Topics

• From Python To Rust
  By: Kevin Nasto
  Experience Level: Intermediate
  Length: 15 Minutes
  Description:

  Ever been curious about the Rust programming language? This talk will describe the experience of going through the Advent of Code puzzles in Rust from the point of view of a Python user. Discover the alternatives to pip, functions and passing values, exception handling, and more.

• Making Scaled Data Science Work For People, And Not The Other Way Around
  By: Hugo Bowne-Anderson
  Experience Level: Intermediate
  Length: 45 Minutes
  Description:

  Data science is too often discussed as a technical discipline, rather than a social and cultural one. But the role of data science is to both inform and automate decision-making processes, which require, in turn, humans to collaborate and communicate with each other and humans to collaborate with machines, both of which have key cultural and social dimensions. Why do so many executives feel that so little of the data work in their organizations actually delivers returns? How can we reduce friction in factoring the process of turning business questions into business answers through the intermediaries of data questions and data answers? What provisions need be in place to make sure that everybody is speaking enough of the same data languages to excel at their jobs? How do we promote data literacy throughout organizations while getting the job done? This talk is aimed at data professionals (and anybody else) who want to figure out how to establish healthy and productive data cultures in the workplace. I’ll conclude by interrogating the example of establishing the culture of modern distributed data science work in organizations and all the moving parts that need to be in place for it to function.

• First Time Advent of Coding
  By: Stephen Ianno
  Experience Level: Intermediate
  Length: 10 Minutes
  Description:

  Recalling my experience doing Advent of Code for the first time. How being part of a small community of others completing each challenge really motivated me to complete each challenge myself. It was also really amazing being able to look at the solutions from other, more experienced participants and discuss the solutions through Slack. I learned a lot of really useful tricks and insight to going about challenging coding problems and it really helped prepare me for future technical interviews. It was also really great getting to interact with others during the pandemic.