As president of New Experiences Portfolio and Disney Signature Experiences, Thomas Mazloum leads several key growth businesses and inspires teams around the world to deliver unparalleled family vacation experiences. In this presentation, learn how Disney uses data to inform decisions and identify timeless, engaging storytelling opportunities, both on land and at sea. You'll also gain valuable insights on how data can help you push boundaries, discover untapped potential and achieve business goals.

In this talk, Shingai will explore the necessary transition from traditional data-driven teams to AI-equipped teams. Shingai will underscore the crucial role of defining the mathematical “objective function” of a team to align with business values, as well as the importance of upskilling and reskilling. Using real-world examples, Shingai will share strategies to boost team performance and foster innovation at all levels and across different business functions. She will close the talk by sharing the “Technical Proficiency Pyramid,” a practical approach she developed to manage enterprise-level technical education. By the end of this talk, attendees will have strategies to future-proof their teams, and themselves, in a rapidly changing world.

Moonshot thinking is a way of turning the seemingly impossible into the possible. It's the key to leaving behind the baggage of history and fostering innovation.

Businesses that take moonshots perform better, attract and retain top talent and inspire teams and customers. In times of unrelenting change and uncertainty, it's moonshot thinking that sets apart industry-leading businesses from the rest.

In this keynote, Ozan reveals his 4-step moonshot model to help you launch your own moonshot, spot opportunities you couldn't see before, and create an extraordinary advantage to shape the future of your industry. The keynote draws on Ozan's #1 bestselling book, "Think Like a Rocket Scientist," which has been called “dazzling” by Adam Grant and “must read” by Susan Cain.

You'll learn: - How invisible assumptions constrain your business (and what to do about it). - How to abandon the “We've always done it that way” mindset and reimagine the status quo. - Why obstacles and uncertainty present opportunities to innovate. - The single principle SpaceX used to revolutionize rocket science (and how you can use the same principle to transform your business). - Why breakthroughs begin with a smart question—not a smart answer. - How to nail your next product launch using an unstoppable astronaut training strategy. - How to place little bets on innovative ideas without risking it all.

Join us for a captivating keynote session where we explore the convergence of data and analytics leveraged from hybrid cloud solutions, shaping the data economy. Discover how innovation empowers organizations to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Experience the power of advanced analytics and optimized decision-making through next-generation data architectures, intelligent data operations and automated data response systems. Learn how a strategic hybrid cloud approach drives efficiency, scalability, agility and simplified management.

Shape your organization's path to success by embarking on a transformative journey at the forefront of technological innovation, where we build the future together. Don't miss this exclusive opportunity to learn how to unlock the full potential of your digital organization and thrive in the era of customer experience.

Hitachi Vantara is a Platinum Plus sponsor of DDAC

Customer engagement and analytics are changing faster than ever. Companies are facing a pivotal moment when they must adapt or fall behind. Achieving success in this dynamic environment requires a three-faceted strategy that includes brand-ready frameworks to implement powerful AI (including GPT technology), privacy-enabled data management centered around a ‘unified profile' and foundational Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

In this session, Salesforce Strategy SVP and former Gartner thought leader Martin Kihn will share how leading companies combine AI + Data + CRM and collaboration tools to build a next-gen customer engagement engine on an interoperable, scaled and trusted platform. Join us to gain valuable insights, real-world examples and practical strategies to drive sustainable growth and empower your organization to connect with your customers in a whole new way.

Salesforce is a Platinum Plus Sponsor of DDAC

In today's data-driven world, organizations possess a vast amount of untapped potential buried within their data estate. While data generation has exploded, a majority of it being unstructured, 90% of that unstructured data is classified as ‘dark data.' This session explores the challenges faced by organizations and showcases the emerging approach of hybrid analytics to extract valuable insights from this previously unexplored data mine. We delve into the importance of leveraging multi-cloud architectures and implementing a modern data lake to analyze data across diverse sources. We offer practical ideas and strategies for organizations to unlock the hidden value of their dark data and transform it into actionable insights, propelling them towards data-driven decision making and competitive advantage.

