Balancing Business ROI and new Ideas in Machine Learning/Data Science

Hello Makers!

Following is a tentative agenda for the evening:

Tentative Agenda:
6:15 pm - 6:45 pm: Arrivals, eat/drink and network
6:50 pm - 7:20: Overview on PyDatatable by Ana Castro
7:20 - 7:50: Snack That Data by Aman Mathur from SnackNation
7:50 - 8:40: Panel Discussion with experts from Industry and Academia
Experts in the panel,

• Haichun Chen (Industry - Netflix)
• Dr. Gourab Mukherjee (Academia - USC)
• Ryan Johnson (Industry - GoGurdian)
• SnackNation participation (Industry)
  8:40pm - 8:45pm: Surprise raffle
  8:45pm - 9 pm: Networking

Location: snacknation (https://www.snacknation.com)
Courtesy: Dr. Kanad Basu (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbasu2016/)

Parking: Details coming soon.
Collaborating partners:

• snacknation (https://www.snacknation.com)
• PyData Socal (https://www.meetup.com/PyData-SoCal/)
• NUMFOCUS PyData (https://pydata.org/)

Speaker Bios:
Ana Castro
Ana is a Data Science Evangelists for H2O.ai. Before H2O.ai, she worked as an Evangelist for Hortonworks(Cloudera).
She holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and is currently pursuing a Master in Statistics with a concentration in Machine Learning at San Jose State University. When not at H2O.ai or school, she can be found in Fresno working with farmers to identify ML solutions for their agricultural challenges.

Derek Chang
Derek has spent 20 years building software and has more than a decade of management experience. Prior to joining the SnackNation team in 2018, he led engineering efforts for several major Web properties, including MySpace, eHow, Society6, and SaatchiArt.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-chang-67607a122/

Aman Mathur
I have about 4+ years of industrial experience in Data Science and Analytics. I have worked on Machine learning problems in the domains of Insurance, Retail, and Healthcare. At SnackNation I am helping the departments in making data-driven decisions using predictive analytics.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-mathur-usc/

Haichun Chen
I am managing Content Knowledge Graph team where we apply deep learning techniques in NLP and CV to curate the best knowledge about entities in the entertainment world, which in turn is used in content/talent discovery and acquisition. We leverage state-of-the-art models but also develop our own technology whenever necessary. Prior to Netflix, I led the data science team at Adobe Digital Marketing and prior to that, I worked as a machine learning engineer at Google.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/haichun-chen-7a378b3/

Dr. Gourab MukherjeeI
I am an Assistant Professor of Data Sciences and Operations at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. I graduated from Stanford University with a Statistics Ph.D. in 2013. My research interests lie in statistical prediction analysis and have led to the development of new predictive density estimation methods and novel empirical Bayes perspectives. My research findings have provided theoretical support and new insights into predictive modeling techniques popularly used in the digital industries and health care research.
https://www.marshall.usc.edu/personnel/gourab-mukherjee

Ryan Johnson
Ryan Johnson has been finding meaningful patterns in data for roughly 15 years. A two-time National Institutes of Health scientific awardee, Ryan earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience and then spent several years investigating MRI data from children with autism before eventually transitioning to private industry.

Ryan has lead teams of analysts, data scientists, data engineers, and database managers to successfully derive value from data. He currently is Director of Science and Analytics at GoGuardian, an education-technology company in El Segundo. GoGuardian uses NLP, image recognition, and deep learning to help kids feel safe online. Ryan also advises start-ups on how to build effective data teams - balancing data, culture and strategic needs.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryantjohnsonlinkedin/