<p>One of the skills that I see an increasing demand for Business Analysts is data analysis. Especially when “new” tools like Process Mining shift the landscape towards data-driven analysis.</p><p>And besides the need to learn these new skills, I also see multiple tools that are very pricey and might be cost prohibitive for some organizations, so they fall back to the universal Swiss knife in business… Excel.<br></p><p>One of the tools that beats that trend is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/knime/">KNIME</a>, which not only is open-source but also has a great community and great training offerings. Besides the fact that the tool is great, if you have ever watched a video from KNIME you will recognize the voice of our guest, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosaria/">Rosaria Silipo</a>, immediately.</p><p>Rosaria has been a researcher in applications of AI and Machine Learning for over a decade. Application fields include biomedical systems, IoT, customer intelligence, financial services, social media, cybersecurity, and automatic speech processing. She is currently based in Constance (Germany) / Zurich (Switzerland).</p><p><br></p><p>In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:</p><ul><li>Rosaria&#39;s background—she brings decades of experience, from early neural networks in the 1990s to shaping the KNIME community.</li><li>A journey through data science history: hardware limits, Big Data, GPUs, deep learning, and today’s AI-driven shift.</li><li>From building models to consuming and fine-tuning AI: why modern analytics is now more engineering than research.</li><li>Tool evolution matters: visual, low-code platforms lower the barrier without blocking advanced use cases.</li><li>Open source as an accelerator: community, shared extensions, education, and faster innovation.</li><li>Why Excel breaks at scale—and how reproducible data pipelines outperform spreadsheet heroics.</li><li>KNIME’s strength: step-by-step logic, transparency, and workflows you can explain to stakeholders.</li><li>Education over hype: tools are powerful, but data literacy and validation remain non-negotiable.</li><li>Rosaria’s focus forward: growing AI learning communities and mentoring young entrepreneurs.</li><li>AI realities: hype is real, but fundamentals still matter—especially for tabular and business data.</li><li>Community beats lock-in: ecosystems outlast tools and make practitioners better.</li><li>Final takeaway: better analytics isn’t about smarter tools—it’s about people, clarity, and shared understanding.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>You can reach Rosaria via LinkedIn here: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosaria/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosaria/</a>. </p><p><br></p><p>PS: Please reach out to us by either sending an email to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">[email protected]</a>. And meanwhile, don&#39;t forget to subscribe to the <a href="http://whatsyourbaseline.com/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">What&#39;s Your Baseline? podcast</a> on your favorite platform.</p><p><br></p><p>And if you like what you see here and want to support “the little podcast that could,” please check out our Patreon at <a href="https://patreon.com/whatsyourbaseline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">https://patreon.com/whatsyourbaseline</a>.</p>