Munich Datageeks - January Edition

It is time for our next Meetup. Databricks will sponsor us for the first time.

This meetup is co-located with the Women in Big Data Meetup (https://www.womeninbigdata.org), so if you’re already registered with them at Eventbrite you don’t need to register again.

Format:

• 2 talks (each ca. 40 min incl. discussion)

• Time for networking + food + drinks before, in between and after the presentations

• Talks are held in English

• We will be taking photos and/or film footage at the event. These will be used to share news about our meetups, and to publicize upcoming events.

• We will provide a list of registered usernames to the sponsor to check at the entry.

• Please bring photo identification to be checked at the entrance.

The line up:

Michaela Regneri - Data Minimalism & Data Value (Or: Why Data should not be the new Bacon)

Abstract:
Data is "the new oil" or "the new gold". In the context of AI systems, we often treat Data more like "the new bacon": Bigger data is better data, and we overfeed AI systems with data as a cheap, infinitely available resource. We want to fight data's bacon-like image by promoting the concept of data minimalism for AI as a strategy to enhance both, quality and sustainability of AI systems. In order to survive as data minimalists, we compute the (monetary) value of single data points, and then try to just keep the valuable ones. Implementing this concept is as challenging and as interesting as it sounds. As a corporate-scale example, we show how much data actually is wasted in an e-commerce recommender system, and how we also found toxic data while applying our data-minimalization strategies.

Bio:
Michaela Regneri works as a Senior Expert for Artificial Intelligence & Cognitive Computing at OTTO (Hamburg). She is fascinated by AI, especially by its visual, linguistic and cognitive implications for human-computer interaction.
After her PhD in Computational Linguistics, she joined Der SPIEGEL as a R&D engineer, working on search and text mining for the newsroom. In 2016, she started to work at OTTO as a product manager for Business Intelligence Analytics, developing applications with and around data science. In her current role, she continues to drive & challenge different areas of AI for e-commerce, with a particular interest in AI innovation processes and corporate digital responsibility.

Olga Roj - Digital Transformation of Businesses with the Power of Cloud Computing and AI: Microsoft’s approach to help every organization start thinking and operating like a digital company by embracing new technology

Abstract:

Digital transformation is the topic of the day and it’s here to stay…it’s a phenomenon that is actively fueling both the success and the failure of every organization. Industry after industry is being transformed as we speak and this is perhaps more so than ever in our history where technology is not just adding capability but it's changing business models. Almost every company is grappling with how to embrace new trends such as Big Data driving the digitization of “things” and advances in data analytics and intelligence, cloud computing placing limitless computing and storage power into the hands of organizations of all sizes, and of course the explosion and ubiquity of mobile computing.

Bio:
Olga Roj has joined Microsoft 7 years ago after completing her MBA at INSEAD Business School, and from the beginning has worked with Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Platform, first as the Azure Open Source Product Marketing Manager, and then as the Azure Go to Market Partner Lead, covering multiple countries in the EMEA region. She has experienced firsthand the explosive growth of Cloud Computing, and how partnering with Microsoft and embracing Cloud Computing has helped many organizations, big and small, truly transform their businesses and grow beyond expectations. She is excited about all the amazing opportunities that Cloud Computing presents for every single business on the planet.