Women in analytics

Data science conventions are a great way to learn more and to build professional connections. Here are 8 data science conventions to attend in 2020.

2020’s finally arrived and it brought along quite a few conferences covering big data, data analytics, machine learning, and everything to do with data science. Here’s a list of 8 data science conventions to attend in 2020. I’ve tried to make them different than the list I made for 2019, as most conferences tend to occur every year, but some are too good to pass up.

List of data science conventions for 2020

Now you can find a conference for 2020 based on the region of the world you’re in. Take a look at the lists I made for:

• Asia
• North America
• Europe (coming soon)
• Middle East/Africa (coming soon)
• Latin and South America (coming soon)

1) The data science conference

This conference is mentioned first because it is completely vendor, sponsor, and recruiter free. It’s the conference without distractions. There’s no selling, only learning.

Going into the second half of its fourth year, 2019’s conference was held in Boston, and the conference moves locations from year to year, although, from their records, you can almost expect it to take place in Chicago at least once every year. 2019’s speaker list included data behemoths, such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, while also mixing in speakers from the University of Chicago and USC. This fits right along with the rave reviews it received from attendees, saying the conference is for professionals, by professionals.

Dates: May 14-15, 2020

Location: Chicago, IL

Venue: Gleacher Center

Early registration is now open.

2) useR! 2020

useR! 2019 took place a few weeks ago in Toulouse, France. So it’s understandable that I wasn’t able to find a whole lot of information about the 2020 conference.

Having said that, useR! has been taking place every year since it began in 2004. Conferences have occurred in both Europe and the United States. The most recent data science convention had an impressive list of keynote speakers,ranging from the CTO of RStudio to a Marine Data Scientist at NCEAS. If you’re interested in all things R, you should definitely check out this conference.

Dates: July 7-10, 2020

Location: St. Louis, Missouri

Venue: TBA

Registraion opens January 15, 2020.

3) Women in analytics conference

The Women in Analytics Conference has a mission to “provide visibility to the women making an impact in the analytics space and provide a platform for them to lead the conversations around the advancements of analytical research, development, and application”.

The 2020 speaker list for this conference hasn’t been released yet, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get excited about it. Going into its fourth year, you’ll be able to learn about some of the hottest trends in analytics as well as network with students and working professionals.

 

Dates: June 3-5, 2020

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Venue: Greater Columbus Convention Center & Hyatt Regency Columbus

Registration is now open.

4) London AI finance summit

Specific to the financial sector, the London AI Finance Summit is out to show you the emerging trends of deep learning in Finance. You’ll hear talks from a variety of speakers. Previous speakers came from companies like Visa, Google Cloud, and Deutsche Bank, as well as from universities including Kings College London and the University of Oxford.

Dates: 31 March – 1 April 2020

Location: London, UK

Venue: Broadgate Business Center

Early-Bird passes are now available.

5) RE•WORK London AI summit

Because I’m a Marketing Manager, I’m going to be a little biased towards this one. Put on by RE•WORK, the London AI Summit includes AI in Marketing, AI in Retail and Deep Learning tracks. Last years list of speakers included people from Amazon, Vodafone, and Google Assistant. It’s hard not to get excited about the future AI has in the above mentioned fields, especially with personal assistants and consumer tracking. #reworkAI

Dates: September 24-25, 2020

Location: London, UK

Venue: TBA

Registration is still closed, but you can join the waitlist.

6) Think 2020

Hosted by IBM, Think 2020 is the premier conference for all things AI and computer science, especially if you’re interested in everything IBM is doing. You will have the opportunity to network with experts and industry leaders while listening to talks from some of the worlds most influential people in tech. At Think 2019, Joe Montana, Tony Hawk, and Tiffany Pham all gave talks that I would have loved to participate in. Out of all the conferences on this list, I believe Think 2020 will have the most interesting speaker list.

Dates: May 4-7, 2020

Location: San Francisco

Venue: TBA

Registration is now open.

7) SIGKDD 2020

SIGKDD 2020 is a conference on knowledge discovery and data mining. It’s one of the premier conferences “bringing together researchers and practitioners” from interdisciplinary backgrounds. Last year, in Anchorage, Alaska, there were two keynote speakers: Peter Lee of Microsoft Research and Cynthia Rudin from Duke University. This conference is focused more on discussion and workshops, as it’s main focus is to bring together data scientists to “discuss, address and advance the application of data science” for the betterment of society.

Dates: August 22-27, 2020

Location: San Diego, California

Venue: San Diego Convention Center

Registration has not opened yet.

8) AnalytiX – 2020

Alright, I’m not just putting AnalytiX here because I fell in love with Kyoto when I visited back in 2016. It’s because of their long list of confirmed speakers who are university professors. These professors aren’t all from the same country. Russia, China, Japan, and The Netherlands are only four of a diverse list. If you’re in Asia, make sure to give this conference a good look before traveling somewhere else.

Dates: March 5-7, 2020

Location: Kyoto, Japan

Venue: Kyoto International Conference Center (ICC Kyoto)

Registration is now open.

