SXSW Interactive 2016 Submission

Fashion to Finance: Smart Data and PersonalizationA Fireside Chat Featuring: Louis Beryl from Earnest & Eric Colson from Stitch Fix

What is this discussion about?

Through the use of powerful software and data systems, a new breed of companies is harnessing technology to provide hyper-personalized choices based on a combination of user interactions, machine learning and human judgement. These curated offerings are changing the way we consume, heightening customer expectations and changing the way we curate our lives.

This fireside chat brings together two experts on this topic: Louis Beryl, CEO of Earnest, a financial technology company using software, design and data science to rebuild financial services, and Eric Colson, Chief Data Analyst at Stitch Fix, a fashion retailer that combines styling, technology and product to deliver a personalized shopping experience. They will discuss how and why the current capabilities of technology and data science allow for enhanced curation and efficiency. They’ll also delve into the business implications of such capabilities, and the unique ways data-centric companies are using technology to better the consumer experience.

1. In your experience, how have you been able to use technology and data science to offer a better consumer-facing product?

2. How are you able to blend human decision making and judgement with machine learning to create smarter systems?

3. What are other examples of companies that may be analogous at the data level, yet are catering to an entirely different market? What, if anything, is the difference between their core systems of personalization?

4. What lessons can larger, established companies take away to increase their data science and innovation capabilities? How can they keep up with innovation and remain relevant? What are the challenges to providing a uniquely personal experience?

Key questions this discussion will address:

Eric Colson Chief Algorithms Officer,

Stitch Fix

Eric Colson is the Chief Algorithms Officer at Stitch Fix, where he specializes in social algorithms. He is also an advisor at several companies: Earnest Inc (consumer lending), Data Elite (Big Data incubator), Mortar Data (Big Data Platform).

Previously, he was VP of Data Science & Engineering at Netflix and has held analytics positions at Yahoo!, Blue Martini, Proxicom and Information Resources. He holds a B.A. in Economics, a M.S. in Information Systems, and a M.S. in Management Science & Engineering.

Louis Beryl is the CEO and co-founder of Earnest, a technology company using cutting-edge data science, smarter design, and software automation to rebuild financial services. Using a unique data-driven underwriting process, Earnest understands every applicant's full financial story to offer the lowest possible rates and radically flexible loan options for living life.

Louis believes that financially responsible people deserve better options and access to credit and that we can fix the financial system with elegant software, smarter data, and thoughtful design. He studied mathematics, economics, computer science, and engineering at Princeton before his graduate studies at Harvard. Prior to Earnest, Louis worked at banks, government agencies, startups, and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Louis Beryl CEO, Earnest

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