FICO World 2019 Final Day: Why AI Needs Explanations and Innovations
And a very happy 30th birthday to the FICO Score!

The final day of FICO World started with our Chief Analytics Officer, Scott Zoldi, and Kate Crawford, co-founder of AI Now Institute, discussing important governance issues related to analytics modeling, data choices and usage, and the roles and responsibilities of data scientists in our digital age.
For Zoldi, while the excitement on machine learning is helping to advance the field, the hype on machine learning also requires data scientists, business leaders, governing bodies, and the general public to stay vigilant and critical of analytics practices. “Analytics models should be explainable first, and predictive second,” said Zoldi.
The session concluded with the question on what social roles and responsibilities data scientists should share beyond their engineering duties.
To close out the General Session, FICO World marked another important milestone in our company’s history – the 30th anniversary of the FICO Score! To celebrate, the original developers of the FICO Score made a special appearance: Patrick Culhane, Cheri St. John, Michael Rapaport and Sally Taylor, in addition to previous FICO CEO Larry Rosenberger.
Sally Taylor, Scores Vice President, who was the first Product Manager for the FICO Score, gave an inspiring keynote highlighting the past 30 years of FICO Scores empowering people and economies. She also discussed the key components that led to the success of creating an industry standard in credit scoring, showcasing the company’s values on transparency and financial inclusion.
Many thanks to all of our customers, partners and sponsors for making this year’s FICO World the largest and most successful FICO World yet. We hope to see you at FICO World 2021 in Florida!
Popular Posts

Business and IT Alignment is Critical to Your AI Success
These are the five pillars that can unite business and IT goals and convert artificial intelligence into measurable value — fast
Read more
Average U.S. FICO Score at 717 as More Consumers Face Financial Headwinds
Outlier or Start of a New Credit Score Trend?
Read more
FICO® Score 10 T Decisively Beats VantageScore 4.0 on Predictability
An analysis by FICO data scientists has found that FICO Score 10 T significantly outperforms VantageScore 4.0 in mortgage origination predictive power.
Read moreTake the next step
Connect with FICO for answers to all your product and solution questions. Interested in becoming a business partner? Contact us to learn more. We look forward to hearing from you.