Background

I have just finished reading a BA (Hons) Business and Management degree at Oxford Brookes University. The wide breadth of the degree within the business field is precisely why I chose it as it exposed me to a variety of different expertise allowing me to build strong foundations for the beginning of my professional career, whilst also giving me the opportunity to explore my interests in emerging technologies, the digital transformation and sustainability. 

The culmination of my experiences and learning at the university led me to research ‘How the implementation of AI technology has changed the way banks interact with customers and how this affects the level of value created from differentiated customer offerings’. In other words, exploring the positive and/or negative impacts of AI features/applications as a portion of the customer offering and the implications on the level of value created for the customer as a result of their customer experience through an interpretivist philosophical mindset. Since graduating, I have been working in partnership with an Oxford Brookes lecturer to further develop my research with the aim of publishing it in a reputable journal.  

Why I chose this course

No-one could have imagined the scale of impact the internet, let alone social media, has had on our lives and society at large. In my opinion, artificial intelligence is poised to potentially impact us tenfold which is why consideration of the ethical underpinnings of such technologies is vital. As artificial intelligence is now present in the public domain, the nuances in how it is designed, used and governed are crucial. This is especially important given the other issues that society now faces, with increasing problems related to climate change, global unrest, war, etc. I see artificial intelligence as a tool that could either be designed and used in such a way that addresses societies complex problems and brings about positive change or it could exasperate current issues that society faces, although to what end, I do not know – this is about the time people start thinking about the Terminator movies!!  

My aspirations for this programme

1. I wish to be exposed to inter-disciplinary thinking as the digital age has significantly inter-linked every one of us, from the individual to group level, and brought to light the holistic insights required to begin to fathom the complex issues at stake. Perhaps in time I may have the opportunity to dive into trans-disciplinarity.  
2. Learn/ explore data science, programming/ coding with the long-term aim of having a sufficient level of knowledge to be able to open the ‘black box’ and have a basic understanding of the mechanisms that run artificial intelligence and other similar emerging technologies.  
3. Explore the ethicist side of the equation with the aim of being able to finish my degree with a toolbox of insights/ perceptions/ skills that will allow me to positively affect my future company/ industry and perhaps society at large.  

For the moment, I do not have a specific target or objective of what I want to do after this degree as I want to allow myself the possibility of being open to unexpected opportunities that may occur throughout this mind-blowing year ahead. Especially given that this degree is designed for a job role that is in its infancy. For the moment, I perceive the artificial intelligence sphere at the same stage as how the internet was viewed in the late 1990’s, in comparison to the present day where it now underpins much of our everyday lives.  

‘What do you hope to get out of this programme’ / Dana’s Blogs by is licensed under a