[2024.10] Data Umbrella Newsletter: October 2024

We organize data science events for the community.

Oct 01, 2024

Data Umbrella is a non-profit global community for underrepresented persons in data science. We organize online data science events for the community. All levels are welcome. Our Code of Conduct applies to all of our spaces.

Announcements

Community News

book: Approachable Open Source

I had the absolute pleasure of reading an advanced copy of Approachable Open Source by Brian Muenzenmeyer and I can't recommend it enough! This book is a culmination of years of wisdom from the open source trenches and explores the humanity at the heart of open source communities. It's a must-read for front-end developers ready to level up as contributors and maintainers

Source: Abigail Cabunoc Mayes on LinkedIn

DevelopHer is now free: Playbook for Getting Promoted

🚨 BIGGEST ANNOUNCEMENT YET! 🚨 I’m SO excited to announce that DevelopHer is now FREE for all! 🎉 My goal? To empower 100,000 women in tech to level up their careers globally! 🌍💪

This past year has been incredibly TOUGH for women in tech. 💔 We’ve seen major organizations like Women Who Code and Girls in Tech, Inc. shut down, and AnitaB.org is barely hanging on. 😔 I've felt this pain with DevelopHer too.

Source: Laura Hasson on LinkedIn

Black Women in Data Conference 2024

Data Umbrella is honored to be a Community Partner for the 2024 conference “Black Women in Data” conference.

Follow the lead organization behind BWID, DataedX Group on LinkedIn to get updates on upcoming events.

Data Umbrella’s Newsletter Spotlight

We would like to thank CodeX for recognizing and recommending Data Umbrella’s newsletter as “top newsletters recommended by our community”. Check out the all the recommended newsletters.

Source: CodeOp on LinkedIn: 🌐 Tech Newsletters Our Community Recommends! 🌐 Looking to stay ahead in…

Python Software Foundation: July Meeting Minutes

The July 2024 meeting minutes have been posted.

PyData Global 2024 (online conference) (Dec 3-5)

PyData Global 2024 is a 3-day virtual event for the international community of data scientists, data engineers, and developers of data analysis tools to share ideas and learn from each other. Deadline to submit a proposal is October 7, 2024.

PyLadiesCon 2024 (online conference) (Dec 6-8)

Attention all PyLadies community members! We’re excited to share that we are in the early stages of planning a PyLadies Conference (PyLadiesCon), a transformative event designed to promote diversity, learning, and empowerment within the Python community. 🎉

Save the date! The conference will take place on December 6th-8th, where we’ll gather together for a weekend filled with insightful talks, engaging panels, and collaborative networking opportunities.

Resources

Timestamps

CONTRIBUTE TO TIMESTAMPS: We still have about a dozen videos which need timestamps. We have instructions on how you can contribute to this project on GitHub. Help us help the community. Pick a video and get started.

Thank you to community member Sam Miyamoto for her contributions to Data Umbrella by adding timestamps to our video What is Machine Learning Security Anyway?

Call for Suggestions

Do you have suggestions for future webinar topics or speakers? Would you like to speak on a topic? For these and any other suggestions, please complete our Online Suggestion Box or email us at [email protected].

Call for Speakers

We are looking for speakers on the following topics:

Data Privacy
Data Engineering
Generative AI
Software engineering
Code quality

Email us if you are interested in speaking or have a speaker or topic suggestion: [email protected]

Join our Meetup!

Upcoming Events (free & online webinars)

Polars for Data Analysis in Python

October 8, 2024

Discover Polars, the high-performance DataFrame library revolutionizing data analysis in Python. Built on Rust, Polars offers unparalleled speed and efficiency, outperforming pandas, Dask, and even PySpark. Explore its innovative features like lazy evaluation, memory efficiency, and automatic multi-threading, designed to handle large datasets with ease.

In this session, you'll learn practical techniques for data manipulation and advanced transformations. We will demonstrate Polars' syntax and capabilities, making it accessible even if you’re new to Polars. Join us to elevate your Python data analysis to the next level.

RAGged Edge Box: A Personal AI-Powered Document Search System

October 22, 2024

One of the most popular embodiments of Generative AI are information retrieval (IR) augmented generation (RAG). Such systems use an information retrieval engine (based on semantic embeddings or keyword search) and then use a Large Language Model (LLM) to extract answers to a given query. These systems require a large amount of computation and are usually implemented in the cloud which presents data privacy issues.

In this talk we will present The RAGged Edge Box project in which basic embedding systems and small local LLMs are packaged inside a multi-platform virtual machine (VirtualBox). The system provides a Web interface that runs locally and allows access to the RAG functionality in a completely private manner. The neural networks run on a ONNX runtime and do not require a GPU. RAG code is implemented in PHP and is easy to modify, requiring a much smaller execution environment than a Python alternative.

Videos

In case you missed our recent events, the videos have been posted. Subscribe to our Data Umbrella YouTube to receive notifications when the videos premiere.

Best Practices for Creating a Data Science Team

Most data projects fail, often without reaching production or delivering business outcomes. Many companies, in their pursuit to be data-driven, adopt an "upside-down approach," leading to wasted resources and no return on investment. Success hinges on four key elements: a strong data culture, the right problem, accurate data, and the right people.

This session defines the "upside-down approach," explore what constitutes a good data culture, and discuss identifying the right business problems plus offering strategies for maintaining a robust data culture to ensure long-term success.

Featured Resources

Video Playlists

Data Umbrella Resources

Visit our blog site: blog.dataumbrella.org, and see articles written by our community members on their experience in recent sprints.
We have a Job Board. You can post jobs (for free)
Our Data Umbrella YouTube is growing! Subscribe to our channel to receive notifications of when our event videos are posted.

Accessibility Corner

Accessibility Update: Closed Captioning

Our webinars have closed captioning available! This feature makes our live events more accessible to those with hearing needs and for folks in general who like to see the transcript live during presentation to fully process information.