Spark with Azure HDInsight, and Spatial Data - TB Data Science Monthly Meetup

In this round table discussion, Adnan Masood and Joe Blankenship will explore Apache Spark with Azure HDInsight, and Spatial Data.

Apache Spark (http://spark.apache.org/) is an open-source parallel processing framework that supports in-memory processing to boost the performance of big-data analytic applications. Spark processing engine is built for speed, ease of use, and sophisticated analytics. Spark's in-memory computation capabilities make it a good choice for iterative algorithms in machine learning and graph computations. Spark is also compatible with Azure Blob storage (WASB) so your existing data stored in Azure can easily be processed via Spark.

When you create a Spark cluster in HDInsight, you create Azure compute resources with Spark installed and configured. It only takes about ten minutes to create a Spark cluster in HDInsight.

About the Speakers:

Adnan Masood

Adnan Masood, Ph.D. is a software architect, and researcher and specializes in machine learning and Bayesian belief networks. He is an avid engineer and is most comfortable working with the IDE. A strong believer in the development community, Adnan is an active member of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), an organization dedicated to software security. In the .NET community, he is a cofounder and president of the Pasadena .NET Developers group, which he has been successfully leading for 8 years. He pursues interests in algorithmic puzzles, machine learning, functional programming, cloud computing, service-oriented architecture (SOA), .NET, design patterns, application security, and robotics. He has also led a number of successful enterprise solutions and consulted for several Fortune 500 company projects. For more details, visit Adnan's blog (http://blog.adnanmasood.com (http://blog.adnanmasood.com/)), GitHub repository ( http://github.com/adnanmasood ), and Twitter (@adnanmasood). Adnan can be reached at adnan.masood@owasp.org.

Joe Blankenship
I am currently the founder and president of the Cyber Geography Research Institute International. CGRII (http://www.cgrii.org/) is an all-volunteer, 501c3 nonprofit organization which aims to explore and define cyberspace via geographic principles.

I am also pursuing my masters degree in geography at the University of South Florida (http://www.usf.edu/) (focusing on production of space, blockchain technologies, code/space, and political economy).

I organize and sponsor the Tampa Bay Data Science Group (https://www.meetup.com/Data-Scientists-Tampa-Bay/) as I am a huge data geek who loves programming and data science. I also teach (http://www.thejoeblankenship.com/news) a variety of classes (contact me for additional information).

Tampa Bay Data Scientists!

The intent of this meeting is to bring together people in the Tampa Bay and surrounding areas involved or interested in data science or related professions.

There will be presentations and discussions surrounding trends, issues, news, and directions in data science.

TEKSystems has graciously provided the space as well as food and refreshments, so please come, enjoy, and help us build this community!