A Year-In-Review | Amanda Miller, Associate Director
Looking back on the success of the National Consortium for Data Science (NCDS) in 2023, I’m proud of the 30 unique online public events we hosted. These webinars and panel discussions helped us achieve our mission to build a strong community of data science learners while providing diverse upskilling opportunities for practitioners.
While I am pleased with this growth, I can’t wait to see where 2024 takes us. Myriad funders, industry, academia and more are hungry for upskilling opportunities – more Data Matters sessions and more data science content addressing the technical and ethical aspects of AI.
Our online events frequently capture over 100, 200, even 500 registrations. We’re working hard to build a community of data science practitioners, academics and experts as well as the data science curious. Our two signature spring and fall career panels reached close to 1,000 students from coast to coast, including Georgetown University, Prairie View A&M, Rice University (Texas showed up for NCDS this year!), Duke, UC Berkeley, University of Denver, University of Memphis, the University of Central Florida, Harvard and more.
I also see the demand for upskilling through Data Matters. For the first time in 10 years, several Python courses required second sections: Intro to Python, Intermediate Python, and Deep Learning with Python. Across sectors, people find themselves in roles where their responsibility to utilize or engage with data science tools have increased but their employers have not been able to provide adequate training. To meet this need, we launched Data Matters Spring Ahead with four classes in March 2023, and we’re excited to offer Data Matters Spring Ahead once again from March 11-15, 2024 (register now). This year, we’ll offer six courses in Python and R across a wide range of topics in data science, analytics, visualization.
We’ll announce additional 2024 programming soon, but for now, we celebrate this new year with a look back at our 2023 accomplishments.
2023 NCDS Public Webinar Snapshot
1 Scaling up event focusing on higher education
2 Career development panels
2 Local Government Data and Website development opportunities
6 DataBytes events connecting entrepreneurs and academia
2 Data Matters short course educational series
Inaugural Spring Ahead Edition (4 classes, March 13-16, 2023)
Summer Edition (15 classes, 3 offered two sections due to high demand)
NCDS Highlights: DataBytes
This year saw the reboot of our popular DataBytes series, a crowning achievement of 2023. Here’s the complete list of our 2023 DataBytes events.
- Causal AI: The Key to High-Stakes Decision Making | Chris Lam, Epistamai
- The Risks of Facial Recognition Technology: Dismantling the First Amendment Defense | Talya White, NYU Law
- AI in Target Identification and Drug Discovery: Transforming the Future of Medicine | Kimberly Robasky, Arrakis Therapeutics
- AI Ethics through the Lens of Causality | Chris Lam, Epistamai
- What does a Data Ethicist Do? | Anisha Nadkarni, Randstad
- Five Ways that Data Visualizations Can Mislead (And How to Fix Them) | Danielle Szafir, UNC-Chapel Hill
In closing, I begin 2024 in a posture of gratitude, with a spirit of hope. This is an exciting time to bring together data science experts and enthusiasts. We are grateful for each one of you, for this community of curious individuals. I look forward to providing a platform for voices that need to be amplified. And I look forward to feedback from you on how we can do better.