Whether it's data science bootcamps, conferences, sporting events, birthday parties, etc... in-person events around the world have had to adjust to COVID-19. Open Data Science Conference and Expo (ODSC) is no different. So how has one of the largest data science conferences adjusted to the current climate and who should we be excited to see speak?
About ODSC West
This year, ODSC West is taking a hybrid approach to delivering the conference. Taking place October 27th - 30th, the conference will be held both virtually and in-person. It will involve 40 training sesssions, 40 workshops, 200 speakers, and 300 hours of content. If you're looking for a networking opportunity, they are also expecting 7500 attendees. I don't think I need to dive deeper to say there's going to be plenty to do at ODSC West, but what should you prioritize? There are 4 presenters that jump out to me right away:
- Lisa Amini, PhD: Director, IBM Research - Cambridge at IBM Research AI
- Yashesh A. Shroff, PhD: AI/ML Partner Ecosystem Manager and Strategic Planner at Intel
- Suchi Saria, PhD: Director, Machine Learning & Healthcare Lab at Johns Hopkins University
- Reza Shiftehfar, PhD: Engineering Management & Leadership at Uber
We don't know what they will be presenting quite yet, but based on their experience I'm pretty excited to find out.
Conference Focus Areas
ODSC West has 8 focus areas:
I won't go through all these sessions, but as someone who works in marketing, I'm most excited for the NLP track. To make a long story short, NLP is used as a method for computers to analyze natural language. It has made huge strides in the last couple of years and has seemed to explode in popularity throughout data science as an industry. I see NLP being a necessary technique for the future of marketing, if it isn't already, which is why I'm personally excited for this track. Watch the video below if you want a short introduction to NLP.
If you're interested in attending ODSC West, you can use Data Science Dojo's community discount code (ODSC_VC_DataScienceDojo) to get up to 65% off passes.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://blog.datasciencedojo.com/odsc-west-2020/