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Accounting
The Profession

‘CPAs have to understand how to talk data in the real world’

CPA Canada’s Techathon 2021 was an opportunity for accountants—as well as students and professionals from other disciplines—to build on their data skills and use technical tools that have real world applications

A woman works on a laptop with a colleagueTechathon provided the ideal collaborative environment for participants to learn new skills that can be used to help solve data-driven problems (Getty Images/Fat Camera)

After a one-year hiatus, CPA Canada’s Techathon 2021 proved to be a welcome comeback for all. From contestants to judges and mentors, the experience provided two important lessons: the pressing need for data science skills in the accounting profession and the invaluable role of collaboration in bringing together critical thinking, technology and business acumen. 

“Our mission is to inspire CPAs to be tech savvy and data-driven business leaders,” says Michael Wong, principal, research, guidance and support for CPA Canada. “Many participants came in with minimal working knowledge of popular cloud platforms like Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure or AWS. The Techathon helped them learn how to use these tools to apply simple machine learning models on their datasets, and how to leverage data analytics and visualization techniques to support management decision-making.”

DATA FIRST

Techathon’s goal this year was to enable participants to gain practical experience applying data analytics to support management decision-making and provide an opportunity to use data analytics and visualization techniques to recommend solutions to real world business problems. 

CPA Larry Brownoff, director of member relations for CPA Alberta, who’s been a CPA since 1984, participated with an aim to learn about data analytics tools. “I came to Techathon to learn about Tableau. I thought, ‘what a neat way to actually have some experiential learning using business intelligence tools used to do visualization’,” he says.

The competition took place over two weekends in mid-September, where teams came together to apply analytical toolsets in a practical setting. The collaborative event was open to CPAs, data scientists, creative designers, developers, engineers, early-career professionals and students 18 years and older. 

“While we don’t expect CPAs to become data scientists, they need to understand enough to translate data insights into actionable business recommendations for decision-makers,” says Wong. “Techathon provides an experiential learning opportunity for technology tools and enables a multi-disciplinary approach to problem solving that combines the expertise of CPAs, who can bring the business and financial experience, and others who have technical expertise in advanced data analytics and coding.” [Also learn how CPA Canada is collaborating with stakeholders to develop a new Competency Map (CM 2.0) to reflect the changing landscape of the accounting profession.]

Teams were given the choice to address one of three problem statements—centered around sustainability, risk management and finance. A base dataset was provided as a starting point and participants were encouraged to layer on public/open datasets of their choosing (such as population, GDP, real estate listings, etc.) to improve their analysis.

Tools used in the exercises included Tableau for visualization and classification. The cloud stack from Microsoft, Amazon and Google were used to run some machine learning algorithms and analysis. “One of the more popular services used was AutoML from Microsoft Azure’s platform, which makes it less time consuming to build machine learning models,” says Wong.

WINNING COMBINATION

This year’s top team, Value Creators, was led by Brownoff. Team members included Falak Ismaili and Katerine Chen Yu, accounting and financial management students at the University of Waterloo; Pascal Djimboum Fopossi, a University of Windsor CPA student and collection contact agent intern with the Government of Canada; and CPA Raymond Luu, manager, external reporting at Canadian Western Bank in Edmonton. 

Brownoff attributes their success to a great team with varying skill sets. 

“I know how you can use business intelligence tools and the power of them,” he says. “But do I know the nitty gritty of bringing in additional data? No, but Falak and Katerine did. They could pull data and visualize the ideas before our eyes. Raymond was amazing at finding data on external sites and great for thinking outside the box. Whenever we came up with a concept, Pascal was able to challenge some our thought processes and get us focused.”

As a first-time participant, Brownoff says Techathon proved to be a first-hand glimpse into the future of the industry. “I have seen a lot of stuff  around the rapid pace of economic, environmental and technology change,” he says. “These are all new areas that are impacting the future of our profession.”

MORE TO LEARN

Janine Moir, CPA, national digital assurance leader at Deloitte in Toronto, was a volunteer mentor, who also worked behind the scenes prior to the event crafting questions and determining appropriate data sets for the competitors. Her father, Lindsay Moir, is a data scientist who was also a mentor at the event.

Moir says she learned some valuable lessons from the experience. “I was pleasantly surprised at the level of the students’ competence. What kinds of regressions to use, ways to make synthetic data—those were things I learned as well.”

More importantly for Moir, it highlighted the need for additional training for CPAs in this area. “It magnified the gap for people like me that don’t have a data science degree,” she says. “This is an area where CPAs do need to get more skills. Data means nothing if you don’t understand what you are trying to achieve or the perspective of the CFO/CEO asking us to do the work.”

“You get really good outcomes when you expose yourself to the tools that are out there and understand what they can do,” says CPA Amanda Haney, senior VP of finance, acquisitions for People Corporation in Winnipeg and a judge at this year’s Techathon. “At the very minimum CPAs need to understand how those technologies work and where the value comes into the equation.”

She believes events like Techathon are a great way to get more up to speed on analyzing data and advancements in technology. “The base of everything nowadays is to have that awareness. The business questions were ones that a high-level finance person would come across in the business world. The exposure to different peers in other industries added a lot of value. Seeing things that you could bring back to your own work was really powerful.” 

GROW THOSE DATA SKILLS

Techathon is just one way that CPA Canada is helping to move the profession into the age of big data. Learn about the professional accountant’s role in data and explore the professional development opportunities available to advance your skills with the certificate in data management or on-demand sessions focused on data analytics. Plus, see how CPA Canada is collaborating with stakeholders to develop a new Competency Map (CM 2.0) that will help to make the profession future-ready.

Also, visit CPA Canada’s technology resources page to access free publications on artificial intelligence, blockchain and crypto-assets, data analytics and more.