Other conferences to consider in 2020

• Open Data Science Conference (ODSC)
• The European R Users Meeting (eRum)
• JuliaCon 2020
• Strata Data Conference
• Women in Data Science (WiDS)
• Gartner Data & Anlytics Summit
• Transforming Data with Intelligence

 

Do you want to learn data science? Check out the data science bootcamp program preferred by working professionals!

North America (the USA and Canada) has a crazy amount of data science conferences to choose from. Here are 6 conferences you should consider attending.

There is an abundance of events to attend so make sure to do your homework. I’ve also included resources at the end of the article if you’d like to look at other options.

Maybe North America isn’t the region you’re interested in? Don’t worry, I’ve also written about conferences to attend in other regions of the world:

• Asia
• Europe (in progress)
• Latin and South America (in progress)
• The Middle East and Africa (in progress)

1.  Women in analytics

This conference was also featured in my list for 2020, so it’s no surprise that I also included it here.

Women in Analytics (WIA) is all about providing “visibility to the women making an impact in the analytics space and provide a platform for them to lead the conversations around the advancements of analytical research, development, and application,”. The conference has grown every year since its founding in 2016, now taking 3 days to accommodate all the speakers. People of all genders are welcome to join.

Date: June 3-5, 2020

Location: Columbus, OH, USA

Venue: Greater Columbus Convention Center

2. The data science conference

Reverberating from my blog post on data science conferences to attend in 2020, I would highly suggest attending The Data Science Conference.

Vendor-free, sponsor-free, and recruiter-free, this conference isn’t trying to sell you anything. Organizers are just trying to bring together the best data science minds to help attendees learn and grow the field. Obviously, if you’re attending a conference to simply network you should pass on this event, but if you want to learn in a distraction-free environment you should highly consider attending.

Date: May 14-15, 2020

Location: Chicago

Venue: Gleacher Center

3. TDWI Las Vegas

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…Okay, that’s completely untrue because you’re going to take away a lot from Transforming Data With Intelligence (TDWI) in Las Vegas.

TDWI is one of the leading data science conferences in North America. Even if you have to travel, you should consider attending. TDWI prides itself in offering full and half-day courses, rather than the traditional 45 to 60-minute sessions, and that’s what really sets this conference apart for me.

You actually get time to pick the brain of the instructor rather than running through a session and quickly forgetting what it was about because the next one has already started. TDWI also has a Sell Your Boss template to help you get those work days off for professional development.

Date: February 9-14, 2020

Location: Las Vegas

Venue: Caesars Palace

4. Predictive Analytics World (PAW) Las Vegas

PAW typically comes to Las Vegas every year and doesn’t really need much explaining. The conference is one of the leaders in data science, machine learning, and AI coverage and is also one of the most widely attended. Formerly known as Mega-Paw and being rebranded as Machine Learning Week, you can expect the same great conference.

Machine Learning Week is technically 5 conferences and 10 workshops with 160 speakers and 150+ sessions packed into 1 week. They sell passes for all 5 days or as little as 2. It depends on what you want to get out of the week. Business, Healthcare, Finance, Industry 4.0 (IoT), and Deep Learning are the five conferences taking place during the week.

Keynotes from GM, Lyft, Google, Kennesaw State University, Manulife, and Fidelity Investments highlight the list of speakers at ML Week. If you can’t attend all 5 days, make sure to find the conference that most applies to your industry (or future industry) to get the most out of it.

Date: May 31 – June 4, 2020

Location: Las Vegas

Venue: Caesars Palace

5. ODSC East 2020

The Open Data Science Conference (ODSC) is one of the best in the world. It’s 5 days of learning, networking, developing, and building that leave you exhausted at the end of each day. It includes 8 focus areas spread across 5 days, with 3 of those days strictly for training.

The best conferences don’t earn their title without incredible content. Some of the speakers at ODSC East are from some of the most renowned universities and organizations. Google, Harvard Medical School, Bloomberg, and MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab all have representatives speaking/instructing during the conference.

The most difficult part of attending will be choosing who’s talk you should attend. That would require a whole different blog post, so I won’t get into it.

Date: April 13-17, 2020

Location: Boston, MA, USA

Venue: Boston Hynes Convention Center

6. Big data and analytics Summit Canada

What I love about the Big Data and Analytics Summit is that it’s not as big as some of the conferences previously mentioned. It won’t be as chaotic, you won’t feel overwhelmed, and you’ll get more networking time with speakers and peers.

The other great thing is the list of speakers still comes from reputable companies in the field. Representatives from McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, UPS, and Sephora will all be in attendance at the 2020 event. One speaker that I would actually like to see is  Sunanda Parthasarthy, Associate Director of  Data Science & Algorithms at Wayfair.

Sunanda is joined by Eugene Wen and Niraj Krishna for a panel titled Secure Buy-in for your Big Data Initiatives in a Data-Driven Culture. They’ll be giving tips on visualizations, value propositions, and talking about their experience. This conference looks to give you a real-world outlook on big data and data-driven cultures.

Date: February 12-13, 2020

Location: Toronto, ON

Venue: Hyatt Regency Toronto Hotel

Resource of other conferences

• KDnuggets
• Data Pipeline
• Kolabtree
• A Data Science Blog

Also, If you want to learn data science for professional development without all the distractions from a conference, consider attending a data science Bootcamp taught by Data Science Dojo.