Data Mining 101: How to Use Twitter to Find Terrorists

For our October Data Science DC Meetup, we are excited to have Khuram Zaman, CEO of Fifth Tribe, share with us techniques used to mine Twitter in an effort to find terrorists. As a special bonus after the talk, we'll open a challenge competition wherein several audience members will be given the opportunity to win $500 to present a digital strategy, tool, or campaign to counter ISIS online. Come prepared with your brilliant data scientist minds!

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Agenda:

• 6:30pm -- Networking, Empanadas, and Refreshments

• 7:00pm -- Introduction, Announcements

• 7:15pm -- Presentation and Discussion

• 8:15pm -- Challenge competition: Audience pitches and judging

• 8:30pm -- Data Drinks (Tonic , 2036 G St NW)

Abstract:

Data Mining 101: How to Use Twitter to Find Terrorists

First, we'll review how violent extremists like ISIS use social media to spread propaganda, drive recruitment, and communicate with supporters. Second, we'll discuss how we used open-source platforms to download ISIS fanboy tweets. Third, we'll review how data scientists on Kaggle used the data. Fourth, we'll discuss potential future applications in countering violent extremists online. Lastly, we'll open a challenge competition wherein several audience members will be given the opportunity to win $500 to present a digital strategy, tool, or campaign to counter ISIS online.

Bio:

Khuram Zaman

Khuram Zaman is the CEO of Fifth Tribe, a leading digital agency serving the Washington DC Metropolitan Area based out of the 1776 Startup Accelerator. Upon graduating from Widener University School of Law in Delaware, he went on to work in the non-profit sector where he raised almost a million dollars online for various charitable causes involving donors and volunteers from over 80 countries. In his professional capacity, he has provided digital marketing services to clients as diverse as the Department of Defense, the U.S. Air Force, Aetna Innovation Health, Kaiser Permanente, Silatech, Oxfam, and The Hult Prize. His writing has been featured in Entrepreneur.com, Business2Community, and LinkedIn Publisher. In 2016, his work in data science drew recognition when his anti-ISIS dataset became the #1 trending dataset on Kaggle – the largest online community of data scientists. He gave a keynote address entitled “Innovation Culture: Multiplying Impact Across Sectors” and also lead a plenary session entitled “Data Mining 101: How to Use Twitter to Find Terrorists” at the Fall 2016 Business Analytics Form at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In 2015, his company was appointed to Private Sector Committee along with Goldman Sachs and IBM to the Global Community Engagement Resiliency Fund (GCERF). In December 2014, Khuram and his co-worker won 1st place at the Hedaya Hackathon during the Global CVE Expo where they developed and prototyped a crowdsourcing and social media platform to counter violent extremist messages. He is the cofounder of Tekfeuds, an annual event that brings together big brands and passionate technologists to use Oxford-style to debate contemporary tech issues. He serves on the board of Project Katalyst, a non-profit whose mission is to use technology to help displaced and at-risk youth all over the world.

Sponsors:

This event is sponsored by the George Washington Business School MS in Business Analytics Program (http://business.gwu.edu/programs/specialized-masters/m-s-in-business-analytics/academic-program/), Statistics.com (http://bit.ly/12YljkP), Elder Research (http://datamininglab.com/), Novetta (https://www.novetta.com/), PAWGOV (http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/gov/2016/), O'Reilly (http://www.oreilly.com/), Booz Allen Hamilton (https://www.boozallen.com/consulting/strategic-innovation/nextgen-analytics-data-science), and AOL (http://engineering.aol.com/). (Would your organization like to sponsor too? Please get in touch!)