└── README.md /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Lightning Talks - March 24th, 2020 2 | 3 | This repo will host PPT and other artifacts for this [Lightning talk session](https://www.meetup.com/Pasadena-Python-Devs/events/269430139/) 4 | 5 | 6 | ### Talk Abstracts and Biographies 7 | 8 | #### Keep Calm and Set Things on Fire by Andrea Kao 9 | 10 | Remote communication is often in written in form, so let's examine what it does and doesn't "document". Let's also examine the choices we make when we write a message to another person, and what actually happens in the process of sending and receiving written communication. 11 | 12 | Biography 13 | I write software documentation and sometimes, code. I am an active participant in and organizer for the Write the Docs community. 14 | 15 | #### Unsustainable & unmaintainable: how to do all the things by Cam Sexton 16 | 17 | Cam will discuss some important lessons learned while leading a volunteer software project - Railstats LA. We will cover: mental burden, the temptation of libraries, attracting effective contributors, keeping it simple and scalable. 18 | 19 | Biography 20 | Cam Sexton is the lead developer of Railstats LA (https://la.railstats.org), an open source project that tracks and reports metro train performance in Los Angeles. He also works as a Software Engineer at Stem Disintermedia, a digital music distribution company based in West Hollywood. 21 | 22 | #### Probabilistic Data Structures by Kyle Polich 23 | 24 | Probabilistic data structures are are space efficient tools that can keep track of a surprising amount of details with a small memory footprint as long as you doing mind being only epsilon close to 100% accurate. 25 | 26 | Biography 27 | Kyle Polich hosts the Data Skeptic podcast and leads a boutique consulting team that helps medium enterprise deploy machine learning in the cloud. 28 | 29 | #### Why Smart Statistics Are the Key to Fighting Churn in a Subscription Business by Dr. Kanad Basu 30 | 31 | There are countless companies currently in (or trying to get into) the subscription space. The subscribers are the heart and soul of any subscription business. Member Churn is one of the key indicators for measuring success in the subscription business. In this talk, I will reveal some interesting insights based on a data-driven approach to fight churn. 32 | 33 | Biography 34 | I am a data scientist with 7+ years of post PhD experience in solving academic and business problems using different machine learning and advanced statistical techniques. I hold a PhD in Applied and Computational Mathematics and did my Post Doctorate training in Statistical Modeling. 35 | 36 | Before joining industry, I was involved with academic research in ML/AI. I have extensive experience in analyzing large datasets and building predictive models. 37 | 38 | I have authored 17+ peer reviewed publications and a book chapter in “Modeling High Frequency Financial Data”. I am frequently invited as a speaker in many national and international Math/Data science conferences. 39 | 40 | #### Python in the Time of Corona by Murriel McCabe 41 | 42 | Many workers in the tech industry have had the luxury of being able to work remotely, whether occasionally remote or completely remote. In this time of (novel) Coronavirus/COVID-19, an unprecedented number of companies are sending large if not entire portions of their workforce home to work remotely and prevent spread of the virus. 43 | 44 | Given this current state of affairs: 45 | How do we manage our time? How do we stay motivated to continue working on aspirational projects or self-directed learning when our home and work life and our schedules are upside down? How do we manage anxiety and mental health with so much uncertainty? These are questions that I have been attempting to answer for myself as I start a new job at a new company in the midst of all this and find myself trying to understand this brave new sick world. 46 | 47 | While I am still trying to navigate the answers to these questions, I can talk about my own methods and some mini Python learning projects that I am attempting to work on in the meantime. 48 | 49 | Biography 50 | Murriel is an engineer by trade, and has held many other roles in tech throughout her career, including systems administrator, IT Manager, and freelance technology services consultant, across industries ranging from manufacturing to Virtual Reality to IoT. 51 | 52 | An avid volunteer, Murriel previously served as managing director of Girls in Tech LA, and has organized many technology and mentorship events with various non-profit and community organizations. In addition to being a tech enthusiast, tinkerer, and serial hobbyist, her offline adventures can find her in a vegetable and succulent garden or paddling into the Southern California surf. 53 | 54 | 55 | #### The Age of the Microinfluencer: How to Grow Your Online Community by Elize 56 | 57 | Now more than ever, it's important to grow an online network and share your craft with the world! I'll discuss how you can breakthrough initial posting fears and grow your online network through social media. 58 | 59 | Biography 60 | Elizé is a UX Designer, Educator, and Content Creator. She grew her Instagram channel from 0 to 9K in 4 months and has since been selected as one of 12 official Adobe XD Instructors, coached and mentored hundreds of designers, and been invited to design events as a featured speaker. 61 | 62 | 63 | #### Pomodoro is Agile by John Mitchell 64 | 65 | Like Agile for Devs, Pomodoro is a simple technique to get things done. It overcomes procrastination, gets you into the flow state, and ensures you deliver high-value tasks first. 66 | 67 | Biography 68 | John studies software and systems. He's been programming and teaching Python for 20 years. 69 | 70 | 71 | #### Why docker is great by Ravin Kumar 72 | 73 | Will be briefly talking through how docker is super useful 74 | 75 | Biography 76 | Data Person doing data stuff 77 | 78 | 79 | #### Does Python know Linguistics? An NLP overview by Jose Montoro 80 | 81 | A quick review of what NLP can do for you, from the point of view of a Python user and a linguist. 82 | 83 | We'll shortly review what NLP techniques are present in the Python ecosystem (tokenization, Named Entity recognition, sentiment analysis, etc). Special attention will be put into how linguistic knowledge is applied to such libraries. 84 | 85 | Biography 86 | Jose Montoro is a Language Engineer working at Apple in the Siri organization, in text-to-speech and automatic speech recognition systems. He's currently transitioning from his background in Computational Linguistics to full-blown NLP engineer. Interested in all things text. Drop him a note if you're in the field and open to connect! 87 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------