Tag: conference

2x More 2019 Seattle Area Conferences

We’re halfway through the year now. In Seattle what’s going on in this later half? Here are a few of the conferences, camps, or code related events I’ve purchased tickets to over the last few months.

Seattle Code Camp – September 14th – I have attended a few, and even spoken at some of the code camps here in Seattle. Every time I’ve had a good time and enjoyed a number of very educational conversations. For an idea of the range of topics, also check out the schedule – it’s HUGE!

API City Conference – September 5th – API City is another non-profit community conference that I attended for the first time last year. Again, the sessions were good but the conversations, like with Seattle Code Camp, are what made this conference valuable.

Both of these conferences are extremely high value for the dollar. Arguably, I’d say these provide more value than some of the conferences that are in the $2000-3000 price range, which is mind boggling, but that’s what you get when the community comes together on something that people have a shared interest in!

Either one, or both, hope to see you there.

 

OSCON: What it is.

This is the first of a few articles I’m going to write over the next couple of weeks related to the O’Reilly Open Source Conference, or what is more colloquially called OSCON. Before the conference event topic let us sync up on understanding exactly what this conference has been, what it was intended to be, and what it is today and its roots in open source.

OSCON was inaugurated in 1999 with its first conference held in Portland, Oregon. The location, that generally, has been the accepted home of OSCON. There have been other OSCON events in other locations but the sentiment remains – OSCON is a Portland conference and it’s a bit rough going in other cities hosting the conference.

OSCON started as a conference centered around the open source community since day one. It’s consistently held that course even when open source was regularly lamented, insulted, and cursed by the software industry. At one point Microsoft, the biggest of big software companies in the early days of OSCON relentlessly attacked open source. Steve Ballmer stated, “Linux is a Cancer” back in 2001.

Jim Allchin attacked open source as “the worst”.

Even the founder Bill Gates even went on record saying open source would make it so, “nobody can ever improve the software”.

Microsoft execs weren’t the only ones, just some of the richest, prominent, and loudest about berating the licensing model. Many corporations and others attacked it as communist and in other ways. But OSCON continued onward every year with solid turnout in Portland. The community continued to grow. But considering where we are now, that might seem a bit obvious. But way back then it wasn’t so obvious that open source licenses and related open models would become the way a vast percentage of software would be developed, as it is today.

But here we are!

OSCON started around those earlier days when open source was more often maligned than celebrated. At least in the business world and in the places the vast majority of us were, or would have been employed. When it started the conference aimed high and achieved a lot of victories in bringing together key people within the industry to grow open source development from multiple angles. As time went on OSCON expanded, as did its host library of open source books, on all the tools, options, and available solutions that were being created via open source licensing and the plethora of development paradigms.

Fast forward to today and OSCON is still that stalwart conference that brings people together, from those early days, to people that have just joined the open source communities today. This cohesive gathering of minds has a very low barrier for entry with its hallway pass, all the way to standard – more expensive fare – that covers the whole conference, specific and special gatherings, presentations, demos, and related activities.

Stay tuned, subscribe to the blog, and my next post I’ll take you on a whirlwind tour of more OSCON events, The New Stack‘s birthday at the conference, and more.

Art, JavaScript, and Machine Learning with Amy Cheng at ML4ALL 2018

One talk that opened my mind to new ideas about where, how, and when to use machine learning was Amy Cheng’s @am3thyst talk on Machine Learning, Art, and JavaScript. I introduced her last year in my previous post, and am linking the talk below. Give it a watch, it’s worth the listen!

ML4ALL 2019 is on. CFP is still open, a little longer. It’s closing on the 18th. In addition we’ve got tickets available for early birds, but those will be gone soon too so pick one up while you can, it’s only a $200.00 bucks. You’ll basically be getting a ticket to conference that’ll be 10x the value of one of these big corporate conferences for $200 bucks, in the awesome city of Portland, and I can promise you it’ll be a conference you’ll get more out of then you currently think you will! Join us, it’s going to be a great time!

It’s Official, ML4ALL 2019, Machine Learning Conference 4 All v2!

It’s official, we’ve got dates and tickets are open for ML4ALL 2019! Our CFP will be open in a number of hours, not days, and I’ll do another update the second that we have that live.

What is ML4ALL?

ML4ALL stands for “Machine Learning for All“. Last year I enjoyed working with Alena Hall, Troy Howard, Glenn Block, Byron Gerlach, and Ben Acker on getting a great conference put together, and I’m looking forward to rounding up a team and doing a great job putting together another great conference for the community again this year!

Last year @lenadroid put together this great video of the event and some short interviews with speakers and attendees. It’s a solid watch, take a few minutes and check it out for a good idea of what the conference will be like.

Want to Attend? Help!

Tickets are on sale, but there’s a lot of other ways to get involved now. First, the super easy way to keep track of updates is to follow the Twitter account: @ml4all. The second way is a little bit more involved, but can be a much higher return on investment for you, by joining the ML4ALL Slack Group! There we discuss conference updates, talk about machine learning, introduce ourselves, and a range of other discussions.

If you work for a company in the machine learning domain, plying the wave of artificial intelligence and related business, you may want to get involved by sponsoring the conference. We’ve got a prospectus we can send you for the varying levels, just send an email to ml4allconf@gmail.com with the subject “Plz Prospectus”. We’ll send you the prospectus and we can start a conversation on which level works best for your company!

The TLDR;

ML4ALL is a conference that will cover from beginner to advanced machine learning presentations, conversations, and community discussions. It’s a top conference choice to put on your schedule for April 28-30th, pick up tickets for, and submit a proposal to the CFP!

 

ML4ALL LiveStream, Talks & More

If you’re attending, or if you’re at the office or at home, you can check out the talks as they go live on the ML4ALL Youtube Channel! Right now during the conference we also have the live feed on the channel, so if you’re feeling a little FOMO this might help a little. Enjoy!

Here are a few gems that are live already!

Manuel Muro “Barriers To Accelerating The Training Of Artificial Neural Networks”

-> Introduction of Manuel

Jon Oropeza “ML Spends A Year In Burgundy”

-> Introduction of Jon

Igor Dziuba “Teach Machine To Teach: Personal Tutor For Language Learners”

-> Introduction to Igor