The organiser of this week's "Mathematics in Business'' conference hopes the event will bring a focus to the mathematical culture in the finance and insurance areas.

"Many of the business and financial activities being carried out in Bermuda are more sophisticated than most people around the world may realise,'' said Dr. Garth Baker, Professor of Mathematics at Bermuda College, who will act as master of ceremonies for the conference.

"A lot of innovative work is going on in Bermuda in the art of applying science to business, particularly in the area of modelling for catastrophe reinsurance. Bermuda innovations add value and enhance efficiency and confidence in the way business is conducted internationally,'' he said.

The idea for holding such a conference was initially Dr. Baker's. He and a committee, drawn from the local and international business communities in Bermuda, then set about lining up some of the world's leading mathematicians and modelling experts, including some from Bermuda, among them ACE Ltd.'s chief actuary, Dr. John Burville and James Stanard, chief executive officer of Renaissance Re.

"The conference is essentially an international meeting on the use of mathematical modelling in business,'' Dr. Baker said. "We hope to present, via an excellent team of speakers, including world experts, a survey of the way modelling is used in business.'' The conference, to be held this week at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, should prove of interest to Bermuda's international banking, insurance and financial services personnel. Lecturers have been asked to present their material in a form accessible to wide audiences, Dr. Baker said.

"You don't have to be a hard core mathematician to attend. I would encourage anyone who has the slightest interest in how mathematics is used in business to join us. The use of mathematical modelling in business is very topical in a variety of perspectives,'' Dr. Baker added.

The organising committee is hoping that delegates to the conference will take full advantage of the presence of so many world experts to ask questions.

"I ideally would like to see a barrage of questions from delegates,'' said Dr. Baker. "We are hoping for an interactive and `user-friendly' conference.'' Mathematics inspires a range of responses; Dr. Baker said there are those who do not see as much relevance to applying sophisticated mathematical models in business, while others are deeply involved in applying mathematics to business.

The latter group, Dr. Baker said, "are affectionately referred to as `rocket scientists' ''. Wall Street companies have been hiring many who have been trained in physics and mathematics who used to be university faculty members.'' One of the main speakers at "Mathematics In Business'' will be Emmanuel Derman, managing director and head of the quantative strategies group at New York investment bankers Goldman Sachs, whose original training was in particle physics. Dr. Derman is the co-author of the heavily used Black-Derman-Toy yield curve model and of the Derman-Kani Implied Tree Model, which are used for a range of financial purposes.

Another "rocket scientist'' who will be speaking at the event is Dirk Jens Nonnenmacher, who heads the department of risk methodology trading at Germany's Dresdner Bank, who gained his Ph.D. in Mathematics in Germany and has previously held professorships in both Germany and the US.

Dr. Baker said that he and the organising committee had short-listed "the very best people we could come up with. We had a relatively large pool of names and were successful in getting a good percentage of the people we aimed for.'' The conference schedule is as follows: On Wednesday, Dr. Baker will open the conference and Bermuda College president Dr. George Cook will make a brief welcoming address. Speakers on the first day will include Robert A. Jarrow of Cornell University; Ron Layard Liesching of Pareto Partners of London; ACE's John Burville; and Svend-Holger Friis of accountants KPMG in London.

On Thursday, speakers will include David C. Heath of Carnegie Mellon University; John C. Hull of the University of Toronto; Prakash Shimpi of Swiss Re New Markets, New York; Dirk-Jens Nonnenmacher of Dresdner Bank; and Hans Buhlmann of ETH Zurich.

Friday's speakers will include Emanuel Derman of Goldman Sachs; Stephen A.

Ross of MIT Cambridge; Paul Wilmott of Oxford University; and Bermuda's David Ezekiel of International Advisory Services.

Interested individuals who have not registered should do so by calling Executive Choice Ltd. at 292-3170. Full details, including registration forms, are available on the internet at www.executivechoice.bm/math. Completed forms should be faxed to 292-1046 or e-mailed to execuchoice y northrock.bm.

Dr. Garth Baker BERMUDA COLLEGE EDC