CPD opportunities from around the world

If you’re anything like me, the last two years have seen oodles of emails, messages, DMs about webinars, podcasts, online events, and networking opportunities – all remote. And if you’re anything like me, you’re excited. Events that were previously out of reach have now become accessible online, recorded, and made accessible from all across the world.

This opportunity provides all of us with a trove of diverse CPD opportunities that many of us previously would have only dreamed about. Not only are our local events now recorded and part of the CPD dashboards, but conferences internationally are now accessible, without the considerable investment required to travel, stay and participate. The last two years meant that many younger actuaries that were previously not able to make the in-person events have the chance to develop and participate, and the on-demand mindset means no more waking up at 3:00 am to make it to the US lunchtime session.

As part of our focus at the International Committee, we plan to share some of these opportunities that we hear about globally from other actuarial bodies, professions bodies and events relevant for actuaries in a regular column on Actuaries Digital. As we collaborate with overseas colleagues through the International Actuarial Association and through bilateral meetings with other actuarial bodies, we often are amazed at the breadth and variety of offerings, that we know our Institute Members would get value from.

This time, we have to start with the big – actuview, an offering that anyone looking to expand on CPD opportunities can’t look past.

Actuview

A YouTube channel for actuaries, actuview contains over 1,700 videos and content from 2019 onwards, including live broadcasts from international actuarial events, recorded sessions from industry partners, or webcasts by experts in the actuarial community.

Some exciting actuarial events are now available on the platform, including:

• The first two Data Science & Data Ethics e-Conferences from 2020 and 2021. More actuaries than ever before a now finding themselves in roles that require understanding the possibilities of actuarial science and its ethical implications in a world of digitisation, big data and exponential computing power. But for all of us, questions on the responsible and ethical use of data and models are becoming more critical.

  These conferences, with 25 videos, showcase some of the challenges addressed through research and real-world case studies specifically for insurance. Personally, my specific passion in Natural Language Processing found its fix in the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ Data Science Research Section’s presentation on ‘NLP and Machine Learning in Social Media Opinion Mining’. Among many other components, the conference showcased how this technology can be used across the insurance value chain.

• During the annual conferences of several actuarial associates, I loved the chance to hear about the local issues and challenges that actuaries globally are faced within their local markets. The recent Annual Conference of the Caribbean Actuarial Association was made available in its entirety, providing a fascinating interactive presentation on ‘An Actuary’s Design of a Social Security Scheme’. This event showcased some of the different ways of designing and building a sustainable model, as well as emerging topics on parametric insurance, data science in banking, and a how to be a ‘JEDI actuary’ – that is looking at Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.

And the content does not stop there. One of the most-watched videos from last year was a roundtable from the Actuarial Association of Europe on ‘Sustainability and Climate Risks’. Together with representatives from the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority and the Insurance and Pensions unit of the European Commission plus actuaries, the session provides a balanced view of how we as professionals can contribute to achieving the environmental goals of the EU. Many of the learnings on sustainability are just as applicable closer home. Check out the top 10 most-watched videos of 2021 here.

Notably, just in the last month, the Institute has confirmed that all Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuaries (CERAs) can register on the platform and access great content for free. Following the CERA Global Association becoming an actuview partner, all members with the CERA qualification should have received an invitation and instructions from the Institute on joining actuview. If you are not a CERA, you can still access the platform if you are a member of one of the IAA Sections.

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