. We should be taking a good hard look at why some of our brightest young innovators need to go to Silicon Valley or anywhere other than right here.
What can be done to keep these innovative minds and their ideas here is Australia? We must encourage and invest in research in our universities. Creating graduates who will employ people in their innovative businesses of the future. Giving young adults the confidence to pursue their ideas and bring them to life. How about courses at the university level that teach students how they can start businesses. How about the private sector genuinely investing in enabling people to invest and innovate with confidence that they know their rights and how or where to get help.
Lastly, I would add for analytics I think people and organisations with experience should form relationships with the junior analytics professionals. Be it one on one relationships, mentoring or through University and private sector partnerships. New entrants into the world of analytics are full of ideas which are the fountain of innovation if there are no ideas innovation is dead.
How do you see the technology in data progressing over the next 5 to 10 years?
Mohammad: When I look at where has technology excelled over the last few years 2 areas really stand out. The first being processing power. The sheer power we have at our disposal is staggering with the proliferation of parallel processing and it becoming more and more accessible to organisations and individuals at all technological maturity levels is simply mind blowing. The second is algorithms. The sheer number of algorithms that can be used for analysis is simply amazing recent examples are the resurgence of neural networks and “deep learning”. These coupled together are a very important and powerful thing. More advanced algorithms require more processing power. However, an area where innovation is needed is for all those businesses who struggle to get their data together before they even think of applying any algorithms. The area of data management and manipulation is still an area that takes the vast majority of time and money for far too many organisations and is something ripe for innovation. The fact is not every organisation is Google but they still need to make sense of their data without needing to hire a team of PhD graduates to do so.
