Pål Sundsøy, MBA, PhD

sundsoy.com

About

Name: Pål Sundsøy, MBA, PhD
Email: sundsoy@gmail.com
Phone: (0047) 918 45 206
Nationality: Norway

Professional Profile

Lead Researcher & Senior Data Scientist with large global footprint.
PHD in Data Science, Executive MBA in Finance and Msc in Physics.

Download CV

Research projects

Publicatons, conferences, media exposure

30+ conference talks and 20+ scientific papers on Big Data/Data Science and Machine Learning published in Nature, PNAS, Royal Society Interface etc

Research cited in e.g. Wall Street Journal, MIT Technology Review, Science News, Huffington Post, The Nation, Harvard Magazine, White House Report on Big Data, World Bank, Yahoo Finance, Vice Media etc
Main research collaborators: MIT Media Lab, MIT Sloan, Harvard, Flowminder.
Scientific commitee member at 10+ Data Science conferences, incl. Netmob, MIT.

All visualisations and 3D models beneath are produced by Pål Sundsøy.

DOWNLOAD CV

High-Profile Data Science Research

Predicting poverty using mobile phone and satellite data

Co-authored with MIT Media Lab and Flowminder.
Published in Royal Society Interface (2017).

Selected Press:
Poverty mapped in near real-time (Seeker)
Phone and satellite data flesh out high resolution poverty map(newatlas)
Mobile phone and satellite data to map poverty(phys.org)

Quantifying social segregation in large‑scale networks

Published in NATURE srep (2022).

Mobility and phone call behavior explain patterns in poverty at high-resolution across multiple settings

Published in NATURE h&ss (2021).

Improving official statistics in emerging markets using machine learning and mobile phone data

Co-authored with MIT Media Lab, Imperial College.
Published in EPJ Data Science (2017).

Selected Press:
How AI can help in a humanitarian Crisis (Huffington Post)
Humanitarian efforts could be aided by Artificial Intelligence (Imperial College)

Towards real-time prediction of unemployment and profession

Co-authored with MIT Media Lab, Flowminder. ArxiV:1612.03870 (2016).

Selected Press:
How Metadata can reveal what your job is (Vice Media)

Can Mobile Usage Predict Illiteracy in a Development Country?

Pål Sundsøy
ArxiV:1607.01337 (2016)

Selected Press :
MIT Technology Review , World Bank, Yahoo Finance, EnGadget.com, Mobile Today, Top Innovations.

Predicting Individual Income Based on Deep Neural Networks

Co-authored with MIT Media Lab.
International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2016).

Impact of human mobility on the emergence of dengue epidemics in Pakistan.

Co-authored with Harvard School of Publich Health.
Published in PNAS (2015)

Selected Press: 30+ newspapers. Harvard Magazine, Bill Gates @ Twitter, Science Daily, Economic Times, Science News line, The Nation, India Today, Dagens Næringsliv, Dagens Medisin, DIGI, NRK Radio, Nasdaq ++

Big Data-Driven Marketing: How Machine Learning outperforms marketers' gut-feeling.

Co-authored with MIT Media Lab.
Published in Springer (2014)
Selected Press : Gates Foundation, Bostinno

Comparing and visualizing the social spreading of products on a large-scale social network

Selected Press:
Wall Street Journal, MIT Technology Review, White House Big Data Report (under President Obama), Science News

Using Patterns of Big Data to Track Human Migration

Co-authored with Flowminder
Published in Global Environmental Change (2016)

Selected Press:
Climate and migration Coalition

Experience

My work experience

Invited Speaker, United Nations Big Data conference, 2015 (Abu Dhabi): How Big Data can be used for Social Good and Poverty reduction

NBIM, Systematic Equity Strategies

Lead Researcher & Portfolio Manager

2016-

NBIM is the investment arm of Norway's Central Bank that manages the world's largest sovereign wealth fund with assets of close to $1 trillion USD.

Management of global systematic long-short equity portfolio and programming quant investment strategies and ideas.

