Final ASSA Presentation

An Actuarial ToolkitNigel De Silva Toolkit Working Party 2006...  Toolkit Working PartyAn Actuarial Toolkit... Toolkit Working Party− Search out and promulgate useful tools for the prof

An Actuarial Toolkit

Nigel De Silva Toolkit Working Party 2006

A new language?

wiki

blogging

Technorati

del.icio.us

RSS

OPML SharpReader

R

openBUGS

wikipedia Firefox

 Toolkit Working Party

An Actuarial Toolkit

Toolkit Working Party

− Search out and promulgate useful tools for the profession

− Suggest how the tools may be used

− Trial these tools

− Work on an external wiki

− Focus on education (in bit sized chunks) as well as research

Change: are we ready?

− driven from within

− forced by regulators

− demanded by clients

− wider fields

− Profession too insular

− Needs greater focus on CPD

CPD for CDP

 There is a large gap

between research

and practice

to help turn theory

into practice

The C ontinuously D eveloping P rofession

The New Breed: Actuary 2.0

Needs to:

 Pick the best tool for the job

 Use those tools effectively

fields

Web 2.0

 A quiet revolution

 Aims to harness collective intelligence

Are we ready?

• Discussion forums already exist on our

professions’ websites

Web 2.0: Some useful tools

3. del.icio.us

• Users free to edit web

pages

• www.wikipedia.com

• Ideal for:

– sharing knowledge

– collaboration on projects

The Toolkit Wiki:

http://toolkit.pbwiki.com

 Easy to edit/create

pages – have a go in

the Sandbox!

 Password: GIRO

 Great for working

parties.

Staying informed

• RSS Feeds

• RSS Aggregators

• Create your own newspaper

Locating Information

• Search engines

• del.icio.us

– Online bookmark manager

– Tagging

– Useful search results

– Find related websites

del.icio.us

• Online personal journal (web log)

• Good for staying up to date with current issues

– E.g www.realclimate.org

• Some actuaries have started to blog:

– www.actuary.net

• Blog search:

Open Source Software

• Collaboration can yield incredible results

– Much web infrastructure is built on open-source software

• Useful products include:

BUGS

• Free statistical package

• Great for simulations

 Toolkit Wiki is one forum to enable this

collaboration…

Nigel De Silva Toolkit Working Party 2006