Starburst Data and Dell are a Platinum Sponsor of DDAC

AI is rapidly changing the way people live and work. However, the journey toward AI adoption in enterprises has its challenges. Organizations encounter technical, cultural, ethical and legal roadblocks when evolving from traditional data analytics to predictive modeling and, eventually, generative AI.

This session explores the transformative power of AI and the reasons behind enterprises' slow adoption of this technology. Cyrill Hug, Team Lead, AI Solutions Engineering at HPE, will shed light on four critical aspects of building out AI-powered products in enterprise organizations:

• Aligning business use cases to the appropriate technology and data while exploring new use cases previously deemed impossible.
• Shifting from a data-centric to an AI-centric culture by responsibly embracing AI and making it accessible in a user-friendly manner, including to non-technical team members.
• Understanding your organization's intellectual property and how to protect it.
• Building responsible AI that is trustworthy, ethical and compliant.

Discover strategies to address these challenges, examples and practical knowledge for organizations of all sizes, bridging the gap between AI's potential and enterprise adoption. One organization that is successfully transforming to an AI-centric culture is Evil Geniuses. We will hear from Chris DeAppolonio, Chief Innovation Officer of Evil Geniuses, about how they use AI to create winning esports strategies and discover talented players and about their efforts to weed out bias so they can make gaming more accessible. The team harnesses AI to analyze game recordings to optimize their performance, predictive analysis of opposing team strategies to plot counter strategies and evaluating data sets to scout talent across the world.

Join us in unlocking a future where cutting-edge technology revolutionizes businesses for the better.

HPE is a Platinum Sponsor of DDAC

Data, measurement and privacy take center stage in today's dynamic advertising industry. Advertisers require granular data and insights to ensure their message effectively reaches the desired audience and delivers optimal results. Data clean rooms have emerged as an innovative solution, enabling media companies and advertisers to engage in data collaboration in a privacy-focused manner.

Disney is a leader and pioneer in bringing their clean room solution, powered by Disney Select, to market, enabling first-party planning, activation and measurement for their advertising partners. Join Habu's Chief Customer Officer, Ted Flanagan, and Disney's Director, Audience Modeling and Data Science, Nick Winfrey, as they discuss how companies are coming together to collaborate in new and exciting ways and what it's like to reengineer a data-centric ecosystem of partners, from the ground up. Learn how Disney, as a first mover with clean rooms, delivered better outcomes for brands and a more trusted experience for consumers.

Habu is a Gold Sponsor of DDAC

The rapid advancements in AI technologies are revolutionizing the way we leverage data and analytics, providing unparalleled opportunities for growth and innovation. During this session, MicroStrategy will explore how AI is reshaping data collection, analysis and interpretation, and its profound impact on decision-making processes.

We will highlight real-world case studies showcasing how the media and entertainment industry can harness AI-driven data analytics to optimize content creation, audience engagement and revenue generation. We will discuss the application of machine learning algorithms in predicting consumer preferences, enabling personalized content recommendations and targeted advertising campaigns. Additionally, we explore how AI-powered analytics can revolutionize content distribution strategies, enabling data-driven insights to drive global reach and maximize user experience.

MicroStrategy is a Gold Sponsor of DDAC

There are a couple of key themes we will be focusing on - firstly, we will be talking about flexible programmability with Snowpark which will enable you to bring Data Engineering and ML/AI workloads in Python, Java, and Scala to your data in Snowflake. We will also be talking about a few exciting announcements about integrations with LLMs, generative AI and the ability to run containerized services and applications in Snowflake.

Secondly, we will talk about how Snowflake's journey into Data Collaboration and Data Applications has empowered a paradigm shift in multiple industries, but particularly marketing and advertising technology. From data clean rooms to customer data platforms, come learn how Snowflake is inviting innovators to bring the applications to the data.

