Open Source Tools R and Python: Extending the Toolbox of the Actuary
Introduction & Programme
Over the last few years, typical data science tasks like data manipulation and modelling have gained a stronger foothold in the day-to-day professional life of the actuary. Open-source languages are renowned to be especially equipped to deal with these kinds of tasks, but can also be tricky to get started with, especially without a proper introduction. This workshop offers the opportunity to become more familiar with the open-source environment and its applications, illustrated in detail by means of several hands-on modules, thereby enabling the actuary to tackle the data science tasks in an elegant manner.
Open-source tools like R, Python and more recently Julia have gained a lot of momentum in recent years, not just in popularity but also in the amount of contributed code. Their respective communities are nowadays no longer exclusively composed of academic researchers and scientists, but also of professionals of all sorts of backgrounds, especially since the industry and corporate world have understood the added value of ‘community driven software’ and started to plug open-source tools into their processes and corporate tissue.
On top of this, actuaries are confronted with the same issues as academic researchers and scientists: the production of readable, shareable and reproducible code and results. In the actuarial community, R already is a fairly known and used open-source language, Python however a little bit less, even if it's also packed with potential and even if it disposes of a vast biosphere of its own. This workshop will also focus on the 'scientific stack' of both R and Python and draw some comparisons between both worlds where we will try to show that it’s not a matter of choosing between both ecosystems but of choosing the best of both (continuously evolving) worlds.
This series consists of two parts, each comprising two sessions, and each part can also be booked individually for those who wish to focus on only one of the two languages. A 10% discount is already included in the fee for this session. The sessions on 23 and 24 November will cover R and can be booked separately here, while the sessions on 30 November and 1 December will cover Python and can be booked separately here.
Preliminary Programme
Monday, 23 November 2026
08:30-10:00 R Basics
10:00-10:15 Break
10:15-11:45 Importing and manipulating your data in R
11:45-12:00 Break
12:00-13:00 Showing (off) your work: how to visualize and report in R
Tuesday, 24 November 2026
08:30-10:00 Actuarial applications
10:00-10:15 Break
10:15-11:45 Exercise session in R
11:45-12:00 Break
12:00-13:00 Exercise session in R
Monday, 30 November 2026
08:30-10:00 Python Basics
10:00-10:15 Break
10:15-11:45 Importing and manipulating your data in Python
11:45-12:00 Break
12:00-13:00 Showing (off) your work: how to visualize and report in Python
Tuesday, 1 December 2026
08:30-10:00 Actuarial applications
10:00-10:15 Break
10:15-11:45 Exercise session in Python
11:45-12:00 Break
12:00-13:00 Exercise session in Python
All the above times are given in CEST (Central European Summer Time).
Learning Objectives & Approach
The goal of this four-day training is to introduce the participants to both open-source ecosystems and to give them a good understanding of both languages. However, since both ecosystems are way too vast to be covered in merely two days, the participants will be asked to go through the basics of both languages themselves, prior to the web session. During the first web session of each language, these basics which will be shortly revised, but at a higher pace. The course material, containing the basics of both languages, will be provided by the organizers several weeks before the beginning of the web session, such that the participants will have plenty of time to go through the material at her/his ease.
As such, less time needs to be spent on the basic elements of both languages, thereby enabling us to organize the following hands-on exercise session to more easily assimilate the course material. Note that the participants need to bring along a laptop on which both R and Python are installed. Instructions on how to do so will be provided by the organizers at the same time as the course material of R and Python basics, hence several weeks in advance.
As a result, a jump-start on how to truly use these languages in practice will be provided to the participants, by focusing on solutions for problems that they will surely regularly encounter in their day-to-day job, by handing over lots of links to online resources and very rich course material and by even organizing hands-on exercise sessions.
Participants
This training is suited for all actuaries who like to broaden their existing IT toolset. Basic knowledge regarding data analysis and/or development of actuarial tools is useful yet not required.
Attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop computer with R and Python installed (*). One can install R from https://www.r-project.org/. As the editor we’ll be using ‘RStudio’, which can be installed from https://posit.co/. One can install Python in numerous ways, but the easiest way is to install the ‘all-in’ distribution Anaconda (https://www.anaconda.com/, choose the default “Python 3.x” version). With anaconda installed, one has also the possibility to add R and ‘RStudio’ to the anaconda environment as one can notice in the ‘Anaconda Navigator’.
(*) prior to the training, we will supply the participants with an exhaustive list of packages/libraries that need to be installed additionally to the above tools, as well as a description of how to install them.
Technical Requirements
Please check with your IT department if your firewall and computer settings support web session participation (the programme Zoom will be used for this online training). Please also make sure to join the web session with a stable internet connection.
Lecturers
Luc Kesters
Luc Kesters is a consulting life actuary and the last 20 years he’s working with Vereycken & Vereycken, a Belgian based insurance software development and consultancy company, on actuarial and IT related jobs with a strong focus on reporting and portfolio migrations. During his career IT solutions and technology have always taken up an important part of his work. In that context, he uses Python amongst others on a daily basis.
Robin Van Oirbeek
Robin Van Oirbeek, after having worked as a statistical/actuarial consultant for different companies and as an invited lecturer at UCLouvain and UAntwerp, is now working as a Senior Data Scientist at Ageas Re. He uses R and Python, amongst others, on a daily basis and this for almost 20 years now.
Language
The language of the web session will be English.
