Successful first edition of the Data Science Meetup at ANWB

The urgency to organize this Data Science Meetup was allocated during a regional meeting of CIO’s in The Hague. During this Meetup data experts and several interested parties from other organizations talked about data visualization, machine learning and the datalab during workshops. During round table sessions the participants discussed about data and GDPR, HR and recruitment and the technology. 

After a warm welcome by the host of this Meeutp Mr. Teun van der Vorm (CIO ANWB), Mr. Aske Plaat was asked to give an impression of the future of Data Science. Aske is Professor Data Science and Scientific Director at LIASC, Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science. Aske showed the audience in a short overview a lot of solutions and processes where data is the key driver and where patterns within these data help us to generate insights for the several partners of LIASC. The most important drivers of data science are: 

1. It is relatively cheap to apply machine learning, as consumers make various suggestions based on their profile. 
2. Data is everywhere, we can better describe it as a data tsunami.
3. We don’t have to tell the computer explicit how to program 

Aske talked about a data revolution. The work of data scientists will be getting more and more easier by using machine learning and artificial intelligence. After this introduction there was a lot interaction and discussion amongst the participants, several additions were made like: “What role does the software play”, “What is the esthetical part of this story”, “How about the social part “. After a short break the workshops were next on the program. Several practical cases were presented. LUMC showed us their professional approach of data visualisation. ANWB talked about their Datalab and PostNL explained how they apply machine learning. 

During the closing of the official part of the Meetup the organizers were thanked for the inspiring program. While having a drink and a small bite the participants shared their individual challenges, experiences and learnings about Data Science. We look back on a very successful first edition of a Data Science Meetup, we are already looking forward to the next session elsewhere in the country.