Julia for Machine Learning and Online Brand Protection with Python

We are very happy to announce our next meetup, which will be occurring on the 11th of April. This event will be held at Tramshed Tech (tramshedtech.co.uk), kindly sponsored by AMPLYFI (amplyfi.com) who are providing us with the venue together with food and refreshments. And of course, we are offering free beer, soft drinks and pizza.

We are very fortunate to have an acclaimed speaker visiting from London to talk about the Julia programming language and a speaker from a company using machine learning that has recently opened up an office in Cardiff.

The venue will open at 18:30 when drinks will be provided. The talks will then begin at 19:00 with a break in between for refreshments. After the event, we will be heading to a pub that is en route to Cardiff Central Station.

We will also be having some local representatives from a Cardiff based recruitment firm, IntaPeople, present. So if anyone is interested in learning more about the local job market for data science, then this is a great opportunity.

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Talk 1: Malcolm Sherrington - Is Machine Learning the "Killer App" for Julia?

Since the completion of Julia version 1.0 (julialang.org), last August, she has emerged from those difficult growing pains and is seeking to establish a place in the world. Originally seen as a replacement for scientific programming languages, such as Matlab, and then latterly as well suited in tackling the particular aspects of Data Science and of Big Data - with which Python and R both struggle - now much of the 'interesting' work in Julia is being focused on Machine Learning.

In this presentation, Malcolm Sherrington discusses some of the features peculiar to Julia, outlining how these contribute to her approach in solving the problems posed by machine learning. The talk will highlight some of the major developments underway in a variety of ML-related projects, in an attempt to resolve the question whether this is currently the niche role for Julia.

Dr Sherrington has spoken widely on Julia in the UK and throughout Europe. He formed his own consultancy in 1982 working with IT systems on a wide range of 'hard' projects in Aerospace, Healthcare and Finance, as well as teaching at universities in London and Brighton. He is the author of a book on "Mastering Julia" and founded the London Julia Users group in 2013.

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Talk 2: David Sullivan - Incopro - Fighting Online IP Infringement with Machine Learning

Incopro provide online brand protection for their clients using machine learning and AI. Their primary work is to combat the growing criminality of product forgeries and theft of intellectual property.

In this presentation, David will be providing an outline of Python-based techniques that are used at Incopro. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn about how these methods are utilized in real-world situations.

We are incredibly grateful to have these speakers coming, and we invite you all to come to what promises to be a fantastic occasion!