Emerging Technologies and Analytics in Political Risk

Has Big Data forced qualitative analysis to the wayside? Practitioners and experts will consider these questions and more, discussing how they see technology affecting the political risk field, and where they ultimately see the industry going.
 
Panelists will include:
Professor Gary M. Shiffman (Georgetown University) 
Gary M. Shiffman, PhD, is an expert in the economics of organized violence. He is the Founder and CEO of Giant Oak, a software company supporting federal law enforcement and compliance professionals in the financial services industry. Dr. Shiffman teaches at Georgetown University and is widely published in academic literature. He is the author of Economic Instruments of Security Policy, and the forthcoming, Economics of Organized Violence. His previous corporate positions include:  Managing Director of the Chertoff Group and Senior Vice President and General Manager of Risk Management Solutions at L-3 Communications. A Gulf War veteran, Dr. Shiffman served operational, policy, and planning positions in the U.S. Navy. In his last government role, he served as the Chief of Staff at U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Department of Homeland Security. He has also spent four years in the US Senate as a National Security to the US Senate Leadership.
 
Professor Amit Sharma (Georgetown University)
Amit Sharma has engaged in a myriad of roles that intersect financial markets, social enterprise/impact, risk management, international security, and development.  He is developing FinClusive Capital, a digital financial services platform serving financially underserved and/or excluded constituencies that leverages technology, advanced analytics and global standard-based risk/compliance tools to drive financial inclusion, build economic resilience and protect financial system integrity.  Previously, he led Operations and Strategy for Command Global Services (CGS), managing a team of investigators, financial forensic experts, analysts and legal professionals in the recovery of stolen sovereign assets and strengthening of financial regulatory systems.  Prior to CGS, Amit was Chief of Staff and Head of New Products for Mitsubishi UFJ Securities, USA, and also Head of Project Management to the firm’s International Business and Global Markets Units.  In Washington DC, Amit served at the US Department of the Treasury, at the inception of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence—developing and implementing tools to combat transnational threats and financial crime—and later as Chief of Staff to Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmitt and part of Treasury's senior team under Secretary Henry Paulson.  He has served/serves on several working groups, advisory councils and boards, including: IntegrityRisk International, Evidencity, the Center for Sanctions and Illicit Finance (CSIF), the Center for Global Development (CGD), Middlebury’s Center for Social Impact Learning (CSIL) and Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation. Amit received his MBA and MA from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and his BA from The University of Virginia.  He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia, and makes Guilford, Vermont his home where he enjoys farming and making hard cider.

Molly Dwyer (Predata)
Molly Dwyer is a regional analyst at Predata, a start-up that develops, markets and supports a cloud-based software platform for monitoring and measuring the scale and intensity of digital conversations in social and collaborative media from publicly available information. Predata employs proprietary algorithms and machine-learning to provide our clients days or weeks of early warning ahead of major geopolitical events such as civil protests, terrorist incidents, and regime changes. Prior to joining Predata, Molly attended Princeton University, where she earned a BA in Politics with a certificate in Russian & Eurasian Studies and Russian Language & Culture. Her senior thesis, "Putin, Propaganda, and Public Opinion" examined the evolving use of domestic propaganda and the increasing importance of public opinion in supporting authoritarian regimes. She served as an intern with the Department of State in the political section of the U.S. Consulate in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2015. Molly previously studied in Moscow and Azerbaijan; she has traveled extensively through countries of the former Soviet Union. She is recipient of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) scholarship, through which she studied in Kazan, Russia in 2011-2012. She originally hails from Indiana.
 
Aaron Schwartzbaum (GeoQuant, Johns Hopkins SAIS)
Aaron Schwartzbaum is current pursuing an MA in International Relations at SAIS, with concentrations in international political economy and international economics. Outside of his academic work, he is a Russia specialist with GeoQuant, a political risk start up built around a machine learning-based news analysis program. He is also the founder of FPRI Bear Market Brief, a daily news brief and blog on Russia's economy, politics, and political risk climate. Prior to starting SAIS, Aaron was a researcher at Eurasia Group with the Eurasia and Global Macro practices. He has lived in Saint Petersburg, Russia, for nearly a year and a half, and speaks fluently. He completed his undergraduate studies at Haverford College, with majors in political science and Russian.