An IBM Intern Story: Accountants in Digital Era May Become Data Scientist

“The final frontier of the digital technology is integrating into your own brain.” -Ramez Naam

Around January 2019 I was having dinner with one of my seniors from FEB UI who have already worked as an AI-based analytics researcher. When he told me with much excitement about how Artificial Intelligence could help how economist easily speeding up their work, I wondered whether it’s the same case for businesses. Then after we talk over a tea he recommended me to try IBM for my internship since his friend was Ex-IBM and now become one of successful startup founders; which I aspired to be.

But before continue my story, let me introduce myself. People used to call me Rio, I am a penultimate accounting student from University of Indonesia that very interested in digital economics especially how advanced technologies transforming business processes. When I was in my second-year, lot of my friends applied to accounting firms for their summer internship. However, I was more interested to try IT company because of three reasons.

1. Why I choose IBM?

Firstly, I want to divert my background not only in accounting and finance but also try learning new skills. Secondly, many research said that accountants will be replaced in the future by Artificial Intelligence(AI) then I want to prove it myself and challenge that hypothesis. And last but not least, I wanted to challenge myself by pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

With all those motivations, I tried to look for information regarding how to get an internship at IBM. At first, I tried to contact people through LinkedIn and out of 15 messages one replied to me and give me their HRD contacts. But I met the dead end because I got no reply for 3 weeks. Then, when I sat in my Digital Business class my lecturer open her WhatsApp in class and I saw that one of her conversations was with “Mrs. Ari IBM”. I asked her after the class finished and she gave me Mrs. Ari’s contact.

Before contacting her I want to brand myself as someone that very “IT” by creating my CV through a website. Then I contacted her through WhatsApp and gave her my background and experiences both in academic and professional experience. I also told her my intention to learn more about AI implementation in real-world, especially in Indonesia. With that being said, she gave me three choices and one of them was to work with her for AI analytics project; which of course I chose that option.

2. The data scientist journey start

Then, she gave me a preliminary task to learn about chatbot and in a week gave her an update. When I learned about chatbot, at first I expect to be confused but the underlying concept of chatbot is decision tree; which I have already learned at Business Analytics class. I also realized that many concepts that I learned in college are implementable in the real world.

After passing that, around April, Mrs. Ari told me that I got new partner; an Indonesians student that studies in Sout Korea in computer science. I was excited because I could learn a new thing from him. And by the time I met Gilang through Call, he told me that he is a mobile apps development student from Dankook University. After that Mrs. Ari gave us the project presentation and divided the task; I was being charged to create a financial model for our project and Gilang was more into technical stuff. We worked mobile until we met offline around June.

Then, moving on, we start our offline internship at IBM Indonesia office at the Plaza Indonesia. On our very first day, we got to know our new teammates that one of my junior in UI called Edgar. Then, we adjust our things, I was amazed about the way people work in IBM are very diverse in terms of ages, nationalities, etc. Mrs. Ari then let us brainstorming together and gave an end goal to present our project to our client by the end of our internship journey.

I was assigned to create our project timeline and started to learn skills about banking industry for understanding their business model better. My team has also already learned about IBM AI-based service called Watson Discovery and Personality Insights. After one week we present our objectives, goals, timeline, and what we have already understood about the technologies and our use cases.

At the beginning of July, we got several obstacles in gathering sufficient data for giving insights to our client. While my friend Gilang testing out our tools I learned many courses using IBM YourLearning. I tried to look for every information available regarding my project since I did not have any experience or academic background although I have written several papers about AI. When I watched the videos there were many new terminologies that I just heard and I was very excited to understand new things.

3. When you have problems try to ask

Another challenge was understanding the concept behind the technologies. Fortunately, we got full support from other ASEAN partners. Through IBM apps I tried to contact IBM AI expertise from IBM Singapore through e-mail and he responded to me quickly. That was memorable for me especially when I talked to him over the phone discussing our projects. He then recommend me to another expert from Malaysia when he told me the underlying infrastructure of IBM Watson Discovery and Personality Insight.

After that online meeting, I discussed with my team and we got progress on how we figured out our methodology and model. After Mrs. Ari gave us green light we then trying to collect the data which for me I got tasks for collecting financial performance data from LQ45 companies in Indonesia. At first, I did it manually but after we present our idea to Mrs. Ancella Hermawan, Head of Accounting Department, University of Indonesia I could speed up the process by gathering data from EICON. Our project objectives was helping our client to understand their market better with the help of AI for analytics.

Another highlight is when I and my friend Gilang joined AWS Cloud Day Jakarta in Pullman. I saw how IT have been change in a rapid way. I particularly have interest in AI implementation and when I learned about many use cases of machine learning. At that same day, Gilang and I was lucky because one of the expert from IBM Singapore come to Jakarta and had a quick meeting with us. I was quite panicked at that moment because I was worried he would ask me questions that I did not know. Yet, the meeting was very smooth and besides giving us feedback he also praised us for our effort in this project.

4. Storytelling skills is always important

After that meeting, we saw that in August there will be IBM Cloud Summit and I asked Mrs. Ari if she needs some hands I would voluntarily help her. Then, around 3 days before the event she told us that we will present our project and represent IBM for that summit. I was really shocked back then and I still remember Gilang’s expression too. For preparing the event, I slept at Gilang’s house and that night I could not sleep well because I was really afraid for tomorrow since the guests were Indonesia’s top-notch industry players.

At the IBM Cloud Summit on 5th August, we got to present our ideas in front of guest that wandering around stands. Many top management especially CTOs or heads of IT department interested in our project and listen to our presentation. They were also asked many questions and if I did not know the answer Gilang will back me up especially for technical stuff. At the end of the day, we learned a lot especially for me I managed to short pitch to IT people and it encourages me to continue my project.

After that event, we got several feedback and fixed things up especially in how our real implementation for helping businesses. In the following week, I tried to use my accounting skills to analyze financial ratios from LQ45 financial statement and using IBM Cognos to create data visualization for our clients. Around 15th August I took one week’s leave because I joined accounting competition at Udayana University, Bali. After I went back I continued to help my team finalize our presentation before we met our clients on the last day of our internship journey.

On 30th August we finally present our project to the client. Again, the presentation went well and they were very excited and wanted to explore more. When I presented the project I could explain it to them with easy words after many trial and errors beforehand. After that presentation, I felt grateful and relieved because months of learning experience finally end. On that day Mrs. Ari also treated us with foods in Penang Bistro then she asked us about what have we learned and were our target during internship satisfying. Also, the last question was what could be improved in the future.

5. The journey ends but the learning still continue

For me, those questions meaningful for my college journey. When we choose one choice there are always be trade-offs. For me, I grateful to choose IBM as my summer internship company. I could prove my hypothesis about accountants in the future will be a data scientist. But the real questions are what is our differences with other background? The answer is simple; accountants know about finance and if we could use our creativity and analytical skills we will not be replaced by AI.

Accountants will for sure collaborate with AI and other advanced technologies in the future. We have human intelligence that will never be replaced by robots. Therefore, my recommendation for young accountants must prepare the skills needed in the future. For accountants, we should have incorporated ourselves with technology. Then, we need to enhance our analytical, storytelling, and strategic thinking skills. Because, in the future, when AI could automate all of our repetitive and clerical works then accountants will become data scientists. We understand the business problems and solve it with the help of our friend; artificial intelligence.

To close my article I want to quote a saying from my auditing lecturer Mr. Agung Nugroho Sudibyo:

“The one that innovates first will become the winner because sooner or later everyone will.” Mr. OO