Online Dating: Can big data find your soul mate?

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Big data analytics and algorithms are widely used to match users of online dating sites. And Internet dating isn’t just about casual hookups. According to the University of Chicago psychologist John T. Cacioppo, more than one-third of couples who married in the United States from 2005 - 2012 met online.But do these algorithms really work? In this panel discussion, representatives from Match.com, Zoosk, The League and the Wall Street Journal will explore how big data is changing our romantic lives.

Speakers for panel discussion:

Elizabeth Dwoskin, Journalist at The Wall Street Journal

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Elizabeth Dwoskin writes about technology from The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau. She covers the growing world of big data across many industries, from health care to politics to advertising. Topics include privacy, innovation, and how predictions and algorithms are changing the way we live. Previously, Ms. Dwoskin was a staff writer for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, covering policy and politics in Washington, D.C.

Ms. Dwoskin has a B.A. from Columbia University and has a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is a two-time finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.

Viral Parikh, Senior Data Scientist at Match.com

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Viral Parikh is a Sr. Data Scientist at Match.com, where his main focus is on developing customer and product acquisition / retention models, matching algorithms and mining profile text and photographs to extract actionable insights and enable a personalized dating experience. Before moving into the Online Dating space, Viral was building attribution models to understand media effectiveness for his clients (Disney Parks & Resorts) at Merkle. He regularly participates in kaggle competitions and enjoys biking and tennis in his free time.

Prior to his experience in the Industry, he completed MS in Industrial Engineering and Applied Statistics at Arizona State University.

Mike Riccio, VP of Engineering at Zoosk

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Mike Riccio is the Vice President of Engineering at Zoosk. Prior to joining Zoosk, Mike served as the Vice President of Engineering and Architecture at the global interactive entertainment company Electronic Arts (EA). During his time at EA, Mike helped spearhead a radical shift in how EA’s customers accessed video games—the evolution from packaged goods to an always-on, cross-platform, social system.

Before his time at EA, Mike provided architecture vision and leadership to various enterprises and co-founded Pogo.com, the top-ranked online casual game destination worldwide that was later acquired by EA.

He has a MS in Information Networking and a BS in Applied Math and Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. Outside the office, Mike likes to tinker with home automation, play poker, and do all things Disney with his family.

Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO of The League

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Amanda Bradford is the Founder & CEO of The League, a dating app that combines data and social graphs from both Facebook and LinkedIn to offer separation between your work and personal life and much more context about a potential match.

After graduating from Carnegie Mellon with an engineering degree, Amanda worked at both Salesforce and Google in a variety of technical and product roles before attending Stanford Graduate School of business, where the idea for The League was born.

The League raised $2.1M in seed funding in January, is in private beta in SF and NYC, and has over 100,000 people eagerly waiting for The League to launch in their city.

Agenda:

6:00-6:45pm: Registration and pre-party
6:45-7:15pm: Presentations
7:15-8:15pm: Panel discussion and Q&A session
8:15-9:00pm: Networking session