Myself and the other organisers would like to thank everyone who made it to the second session of 'Inspiring Women in Data Science', where we were learning how to start thinking like a Data Scientist. Once again there was a great turnout of enthusiastic and engaged women; you inspire us with your passion and thirst to learn!
After arriving and having a chance to meet each other, we moved up to our classroom for the evening where Laura introduced the group to our new members. This was followed by an explanation of how the session was going to work, and some exemplar client Data Science questions to get us all thinking.
The group started discussing in their groups how they could approach the questions with a view to using data science to best answer them, but first we needed to dig deep to find out what the question was really asking. The discussions going on around the room seemed really proactive, and we were very happy to see everyone get stuck in.
Our co-organiser and Data Science mentor Bianca then came to the front to pick apart the questions and ask the teams if they had posed one significant question; "Why?" We finally began to think like real Data Scientists!
Laura continued the session with a short introduction to Supervised and Unsupervised learning using the example of classifying iris flowers.
After this the group was told to return to thinking about the original questions posed to them, only this time they had data! Teams looked at data stored on the Gov.uk website and each discussed a plan as to whether they would use Supervised or Unsupervised Learning to form the basis of a model which would work to solve the problems they had formulated.
Discussion resumed, with mentors Laura, Bianca and Darshna spending time with each group to hear their thoughts and give pointers.
As discussions died down, Laura asked each group to share what they had talked about with their Team. Everyone had amazing ideas, with such a diverse range of viewpoints, it was really an enriching discussion!
This concluded the session, closing for drinks and networking.
We'd like to thank all the members of IWDS who made it down; its truly your enthusiasm that makes these sessions so enjoyable. We hope to see you again next time!
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