#TALKS168 Anomaly Detection & Traveling Devs

In this edition of Talks by Softbinator, we will cover:
📌 The generalization capabilities of ML algorithms when data is changing in unsupervised approaches
📌 Why, after traveling the world, the best place to grow and support others' growth is your own country

Who are the speakers, and what will you learn?

✅ Elena Burceanu - Machine Learning Researcher at BitDefender
Last year, Elena defended her PhD in Computer Vision at the University of Bucharest, under Marius Lerodeanu's supervision. Her current research interest is in "Generalization problems under Distribution Shifts". Together with the Theoretical Research Team in AI at Bitdefender, she publishes her work at top venues in the Machine Learning field and aims to become a leading voice in top international research. You can learn more about Elena's achievements at https://ilarele.github.io/

Recently, there has been an effervescence in the research community on the generalization capabilities of Machine Learning algorithms when data is changing (for example, gradually over time or suddenly between medical devices from different vendors). But the problem is currently discussed only in supervised scenarios. We are interested in analyzing it from the unsupervised approaches point of view (namely, the anomaly detection task).

In her talk, Elena will introduce the problem and its implication, and she will present on this subject two papers from her team's theoretical research at Bitdefender (accepted at NeurIPS 2022).

✅ Marius Dumitran - Lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Forbes 30 under 30
Marius is currently a lecturer at the University of Bucharest. As a software engineer, he worked at Google Zurich, also Palantir London, and interned at Facebook, Google, and Twitter. As a teacher, he received a "Forbes 30 under 30" award for education, and he is also the first Romanian coach to receive a "Coach 5 year+ Award" from the ICPC Foundation. He teaches Data Structures and Algorithms and is in charge of the ICPC Team at the University, but what he enjoys the most is witnessing and supporting young bright minds in their development and maybe convincing some of his students to stay and flourish in their own country. He is also an avid traveler, having visited ~55 countries, including ~15 in a 6-month backpacking trip.

In his presentation, Marius will talk about traveling as a student, traveling for the job, traveling in between jobs, and quitting to travel 🙂. His personal journey took him from teaching at the Sava College to interning in the Silicon Valley and SF to studying in France and Germany via Machu Picchu and the jungles of Peru, then to London to work for Palantir and then to Zurich for Google, then to quitting to backpack 6 months around the globe. After hiking active volcanoes in Guatemala, and swimming with sharks in French Polynesia and Belize, he came back to teach. Trips to Poland and Bangladesh soon followed. Where will your trip take you?

Where?

🗓️ See you on February 2nd at Mojo Music Club. The event is free, but registration is required as spots are limited. So please fill out this form ASAP: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talks168-anomaly-detection-traveling-devs-tickets-524524776727

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#Talks168 will be in Romanian.