New events – Data & Sustainability. Episode 1: The role of Data in the Decarbonization and Energy Transition

How data is being harnessed to tackle some of the biggest challenges our planet is facing? At BcnAnalytics we are organizing an informative meet-up series exploring the vital role of data in the sustainability movement.

In our events we will feature thought leaders and industry experts who are leveraging data to create a more sustainable future. They will share their experiences and inspire us in the path towards Data-Driven Solutions for a More Sustainable World. We will cover a broad variety of topics such as decarbonization, predictive modeling for climate risk, blue economy and many others.

Our first event will be about the role data in the Decarbonization. Where are we now? How does the future look like? What is the role of Agriculture? Can Data help to accelerate Decarbonization? According to International Energy Agency (IEA), global energy-related CO2 emissions grew in 2022 by 0.9%, or 321 million tonnes, reaching a new high of more than 36.8 billion tonnes. Emissions still remain on an unsustainable growth trajectory, and experts are calling for stronger actions to accelerate the clean energy transition to meet energy and climate goals.

In this first event we will have Anne-Lise Laurain (Incubatenergy Europe) and Pablo Rosado (Our World in Data) as speakers.

Event will be on June 19th at Adevinta offices (Barcelona) and will start at 19h. We will open doors at 18:30. Do not be late!

After the talks, food and drinks will be provided so we all have time for some networking and follow-up discussions.

You can register here.

New event: Gender Gap in Data and AI

While women account for roughly 55% of university graduates their presence in STEM-related sectors like software development, engineering or analytics is significantly lower. According to various surveys from WEF, Global Gender Gap Report and BCG, women make up only between 15% to 22% of all data science professionals.

In BcnAnalytics we want to reflect on the gender gap in the field of Data Analytics and Data Science. Why is this happening? What can we do about it? So we are organizing an event that will focus on Gender Gap.

When: November 22nd, from 19h to 21h.

Where: Adevinta offices at Barcelona

As speakers, we will have Elisenda Bou-Balust (co-founder and CTO at Vilynx, now Head of Apple Media Knowledge) and Marta Cardona (Data Lead at Holaluz).

After the talks food and drinks will be provided so we all have time for some networking and follow-up discussions.

If you are interested, you can register here.

New event: Results from Datathon Against Racism

From March 25th to April 1st, we organized a Datathon Against Racism. Several teams had to build a model to classify text messages as racist or as not racist. We had great learnings and tons of fun.

Now we want to share some of the great work done during the Datathon and we have asked three of the teams to share the technical approach they took to build their NLP models and also the insights they were able to generate.

We will also explain how we prepared the Datathon with more emphasis on how built the dataset (which we will make publicly available).

When: June 28th, from 18h to 20:30

Where: Adevinta offices in Barcelona (Carrer de la Ciutat de Granada, 150).

If you want to attend in persona, please register here. You will also be able to join online (we will provide the link in the coming days)

Datathon: the kick-off

Last Friday, March 25th, we had the inauguration event of our Datathon against racism. We had a full-house, with members of the 10 teams which will be competing, representatives of all sponsors and also members of several organizations fighting against racism.

After a short introduction we got two great speeches by Ténzul Zamora (founder and director of The Crownz Project, vice president of SIETAR España and GdT Antiracism of PSC) and Adam Majó, (Director General per a la promoció i defensa dels Drets Humans at Generalitat de Catalunya). Then our sponsors (Adevinta, Colt Technology Services, Digital Future Society and Holaluz) had the chance to share a few messages. After that we explained the Data Challenge to all participants. And finally time for beers and pizza!

You can watch the event in the link below

Datathon against racism: Details


We are almost ready for our Datathon about racism.

10 teams will be competing to build a build a model that can automatically classify text messages as Racist or not Racist. We will be offering two prizes each of them of 1.500€ . The kick-off will take place on March 25th at Adevinta offices. You can get more details in this page.

This Datathon is possible thanks to the support of our SPONSORS:

Adevinta

Colt Technology Services

Holaluz

Digital Future Society

This Datathon was also possible thanks to the implication and collaboration of the following organizations

Sietar

The Crownz Project

CNAAE

A new datathon is coming

As you know we had to cancel our meetups due to Covid-19. Hopefully we will be able to have them back very soon.

In the meantime we have been quietly working to prepare a new Datathon.

As a topic we have decided to focus on Hate Speech, a critical issue.We are really excited about this Datathon and we plan to celebrate it between March 25th and April 1st with the support of Adevinta, Holaluz and CNAAE (Comunidad Negra Africana y Afrodescendiente en España).

You can find all the details here.

New BcnAnalytics event: Causality Part II

UPDATE: This event has been postponed

We are pleased to announce our next event “Causality – Part II” on March 16th, 19h at Adevinta offices in Barcelona. Doors will open at 18:45.