Telenor Group

Senior Data Scientist

2007-2016

Working in Big Data Analytics Group at Telenor Group Research towards all business units (Asia, Europe). Collaborating with Data Science teams @ MiT, Harvard, Northeastern.
Work Reference (VP Analytics & AI)
Work Reference (VP Big Data Analytics)

European Space Agency

Head Engineer

2006 - 2007

Head Engineer in the joint NASA/ESA/JAXA Hinode space mission project. Financed by European Space Agency (ESA) and Norwegian Space Agency. Based at Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, Norway.

World Health Organization

Database Developer

2006

Database Developer in the unit of Health statistics and evidence. Development of database in relation to vital registration systems, and work related to statistical analysis.

Biotechnology, NTNU

Database Developer

2008 - 2006

Research assistant/Database Developer in a cooperation project with the Museum of Natural History and Archaeology.

Physics, NTNU

Student assistant

2006 - 2004

Student assistant in FY2045 Quantum Physics/TFY4250 Atomic and molecular physics.

Education

Just my education

Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2012 : Mapping out large-scale social networks using mobile phone data

University of Oslo

PHD, DATA SCIENCE

2017

Through seven publications this dissertation shows how anonymized mobile phone data can contribute to the social good and provide insights into human behaviour on a large scale. The size of the datasets analysed ranges from 500 million to 300 billion phone records, covering millions of people. Thesis Title: "Big Data for Social Sciences: Measuring human behaviour through large-scale mobile phone data".
Download Press Release (PDF, 2 pages)
Full Thesis (PDF, 167 pages)
Defence Talk (PDF, 23 slides)
How mobile phone data can reduce catastrophes and poverty (Interview related to my PhD in Titan (norwegian))

NHH, Bergen

Executive MBA, Finance

2019-2021

3-year Executive MBA Finance program

Part 1 (2018-2020) : Autorisert Finansanalytiker (AFA). Educational program recognised under the international Certified European Financial Analyst (CEFA) program (the European equivalent to the American CFA program).

Part 2 (2020-2021) : Specialization in Advanced Portfolio Management (investments and securities)

NTNU, Trondheim

Msc Physics

1999 - 2005

Master (Siv.ing) in Physics and Mathematics. Additional studies within Economics & Organizational Psychology after Msc.

University of Geneva

PHD assistant

2005-2006

PHD assistant/Quantum Physics under guidance of Prof. Nicolas Gisin. Experimental quantum cryptography, quantum teleportation and quantum memory.

UNSW, Sydney

Exch. Student

2003

Exchange student, one term. Studies within mathematical modelling and advanced quantum mechanics.

Bjerkely Country College

Computer science

1998-1999

MLine of study: Computer programming within C++. Directed study within C++.

Hobbies

Photography

I am a self-learned photographer, written 3 photography books, and my interest in photography started back in 2005. So far I have been travelling in 75 countries, and my favorite is Myanmar/Burma.

Myanmar, or Burma, is probably unlike every other country you will visit. The country is to a large extent undiscovered by tourists, mainly due to the isolation the country has been in for decades and the restrictions that were imposed on foreigners.

Myanmar in 2 Minutes. Photography by Pål Sundsøy

My pictures and drone videoes have been covered in several local news outlets. Here is an interview with Hallingdølen, June 2018 , and a link to some more travel pictures beneath. My travel pictures

Books available at Amazon

Glimpse from my Burma book

Drone video productions

My drone videoes are available at vimeo. New productions will turn up when time permits.

Kalvåg, Western Norway (4K Drone)

Out by the open sea a small town Kalvåg is located on the Island Frøya. This is also the place where half my family is coming from (Sundsøy - Seen at 1:12 between the two bridges). Kalvåg and the exceptional nature surroundings is here captured from the air in 4K resolution. Filmed, edited and graded by Pål Sundsøy.

My drone productions

Building & playing guitars

Is it possible to build eco-friendly electric guitars from simple recycable waste wood (MDF plates)? Here i am building a couple of electric guitars by combining MDF, Acrylic Paint and Epoxy. The video shows the building process.