November Meet-up

1800--1830h: Refreshments
1830--1900h: Andrew Blance, Waterstons
1915--2000h: Matthew & Keith, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Newcastle

Andrew Blance, Data Scientist @ Waterstons
Getting Insight from Anything
The drive to make data-driven decisions shapes the strategy of many companies. However, this dream has a problem: just because you need to make a decision does not mean you have the data to make it! Often these decisions require data from sources typically unconnected to the internet. This could be an architect determined to understand how the construction of her building is progressing, or a manufacturer wanting to live their best Industry 4.0 life. It's not uncommon for companies to find this journey to become “smart” is a long one - with difficult ethical ground to cover, or prohibitive costs associated with procuring the necessary equipment. However, the development of cheap and accessible IoT devices allows for the gathering of data from anything to be more within reach than ever.

This talk will look at efforts within Waterstons to build proof-of-concept IoT systems. We will discuss our (continuing) journey of using and managing hardware and the problems we faced along the way. The main focus however will be the software stack: Azure IoT Hub, Streaming Analytics, and the potential Azure ML offerings that can be used to gain valuable insight from this data.

Speaker bio: Dr Andrew Blance is a Data Scientist at Waterstons, a North-East based IT consultancy. His role primarily focuses on developing the data team’s data science offering. This is split between data science as a service and using MLOps to enable teams to deploy and scale models they have created. He also spends time developing innovation projects - dabbling in IoT, computer vision, and VR - intending to broaden the range of technology Waterstons can offer clients. Honestly, though, his opus is Brains on the Outside, a podcast about pitching ridiculous business ideas. Stop reading this, and go listen to it!

Matthew & Keith @ Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Newcastle
The AI and Data Science challenges facing UK defence and security, and the work of the Defence Science & Technology Laboratory
Abstract TBC

News and Announcements
Have a news item, or announcement you'd like making about upcoming data events or job opportunities in the North East? Comment below or email me at **neds@jumpingrivers.com** and we'll do our best to circulate this information at the end of the session.

NB Our meetup talks and workshops are now separate meetup.com events, and as such should be RSVP'd to separately. This event is for our November talks. If you would also like to attend our November workshop, please remember to RSVP to the event at meetup.com/newcastle-upon-tyne-data-science-meetup/events/288620121/! Thanks.