SAS sponsors 50th annual SASA conference

The 50th Annual Conference of the South African Statistical Association, sponsored by SAS South Africa, Statistics SA, and the University of the Witwatersrand, took place at the Misty Hill Conference Centre, in Muldersdrift, from 29 October to 2 November.

The conference is aimed at academics as well as professionals within the statistics and statistical analysis fields, and provides an opportunity for networking and learning, with speakers presenting from universities, research units and institutes from around the country.

Each of the speakers is a thought leader and innovator in his or her chosen field, and provided unique insights into the various aspects of statistics and analytics. This year saw more than 200 delegates from all over southern Africa attending each of the three days of the event.

"This event is an excellent opportunity for the mutual exchange of ideas and information regarding statistics," says Goran Dragosavac, National Product Manager for Analytics at SAS SA.

"Many of the academics at this event teach SAS at their institutions, and by sharing our knowledge we can help them ensure that what is taught meets real world market needs. By the same token, these academics often have innovative ideas and techniques that can benefit not only us at SAS but also those who apply analytics and statistics in business."

Speakers at the event included: Greg Lee, from the School of Economics and Business Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, who dealt with multi-variance normality in structural equation modelling; Professor Machiel Kruger, Head of the SAS Laboratory of the Centre for Business Mathematics and Informatics at the Potchefstroom Campus of Northwest University, who presented on the use of SAS/OR in managing liquid asset portfolios; and Dragosavac himself, who spoke about how to deploy analytics in the business environment and how to build an analytics-based business, as well as the importance of distributing the output of statistical methods and analytics to end-users in the right time and the right format to enhance the decision-making capabilities of organisations.

Dragosavac concludes: "Analytics and statistical techniques have applications across academic and business environments. The SASA conference affords a unique opportunity for the sharing and exchange of knowledge and ideas across boundaries between technology vendors like SAS, users of SAS and academics who teach these techniques at universities."