Lillehammer Business Analytics Workshop 2024

Lillehammer Business Analytics Workshop 2024: Exploring Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Banking and Finance! The Lillehammer Business Analytics Workshop aims to be an annual event where researchers, PhD students, and master's students gather to explore key and current topics within the broad field of "Business Analytics." In 2024, we focused on the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the banking and finance sector. The specific topics covered included the role of such methods in algorithmic trading, risk management, fraud detection, credit assessment, financial modeling, and more. Keynote Speakers: Helyette Geman: Employed at Johns Hopkins University and Professor II at HINN, gave a keynote speech titled: "Crude Oil and Natural Gas Markets in the Last Five Years: Between Geopolitics and Climate." Alireza Bohani: Global Digitalization Officer at Nøsted, gave a keynote speech titled "Industrial AI: Digital Copilots in Finance." Brunot Dupire: Head of Quantitative Research at Bloomberg NY, gave a keynote speech titled "The Geometry of Derivatives, Risk Management, and Asset Allocation." National and international researchers presented significant research within the various topics. Master's students specializing in "Business Analytics" participated in the discussions. The workshop has initiated a collaboration with the journal "Quantitative Finance" (AJG level 3) to publish a special issue based on the topics covered at the workshop. This has helped to make the workshop visible both nationally and internationally.

At the beginning of the workshop, I gave a brief introductory presentation where I informed the participants about our objectives for outcomes and impacts. The bullet-points in the presentation were: - Gather national and international researchers and industry partners with a joint interest in Business Analytics (in the broad sense) - Offer a place to meet and present research for young academics (PhD- and master’s students) - Set Lillehammer on the “Business Analytics map” and have a lot of fun together In my opinion, all these objectives were fulfilled in the workshop. First, the quality of the speakers and participants in general was very high. I want to highlight Helyette Geman who gave an excellent keynote speech and also brought some of her PhD students from Denmark. Bruno Dupire is also very well recognized in quantitative finance and delivered a long speech before lunch on the final day. Alireza Bohani was also an excellent speaker and gave an exciting keynote from a little different perspective. Second, 12 out of 32 presenters were either master’s or PhD students. Third, we believe that gathering more than 40 participants in Lillehammer helped putting the city on the "Business Analytics map". Many of the participants expressed their satisfaction with the workshop and are likely to show up on a future event. We also managed to develop a special issue in Quantiative Finance (AJG level 3) with Christian Ewald as a guest Editor in Chief (professor working at INN and in the scientific committee for the workshop). During the introductory presentation, I also mentioned publication opportunities in a special issue in the European Review of Agricultural Economics in memory of our very good colleague Gudbrand Lien who passed away on March 1, 2024. After the workshop, I received a lot of positive feedback and many participants wondered if there would be a 2025 Edition. It is a lot of work arranging such a workshop, so we have not yet decided if it will be an annual or bi-annual event. In summary, we are very happy with the outcomes and impacts the workshop has had and believe we now have a strong fundament to build on for future events.

"Lillehammer Business Analytics Workshop" shall invite national and international scholars and PhD students to present their latest or ongoing research on specified topics within the broad field of "business analytics". Master students attending the "Business Analytics" specialization at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences will also be invited to participate. The idea is to have a new focus area each year and collaborate with one out of three journals (rolling basis) to publish a special issue within the topics covered in the workshop (more about this in the section "impact and outcome"). The (tentative) title of the 2024 workshop (and special issue) is: "Machine Learning and AI in Banking and Finance". A few examples of how machine learning, big data, and artificial intelligence have affected finance and that are relevant topics for the upcoming workshop are: Algorithmic Trading, Risk Management, Fraud Detection, Credit Scoring, Portfolio Management, Market Sentiment, Options Pricing and Derivatives, High-Frequency Trading, Market Analysis, and Sentiment Tracking. We want to invite two keynote speakers for the workshop. These shall be at the research frontier or industry experts within one of the topic areas covered in the workshop. Helyette Geman is currently associated with HINN (Professor II) and we want to use her actively throughout the workshop, including giving a keynote lecture on a key topic of the workshop. We will try to recruit the other keynote speaker from the industry with strong experience within one of the relevant topic areas covered in the workshop.