PyData Southampton - 3rd Meetup

Venue: Carnival House, 100 Harbour Parade, Southampton, SO15 1ST

Please note:

1. 🚨🚨🚨A valid photo ID is required by building security. You MUST use your initial/first name and surname on your meetup profile, otherwise, you will NOT make it on the guest list! 🚨🚨🚨
2. This event follows the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct, please familiarise yourself with it before the event.

If your RSVP status says "You're going" you will be able to get in. No further confirmation required. You will NOT need to show your RSVP confirmation when signing in.
If you can no longer make it, please unRSVP as soon as you know so we can assign your place to someone on the waiting list.

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Code of Conduct:
This event follows the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct, please familiarise yourself with it before the event. Please get in touch with the organisers with any questions or concerns regarding the Code of Conduct.
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There will be pizza & drinks, generously provided by our host, Carnival UK.
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Main Talks
1️⃣ OpenAI's Function Calling: What is it and how can we take advantage of it? - Anoop Tatti
Imagine if ChatGPT could seamlessly schedule meetings, offer real-time public transport updates or provide current weather information. Well, thanks to OpenAI's 'Function Calling' feature, all of this is possible.

Here's how Function Calling works: We define available functions and train the OpenAI model to recognise user intent. When a user asks a question or makes a request, the model identifies their intention and matches it to the appropriate function. The system then executes the function, producing raw output, which is transformed into a user-friendly natural language response by the model. This session explores Function Calling through practical examples, including a 'Digital Personal Assistant' for calendar and task retrieval and a chatbot providing real-time TfL (Transport for London) underground train information. Demonstrations will take place in Teams and on SharePoint pages, providing attendees with a solid understanding of Function Calling.

2️⃣ Building a data science solution for an NGO when you don’t know what infrastructure it will run on: a case study predicting tutor supply and demand mismatch - Adam Hill
The Brilliant Club is an NGO focused on two goals: student access and student success. TBC wants more pupils from less advantaged backgrounds to access university; their aim is to work with 100,000 pupils on their flagship Scholars Programme over the next five years.
To achieve these aims, TBC needs to ensure that they have the right number of PhD researcher volunteers in the right areas to meet school demand.

A team of 6 DataKind volunteers worked to explore the data, and make a maintainable, functional set of models that could help in the prediction of TBC’s tutor supply and demand using the latest available data and visualising it in an easy-to-use manner. We built our solution around various open-source tools and technologies including: Python; Scikit-learn; Jupyter; Docker; PostgreSQL; dbt; Prefect. In this talk, we will discuss how we designed the solution to deliver it in an accessible way and demonstrate how we implemented the various technologies.

Lightning Talks ⚡
⚡1️⃣ Cruising Through Soton: Optimising Your Journey for a Satisfyingly Speedier Commute - Austen Wallis
⚡2️⃣ TBA

Logistics
Doors open at 6.30 pm, talks start at 7 pm. For those who wish to continue networking and chatting we will move to a nearby pub/bar for drinks from 9 pm.

Please unRSVP in good time if you realise you can't make it. We're limited by building security on the number of attendees, so please free up your place for your fellow community members!

Follow @pydatasoton (https://twitter.com/pydatasoton) for updates and early announcements. We are also on Instagram/Threads as @pydatasoton; and find us on LinkedIn.