Date: 18.07.2017

Venue: Room J002, EHB, Loughborough University

Time: 6.30pm to 9pm

What an exciting time I had hosting and networking with participants at our first DataScience and Machine Learning Meetup in Loughborough! The event took place in Room J002 at Loughborough University with 18 people in attendance (including organisers).

For a very long time I wanted to organise a Data Science workshop but I kept putting it off due to time constraints (work and other activities). Then I joined a new organisation as a Data Scientist in February this year. Joining that organisation turned out to be one of my best decisions so far. It was a breath of fresh air away from academia since most of my previous experience was in the world of academics. The company motivated me to take action and I welcomed the challenge and I love it so far. I will blog about my experiences soon so you know what I am up to. When they suggested that we should do some community stuff I suggested this meetup and it was accepted!

I set up a meet up group (https://www.meetup.com/Data-Science-and-Machine-Learning-meetup/members/?sort=join_date&desc=true ). As at today, we have over 55 members (plus me of course) and it’s growing by the day. I consulted with my colleagues in the office on the format, date, venue and other details of the first meetup. As agreed I scheduled the meetup for August 18^th and invited some of my friends that I knew would be interested. I also invited researchers and students in other departments at Loughborough University to come and participate. Initially I limited the number of possible participants to 30. Of the invitees, 22 people indicated interest and 18 of us turned up. This was a good turnout in my opinion.

Here are the pictures and details of the event.