Exploratory Data Analysis With Pandas and Altair

Approximate schedule:

6:00 - Doors open
6:30 - General intro
6:40 - Speakers
7:30 - Q&A + Raffle + Social hour

TLDR Description: We'll talk about the practical aspects of analyzing real-world data using Python, Pandas, and Altair by exploring a data-set of traffic stops made by Maryland Police.

Longer Description:
The Python ecosystem has emerged as a first-class tool for drawing useful conclusions about the world through data exploration, inference, and prediction. Sophisticated statistical models are critical to this, but before we get to the fancy math, we need to wrangle messy data into usable form, visualize it, and formulate our questions.

It's these pragmatic topics that we'll cover while using Pandas, a popular package for manipulation of heterogeneous and labeled data, and Altair, a new and not-yet popular package for creating interactive visualizations. To keep things exciting, we'll be using a real-world data-set with local relevance and profound policy consequences: a database of traffic stops made by police officers in the state of Maryland, made publicly available by the Stanford Open Policing Project.

This presentation is beginner-friendly and will be of interest to those who are interested in 1) data analysis in Pandas, 2) hot new Python visualization libraries, 3) the dangers that lurk in real-world data, 4) informed debate about policing, 5) Python in public policy research.

For those who want to follow along, data and code is available as a Github repository or as a zip file from http://pandas-talk.ilyagerner.com/

About the Presenter: Ilya Gerner is a political consultant and co-founder of Legisltr, a startup offering bill tracking, legislative vote scorecards, and opposition research to campaign professionals and government affairs specialists. Please forgive his "Lawn-Guyland" (Long Island, NY) accent, for he is relatively new to the DMV.

FAQ:

Do I need to bring my laptop? Should I download any packages ahead of time?

You’re more than welcome to follow along without a laptop, but executing code during the talk might be more fun! To get started, check out the GitHub repo here: https://github.com/ilyagerner/pandas .

Is this talk appropriate for beginners?

Absolutely! Plus, you might have important insights to share even if you don’t 100% follow the code.

Food:
We will have Food, Snacks, and Beverages

Price:
THIS IS A FREE EVENT.

About Our Sponsors:

FlatIron

Flatiron School trains passionate, creative people so they can launch a new career in code, data science, or UX/UI design. It’s their goal to show students that programming is more than the mechanics of writing code or a route to a fulfilling career. It’s a collaborative endeavor that can help them find work they love.

To learn more about FlatIron, visit: http://flatironschool.com/

hatch I.T.

Hatch IT connects local engineers, startups, investors, and corporate leaders who share a common vision of strengthening the startup & innovation landscape in the DMV region. They specialize in software development, mobile development & product design recruitment for commercial product startups & small businesses in the DMV region.

To learn more about hatch I.T., visit: https://www.hatchit.io/

WeWork

WeWork transforms buildings into beautiful, collaborative workspaces. Get the space, community, and services you need to make a life, not just a living.