In our previous session about Causality, we introduced the topic and we reviewed when and how we could use A/B testing and causal inference models.  In this second session, we will first have Jordi Vitrià and Àlvaro Parafita presenting their insights about “Explainability with Causal Counterfactuals”. After their presentation, we will have a round table with Montserrat Guillén and Llorenç Badiella, who will share their perspectives on some relevant issues such as how causal inference can be applied to business.

You can register here.

Jordi Vitrià is a Full Professor at the Mathematics and Computer Science Department, Universitat de Barcelona. His research interests focus on enriching deep learning models with explainability and uncertainty modelling. He is leading the DataScience@UB Tecnio Center, a multidisciplinary group of researchers that are interested in knowledge transfer.

Álvaro Parafita is a Data Scientist and Ph.D. student in Deep Learning Explainability. He has worked as a Machine Learning consultant for Ofertia and Satellogic. His most recent research focuses on the use of Causal Theory for generative modelling, black-box explainability and algorithmic fairness.

Montserrat Guillen is Full Professor at the Department of Econometrics of the University of Barcelona. She is the Director of the Riskcenter-IREA at UB. She is an honorary visiting professor at the Faculty of Actuarial Science and Insurance at City, University of London. She works on a project funded by Fundacion BBVA research for big data and she was awarded by  ICREA Academia

Llorenç Badiella is the Director of the Statistical Consulting Service (SCS) at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) since 2011, where he coordinates a team of 8 statisticians/mathematicians offering consulting services to academic research groups and public or private companies. He is also an Adjunct Professor of the Mathematics Department of the UAB.

 

This talk is co-organized with Barcelona Data Science and Machine Learning Meetup.

This event could not be possible without the collaboration of Adevinta. We will meet at Adevinta offices in Barcelona at Carrer Ciutat de Granada 150. Once there, you will have to go to Auditori on the 9th Floor.

VIDEO OF OUR LAST EVENT

On November 25th we had a great event to discuss about Causality.

As speakers, we had Bartek Skorulski and Aleix Ruiz de Villa. Now you can watch the whole session in the video below.

You can also review the deck speakers presented through this link.

As usual big thanks to our sponsors Movistar Centre and Adevinta Spain.

Enjoy the content and stay tuned: Part II is coming very soon. May the data be with you.

New event: Causal Inference Part I

We are pleased to announce our next event “Causal Inference – Part I” on November 25th, 19h at Movistar Centre. Doors will open at 18:45.

Machine learning models or A/B testing are useful methods to make business decisions. But sometimes they are not feasible or present some limitations. Moreover, in many cases, we need to address questions such as: what would have happened if instead of doing X we had done Y? Can we have an estimate of the effect of one variable into another? In these cases, causal inference becomes the best option. And unsurprisingly, companies such as Uber are using causal inference as part of their data science efforts.

We are organizing two events to properly discuss the potential of causal inference and when it makes sense to apply it. In this first session, Bartek Skorulski and Aleix Ruiz de Villa will show the whole spectrum of causality, from AB tests to causal inference. You can register here

Aleix Ruiz de Vila holds a Ph.D. in mathematics. He has been head of data science at LaVanguardia, SCRM – Lidl, and Onna. He’s a co-organizer of Barcelona Data Science and Machine Learning Meetup and board member of Societat Catalana de Matemàtiques. He currently teaches at BData and Uoc and he is a data science consultant specialized in causal inference. Check https://medium.com/tag/casual-causal-inference/latest for an introduction to causal inference

Bartek Skorulski, Data Scientist and Ph.D. in Dynamical System. He works as a Senior Data Scientist, Recommender System Lead in Telefonica Innovation Alpha. Previously, he was working as Staff Insight Analyst in Schibsted, Data Science Team Lead in Lidl-SCRM and Data Scientist in King. Moreover, he has many years of experience as an academic researcher and teacher. Now he collaborates with the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, University of Barcelona and Kschool teaching Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Data Management courses. He is also co-organizer of Barcelona Data Science and Machine Learning Meetup.

This talk is co-organized with Barcelona Data Science and Machine Learning Meetup.

This event could not be possible without the collaboration of Movistar Centre.

Recommended event: La Funció de les Dades. Jornada SCM-SoCE sobre dades i empresa.

La Societat Catalana de Matemàtiques conjuntament amb la Societat Catalana d’Estadística organitza una jornada dedicada a promoure l’activitat de les matemàtiques i l’estadística en el món empresarial. El títol d’aquesta jornada és La Funció de les Dades. Les places són limitades i cal enregistrar-se prèviament en aquest enllaç.

La primera part de la jornada (matí) estarà formada per tallers d’una hora que tenen l’objectiu de donar eines, algunes més conegudes i d’altres de menys, que ajudin a les empreses a treballar amb les seves dades.

En la segona part (tarda) tindrem xerrades amb gent del món empresarial que ens explicarà la seva visió i experiència al voltant de l’ús de les matemàtiques i l’estadística en el món empresarial.

La Jornada tindrà lloc el 14 de novembre a la sala Prat de la Riba, IEC. Carrer del Carme, 47.