PyData Exeter #11: October 8th @ Innovation Hub

Join us for another evening of pizza, beer, and great talks at PyData Exeter! We’ve got three fascinating sessions lined up, covering everything from workplace dynamics to transport accessibility and AI for water infrastructure.

Agenda:

• 18:45 Doors open
• 19:15 Talks start
• 20:30 Talks finish - stick around for a drink and networking at the CUCKOO taproom across the road.

Talk #1 Dr Daniel Maxwell, "Get me answers, Data Monkey!": how can we navigate management who don't get data?
How do you communicate the value of data when management doesn’t “get it”? Daniel explores strategies for bridging the gap between technical insight and leadership expectations, sharing lessons on influence, communication, and impact.

Talk #2 Zihao Chen, Measuring the dynamics of healthcare accessibility by public transport in England: a comparison of scheduled and observed travel time variability
Fair access to healthcare depends not just on distance, but on how reliable public transport really is. Traditional studies often rely on scheduled travel times, missing the variability people actually face. Zihao presents a new approach using real-time bus data to compare scheduled vs observed travel times to hospitals and GPs across England. The results show systematic gaps between expected and observed travel times, revealing new dimensions of inequality and highlighting the importance of operational data for more evidence-based transport and service planning.

Talk #3 Kalyani Bhase, Water Level Estimation in Sewage Pipes Using Texture Based Methods and Machine Learning Algorithms
Sewage pipes may not be the most glamorous subject, but they are critical to how our cities function. Me and my team have been developing tools to automatically annotate faults in sewage pipes. One of the functionalities we explored is to predict and record water level during the surveys, since it affects how much of the pipe can be inspected. In this talk, I will share the approaches we have explored and some insights into their effectiveness and the challenges we faced.

Sponsors:
NumFOCUS
Exeter Innovation Hub
Butterfly Data - https://butterflydata.co.uk
Mekion - https://www.mekion.co.uk
CODE OF CONDUCT
The PyData Code of Conduct governs this meetup ([https://pydata.org/code-of-conduct/](https://pydata.org/code-of-conduct/)). To discuss any issues or concerns relating to the code of conduct or behaviour of anyone at the PyData meetup, please contact the PyData Exeter organisers, or you can submit a report of any potential Code of Conduct violation directly to NumFOCUS (https://numfocus.typeform.com/to/ynjGdT)