Regency A
Open Source Contribution and the Effectiveness of Public Work (303944)
*Amy Yang, Groupon
Keywords: open source, public work, sharing, career development
In this talk, I'll lay out the reasons that open source contribution, public speaking, and other forms of public work are a critical part of a data science career. For students or beginners, sharing what you learned from coursework and tutorials via blog posts or tweets gives you experience applying practical data science skills to real problems.
For data scientists, analysts at any stage of their careers, contributing to open source development offers practice in collaboration, documentation and coding skills.
During the talk, I also want to cover the importance of community building and what motivated me to organize the RLadies Chicago community and what I gained from doing public work including public speaking.
All of these practices build skills in communication and collaboration that form an essential component of data science work. Each also lets you build a public portfolio of your skills, get feedback from your peers, and network with the larger data science community.