UCLA Mathematics Dept. Alumni Career Panel

I was invited to join a panel of UCLA mathematics alumni for a Zoom meeting, “Inside Careers in Mathematics,” on April 28, 2022. The purpose of the annual panel and discussion is to connect undergraduate students to UCLA Math alumni who have ventured to unique careers using their Mathematics degree. As a data scientist, needless to say, I had a lot to say on this front! I fielded a number of questions like “what do you find most challenging and most rewarding about your work,” and “what changes do you foresee in your industry within the next 5 years?” The event also included separate break-out rooms for each panelist. Here I got to know a number of attendees more personally and answered specific questions. I was told my break-out room was the most popular. Viva la Data Science!

GPU Technology Conference 2017

I was very pleased to attend the GPU Technology Conference 2017 as the guest of host company NVIDIA on May 8-11 in Silicon Valley. This was my second GTC as I became acquainted with the GPU (graphics processing unit) universe last year while attending the conference. You can read my 2016 field report HERE. I was so impressed with NVIDIA last year, I assumed it was just an outlier and that this year the company would come back down to earth. I was wrong. I was equally impressed with what I saw at this year’s installment terms of how GPUs and NVIDIA are transforming the field of AI and deep learning. This Field Report chronicles what I saw and I’m delighted to share my experience!

UCLA Young Alumni Career Forum

I will be heading up the Big Data/Data Science area for the upcoming UCLA Young Alumni Career Forum on Saturday, Jan. 21 on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The forum presents a unique opportunity for recent UCLA grads with a focus on career strategies where professional career counselors, employers, and nationally recognized speakers will share effective strategies to strengthen skills as the candidates advance their early careers.

I’m eager to advise future data scientists all about the tremendous opportunities in this field. I feel the timing is excellent to transition into data science, and big data engineering. This is my opportunity to help shape new careers and help fellow UCLA alumni along the way. Looking forward to it!

Data Science and Machine Learning at Data Modeling Zone

I am looking forward to conducting two sessions for the upcoming Data Modeling Zone conference on Oct. 17-19 in Portland, OR. My half-day session “Data Science Primer” is Tuesday morning, Oct. 18 and my short session “Machine Learning Primer” is Wednesday morning, Oct. 19. My book publisher, Technics Publications is the host of the event and I will be doing a book signing during the show.

All Analytics Academy – Finding Data Sources

I’d like to announce that I will be making a webinar presentation for the upcoming “Analytics for All: The Right Start” series sponsored by All Analytics. My topic will be “Finding Data Sources, and Ensuring That It’s Good Data.” Please join me on June 9, 2016 at 2pm EDT. I’m looking forward to talking about this important topic that is on the minds of all data scientists.

GPU Technology Conference 2016

I was very pleased to attend the GPU Technology Conference 2016 as the guest of host company NVIDIA on April 4-7 in Silicon Valley. I didn’t know much about NVIDIA going in, so I was eager to learn what the company brought to the table for data science and machine learning. I was delighted to find that the overarching theme of the show was “deep learning” and all the underlying technologies and applications. It was clear that NVIDIA is “all in” for deep learning and its pursuit of becoming the one generalized algorithm where domain experts aren’t needed for achieving superhuman results. I was impressed enough with the experience that I wrote a comprehensive Field Report for my readers over at insideBIGDATA to give them an in-depth perspective for what I saw.

After the GTC conference, I’m sold on deep learning coupled with GPU technology. I met a bunch of cool vendors in this space and I intend to stay in touch and utilize their products and services in future projects.

How IoT Analytics can Drive Competitive Advantage

I was happy to be enlisted by predictive analytics giant TIBCO to be a panelist for the upcoming webcast feature “How IoT Analytics can Drive Competitive Advantage” on March 3, 2016 at 11am PT. I’ll be on the panel along with industry luminary Mike Gualtieri of Forrester Research and TIBCO’s Chief Analytics Officer Michael O’Connell. The webcast will give attendees the opportunity to learn how digital businesses are capturing greater value from big data and real-time data streams for sharper insights, real-time decision-making and competitive advantage.

To register for the webcast click HERE.

Presentation at Grid110 Demo Day

I was pleased to present last evening at the Grid110 Demo Day hosted by The New Mart, LA’s premiere fashion mart in DTLA. Grid110 is a new start-up business accelerator in partnership with the Office of the Los Angeles Mayor. My topic was putting a new face on the LA apparel industry using data science methodologies. My analysis used data sets from the Los Angeles Open Data repository. I’m a big proponent of government open data resources with the goal of improving the lives of citizens in ever more data-driven cities.

My presentation is provide below. Check out the data visualizations especially the geospatial data analysis clusters showing business starts for the past 10 years across the various industry codes that constitute the LA apparel industry. Moving forward, I will be collaborating with Grid110 in 2016 to publish a new Fashion Tech industry report, develop a new Shiny app, and collect data points for a new Fashion Tech sector database. Exciting stuff!

 

Introduction to Data Science Starts Jan. 13

My new 100% online course is starting on Jan 13 – Introduction to Data Science. The course is hosted by UC Davis Extension and is intended as a launching point for those wishing to transition into the field in order to find employment opportunities. Students will gain the skills that are transforming entire industries from healthcare to internet marketing and beyond. In this course, students will gain a hands-on introduction to using the R programming language for data analysis.  In addition the course  will define the data science process, including data acquisition, data munging, exploratory data analysis, visualization and algorithm usage.

AMULET Analytics at Melange for Fashion Tech

I was pleased to accept an invitation from Melange Live CEO Tom Keefer to exhibit at his 1st annual event “where fashion meets technology.” The two-day conference was held on Sept. 16-17 at The New Mart in the heart of LA’s fashion district. The show featured the latest and greatest innovators in this new and upcoming space. I had a blast at my booth (see picture) which was front/center and met with all sorts of interesting people including a hot new startup accelerator in the Downtown LA area: Grid110.org. As a data scientist I was encouraged with all the new technologies coming out, most of which depend on using data for greater insights.