Snowflake is a Gold Sponsor of DDAC

Join Deloitte and NVIDIA, the world leaders in Enterprise level Generative AI, to discuss their experiences, challenges and cautions for organizations moving from Consumer grade Generative AI to building powerful Enterprise grade Generative AI. Our experts will share their exclusive partnership approach, real world examples and strategic, equitable Generative AI ideas to drive the ultimate consumer and employee experience.

Deloitte and NVIDIA are a Gold Sponsor of DDAC

Prepare to be spellbound as Infor takes you on an extraordinary adventure to help you bring AI projects to life faster than you ever imagined.

Discover how Infor's platform revolutionizes AI implementation, empowering businesses of all sizes to embark on their own transformational journey - today! Explore the winning formula of people, process and technology needed to implement AI use cases successfully in 90 days or less.

In this session, we'll showcase that AI no longer has to be a mere science project or an elusive concept but a strategic investment that demands tangible results grounded in predictable outcomes.

With our deep understanding of the AI landscape, we'll guide you on a path from the impossible to the possible, providing insights to navigate common challenges and minimize risks. Join us on this journey, and witness the power of Infor's Augmented Intelligence solution, where innovation and transformation converge.

Infor is a Gold Sponsor of DDAC

Advances in language-based AI are ushering in a new era of human creativity and productivity. Join Accenture and Google Cloud for an exclusive panel discussion. We'll explore how Media & Entertainment companies can leverage Data to unlock generative AI—driving next-level innovation, optimization and reinvention. Through the convergence of Accenture's expertise and Google Cloud's leading AI technology, the session will unveil what's possible securely, responsibly and at scale.

Accenture and Google are a Gold Sponsor of DDAC

While there's no question that data is key for business growth, companies of all industries and sizes face several challenges to unlock its value: an ever-growing list of sources; the volume, velocity and variety of data; complex data pipelines and platforms; not-so-user-friendly analytics tools; scarcity of data talent and knowledge gaps in business users.

However, the rise of Foundational Models presents a unique opportunity to redefine Data & Analytics as we know it. We will show how we're using Generative AI to supercharge the analytics lifecycle, accelerating the data-to-value journey by simplifying data engineering efforts and changing the experience of business users by allowing them to engage in a meaningful conversation with the data without intermediaries.

Globant is a Gold Sponsor of DDAC

The topic "Data in Motion: Empowering Business Agility with Dynamic Data Pipelines" is tailored for data practitioners, influencers and decision makers. In this session, we will take you through the transformative potential of real-time data pipeline implementation across leading cloud platforms. We will also explore the:

• Strategies that leverage dynamic data pipelines to enable agile decision-making and drive business growth.  
• Core principles of effective data management and learn how standardized frameworks can maximize data engineering efficiency.  

The key takeaways from the session will be the practical insights into seamlessly integrating custom approaches within the industry frameworks to unlock enhanced performance. Let's unleash the true potential of "Data in Motion."

Factspan is a Gold Sponsor of DDAC

Imagine accurate alerting on average queue wait times and changes within the last minute. Envision identifying upsell opportunities based on real-time clicking behavior before a customer closes their browser tab. Picture getting accurate, real-time alerting on issues like buffering and playback issues and fixing them while a viewer is still in session.

Your organization's future is reliant on contextual analytics on live data. But the computation and analysis required to support real-time decision-making by humans and machines has current tech stacks and processes buckling. When it takes six minutes to process just five minutes of data, existing systems and reporting capabilities have reached their limits. When you're solely reliant on tabular-based querying from the 1970s for advanced time and event-based analysis, real-time reporting is simply unattainable. Join us to learn how the next gen of streaming data stacks empower your teams and pave the way for a real-time future.

