Faster Python Computing with Pyfora

Event space and refreshments sponsored by: Spotify

Event agenda:

6:30 - 7:00 PM: Networking & Food

7:00 - 7:15 PM: Lightning Talks (5 mins each)

7:15 - 8:30 PM: Keynote talk by Ronen Hilewicz (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronenhilewicz)

8:30 - 9:00 PM: Socializing

Lightning Talks:

We would like to have three 5-minute talks + 1 minute Q&A. This can simply be an introduction to the group about who you are and what you work on, or you can cover some aspect of Machine Learning or Data Science that you find interesting. This is open to everyone and we encourage people of all skill levels to give a talk. It's a great way to introduce yourself to the group!

So grab a spot HERE (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Zokp3smdGn82QzFXnzsu3xQ28V81us6EfoQ7FQy5icA/viewform) and tell us more about what you are passionate about and the awesome things you are working on.

What is Pyfora?

Pyfora is a compiled, automatically parallel subset of python for data science and numerical computing. Any code you run with Pyfora will work unmodified in python. But with Pyfora, it can run hundreds or thousands of times faster, and can operate on datasets many times larger than the RAM of a single machine.

http://ufora.github.io/ufora/

About the Talk

Getting data-science algorithms to run at scale is hard: managing and cleaning large datasets, organizing cloud computing resources, and developing parallel versions of algorithms all get in the way of what we really care about: doing great data science. In this talk, Braxton will discuss his work on Pyfora, an open-source Python-based platform for working with large datasets and organizing computations over thousands of cores. He will discuss some of the engineering techniques that make the platform work, walk through a use-case calibrating Bayesian models to repeat customer transaction data, comment on when you should (or shouldn’t) use Pyfora, and, if the Internet cooperates, give a live demo.

About the Speaker

Ronen Hilewicz serves as Vice President of Engineering at Ufora Inc. Ronen started programming professionally in the Israeli military. After his military service, he worked at a Tel Aviv-based startup building browser security technology. In 2004, he joined Microsoft where he worked in the Windows division before shifting his attention to online services and cloud infrastructure. He led the engineering team responsible for the Windows Azure Service Bus - a cloud-based connectivity and messaging service. Ronen left Microsoft for Ufora to tackle new challenges in the space of cloud computing and distributed systems. He holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Tel Aviv University.