Conviva is a Gold Sponsor of DDAC

Additional Registration Required

Causality lies at the heart of many critical business questions: do email promotions increase website traffic? Will the release of a new product cannibalize sales of existing products? How can a business optimize its marketing expenditures? While data analysis is integral to answering these types of questions, teasing out causal effects requires the careful application of specific techniques that go beyond measuring simple correlations. This course will explore the tension between correlation and causation in the world of data analytics through the use of business case studies and the demonstration of modern causal inference techniques. Topics include:

• Thinking Counterfactually - to measure the causal impact of a decision, we need to consider how outcomes would have changed had a different decision been taken
• The Power of Randomization - why running experiments is the gold standard for measuring causal effects
• Leveraging Your Data for Causal Measurement - case studies that demonstrate how to generate causal insights without using randomization through techniques such as natural experiments, event studies, difference in differences and regression discontinuity
• The Causal Analysis Toolkit - how to leverage experimentation, linear regression and causal diagrams to measure causal effects across a wide variety of use cases

Additional Registration Required

Deriving insights from data is more efficient when using a well-crafted data visualization than when using tables or reports. However, the journey to creating a well-crafted visualization can encounter many common pitfalls, especially when enabled by spreadsheet tools. This course will cover the principles and science behind creating a great visualization and change how you look at pie and bar charts.

Additionally, whether you are an executive leading an organization, a manager leading a team, or an individual contributor building deliverables, you will inevitably present your findings via a slideshow presentation. How impactful will your game changing insights be if the audience isn't paying attention? This course will also cover the principles behind creating engaging and effective presentations to ensure your insights don't get lost in the shuffle.

Course topics include:

• Building Blocks of Data Visualization - basic elements of a visualization and how they work together to create various chart types
• Data Visualization Designs - design principles used in data visualizations, how to convey messages through graphic representation and making visualizations accessible and inclusive
• Exploration & Storytelling - storytelling with data and the use of tools to build visualizations
• Data Manipulation for Data Visualization - preparing data in a way that enables iteration through many visualizations and working with data manipulation techniques that aid effective data visualization

Programming is a crucial skill for any data scientist. But what differentiates good code from bad code? How can we transform code that runs into code that runs quickly, efficiently and reliably? Much like dogs of all ages can be taught new tricks, Python developers of all skill levels can learn something new from this talk. It will inspire the audience to elevate their Python skills so that they can write production quality code that is understandable, efficient and robust. Drawing on her 10+ years of experience as a data scientist, Tara will share relevant coding tips and tricks covering topics such as speeding up code, choosing the right data structures, code formatting and documentation.

Employee health and well-being are a central concern for corporations, a concern that took center stage with the rise of COVID-19 and the repercussions it has had on work and society. Policies and procedures to promote employee health and well-being require a broad array of evidence-based interventions to address employees' changing capabilities, needs and circumstances. This can be achieved via Adaptive Interventions, which explicitly guides how to modify the type and intensity of interventions based on dynamic information about the individual. Advances in mobile and wireless technologies have led to unprecedented opportunities to obtain data for use in adapting interventions to the rapidly changing needs of individuals—in real-time and real-world settings. This presentation will provide an introduction to recent methodological advances in optimization of adaptive interventions for supporting behavior change. Specifically, we will introduce novel types of adaptive interventions and discuss new experimental designs capable of optimizing them. Opportunities for leveraging these approaches to support employee health and well-being will also be discussed.

Learn purposeful and analytically driven tactics to hire top talent that's in every way, “practically perfect.” Hiring managers and future leaders are invited to join Caitlin Cassidy, Senior Manager of Digital Analytics at Walt Disney World® Resort, as she shares a framework for hiring for highly effective teams. Steps in the process include coordination with acquisition leaders, developing an attractive job description, using data to help make applicant selection easy, identifying a hiring panel that will work for you, and finally how to select a “practically perfect” candidate to help round out your magical team.

Achieving a balance between owned, paid and earned media strategies is an ever-evolving skill. We're in the midst of a major shift in consumer behavior. As consumers turn to social media for everything from education to entertainment and more, the channel's role in a successful integrated marketing strategy expands.

The Disney Parks, Experiences and Product Marketing Analytics and Insights and Customer Engagement teams will share how building relationships with consumers through organic and influencer media drive paid media revenue. We will discuss how we leverage multiple measurement tools to drive effectiveness and understand the impact of organic media as part of the overall strategy.

While the trend in machine learning has tended towards building more complicated (black box) models, such models are not as useful for high stakes decisions; black box models have led to mistakes in bail and parole decisions in criminal justice, flawed models in healthcare and inexplicable loan decisions in finance. Simpler, interpretable models would be better. But do such simpler machine learning models that can maintain the accuracy of the best black box exist? In this talk, Cynthia presents an easy calculation to check for the possibility of a simpler (yet accurate) model before computing one. This calculation indicates that simpler-but-accurate models do exist in practice more often than you might think. Also, some types of these simple models are (surprisingly) small enough that they can be memorized or printed on an index card.

Avast ye, mateys! Looking for data-driven treasure? Many analytics projects hold the promise of innovation and impact, but don't have a map to get you from data to business value — even if it sounds easy when the project initially shoves off. Join this talk to dig up interdisciplinary methods from fields such as applied research, design and systems engineering. Sail away with tactics that you can take back to your crew and help you plot a course to treasure.

Over time, the Orlando Magic have built an analytics strategy that includes a data warehouse, predictive analytics, customer relationship management and personalized marketing campaigns. Always innovating, the Magic is considered one of the most analytically savvy teams in sports. Join this session to hear about the Magic's efforts to use fan data and digital marketing to promote fan engagement and personalization, and develop innovative new products and solutions informed by customer insights.

Optimizing customer engagement through marketing messages and other interventions is a key pillar of success in the business world. While some customers may respond positively to our communications, others may respond counterproductively in annoyance. How can we identify which customers to talk to, and which to leave alone? Over the past few years, researchers have developed several methods that leverage machine learning to determine which customers to connect with and which to leave alone. This presentation will cover the basics of these new algorithms and will use simulations to show which of these new methods might be better than others at driving value for your business (and help you be less annoying).

Disney Institute presents leadership insights that demonstrate why leadership is more than just a job title—it's about creating positive transformations throughout the organization. Our approach is based on time-tested data that is demonstrated throughout our daily operations. We've learned that leaders who intentionally nurture an environment of mutual trust and respect tend to drive stronger employee performance, which can lead to exceptional customer service—and ultimately—improved business results.

Years before the first guest rides a new attraction, Disney is working behind the scenes to build a detailed model that informs important decisions and maximizes the guest experience. Join in as we focus on the partnership between two departments - Industrial Engineering and Modeling, Simulation, & Training Tools - and share how we leverage simulations to help optimize attraction design and performance. Walk away with insights on how we forecast guest behavior, model attractions and influence the attraction design as part of a broader team.

Embark on an exciting journey with us as our speakers share their inspiring career stories in the fields of technology, data engineering and business analytics. This engaging session features three short presentations where each speaker will recount the important decisions that they made in their career journeys and unveil the transformative power of data science when we dare to dream.

With each speaker representing a different function within Disney, together their stories create a beautiful tapestry showcasing the power of STEM and the limitless possibilities when we embrace diversity and innovation. Through their unique perspectives, the audience will gain a deeper understanding of the various factors influencing the career decisions for women, learn some tried-and-true approaches to make role transitions through CODE:Rosie, break barriers with the help of mentors and allies, and build a robust professional profile.

Good analysts turn data into insights. Exceptional analysts combine knowledge, skills and curiosity to reveal mind-blowing opportunities. Research suggests that curiosity is a strong indicator of critical thinking, enhanced intelligence and increased perseverance. But some organizations do not encourage curiosity, fearing increased inefficiencies and the potential for unknown risks. In this session, we will explore how curiosity can benefit you, your team and your organization, backed up by data and research, somewhat amusing anecdotes and surprises. It's time to go down the rabbit hole and discover the power of curiosity to create new ways to work, increase collaboration and encourage innovative thinking.