Blogs

Blogs(2020)

Chitra Bharadwaj

WiDS Pune is an outstanding platform for anyone interested in Data science. The event hosted are extremely informative and well managed.

I am very excited to be part of the WiDS Pune community. I have seen the wide outreach and the impact of the programs. The speakers are provided great opportunities and are diverse in nature. I’ve learnt a lot from WiDS Pune about the different fields in data science. WiDS Pune best part is that they gave opportunities to anyone who is an aspiring data scientist or a beginner. I was a beginner still they gave me this opportunity to present and be a speaker.
It brings diverse audience from different background which gives an opportunity to network and meet various minds and curious people who has similar interests and passion. It’s a mix of academia and industry enables you to meet with AI pioneers at the forefront of research.

Since there are many women speakers who were working and solving different AI problem which makes it very interesting for anyone from novice to expert to find interesting use cases and business problems where AI can be applied and how others can benefit from different opportunities which is created while solving AI problems such as AI in Deep Learning, AI assistant, Conversation AI, Al in Fraud detection, Al in Healthcare many more. I would be happy to be a speaker in coming future and be part of WiDS Pune family and I strongly recommend people who are reading this. It’s a great opportunity for you all to be part of and get a chance to learn and meet like-minded people and know what’s going in AI field. It’s worth your time.

Experience with WiDS Pune – Itti Singh

Benjamin Disraeli once said “The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do” . This quote best defines my experience at the WiDS Pune conference. I believe that one of the main tenets for the social good of any community has to be the ability to openly share and access knowledge to help everyone grow together and it was pretty much the theme for this conference as well; “AI for Social Good”

My name is Itti Singh & I have spent the past 13 years in the world of Analytics, Data Science & Machine Learning. I have worked with some of the finest banking institutions and retailers in India and across the world helping them set up and manage high performing analytics teams. I have seen first hand how analytics is shaping the future for these companies & is becoming a key part of their digital transformation journeys. I participated in the WiDS event to talk about my journey in Customer & Marketing Analytics and how companies can harness the potential of their customer data and create a Customer 360 to enhance their customer experience and drive much more meaningful interactions with their customers. Of course, what made the event close to my heart was that all of the speakers were women in the data science world. I was absolutely wowed by the lineup of speakers that were curated by Sucheta Dhere and her team. To see and hear so many women talk about their unique experiences made for a delightful day. What was extremely heartening to see was the unadulterated passion of each of the volunteers for Data Science & Machine Learning. Everyone was there to learn and to share their knowledge with the larger Data Science community.

From hearing about the impact of AI in breast cancer detection to the usage of ML in Ayurveda. From the impact of ML in Crop Rotation to the use of Data Science in Town Planning and in Space Research. Every talk spurred multiple ideas in your mind & left you wondering about the potential of Data Science for the larger community. When you work day in & day out in your respective domains you get blinded to new ideas. Your mind tends to get clouded by the day to day of your work. But conferences like these are eye openers for all of us. They remind us of the potential of our field & sometimes even create tangential and surprisingly thought provoking discussions.

Another interesting outcome of any talk is the questions that are raised by the audience. The questions challenge you as a speaker to deep dive into your project or area of expertise. That being said; I have to say that the audience for this event was particularly engaging. I spoke to a packed hall of data science enthusiasts and experts and the excitement was palpable in the air. A lot of the audience members reached out with a lot of interesting questions and I was extremely glad that they enjoyed the talk and were taking back something from it.

Speaking of audience questions, I must say that this has been one of the most tech savvy events that I have attended. Right from the get go, the audience was asked to download the conference apps & use a unique QR code for each session to ask their questions on the app so that we as speakers could get back to them via the app and to rate the speakers. Also, the conference team was using state of the art technology from rammer.ai to translate the entire speech to text for future use for the audience.
Overall, the conference is definitely one of its kind & I was extremely honoured to be a part of it. Hoping to be back in Pune next year for WiDS.

Madhura Kulkarni

I have been attending International scientific conferences with anywhere from 200 to 8000 attendees since my PhD time. And have always seen women with a huge representation as attendees with hardly 10-20% of the speakers that are women. And have always wondered, read about and followed the topics on ‘why such a small representation of women in speaker roles, and how to encourage women representation in organiser and speaker roles’. Have always wondered how do I engage in encouraging women representation in STEM, in leadership roles. When I received an invitation from a colleague to speak at an all women conference, my first response was a happy surprise to know that such an effort is happening so close to me. I was more than happy to be part of the effort. I gathered all the information possible about WiDS and WiDS Pune, was really impressed with the value and concept of the organization. I felt honoured to know about it and to get to be part of its workshop.

The conference was on data science, the topic that is on the forefront today. Data science is integrated with every possible field in today’s lives and will integrate further. The conference itself was a very elating experience. The whole event was organised by women, with all women speakers and attendees with equal representation of both genders.

More so, the speakers were delight to listen to, I gained so much knowledge about my surroundings and got surprised to know up-to date data science being employed by government agencies with a women in lead roles for the those operations. Every single speaker was indeed an expert in the field with experience to share with us.
I made a few good friends during the few hours I spent at the event, I know I am going to keep in touch with.
I thoroughly enjoyed being part of WiDS Pune 2020. And would like to congratulate the organisers for the concept, organization and a very well execution of the all women data science conference.

My first-time experience as a conference speaker – Nazreen Khan

Hey all!! This is Nazreen Khan, Junior Research Scientist at Atreya Innovations Pvt. Ltd. Being a data lover and my proclivity towards it, I was extremely happy when the opportunity of being a speaker at WiDS(The Global Women in Data Science) Pune crossed my paths. Ms. Sucheta Dhere, WiDS Pune Ambassador approached my boss, Dr. Aniruddha Joshi, founder Atreya Innovations Pvt. Ltd regarding the WiDS 2020 Conference which was about inspiring and educating data scientists worldwide, regardless of gender, and supporting women in the field.

I would like to take a moment to thank, Mr. Joshi, for offering me this opportunity.WiDS made me realize how important it is to create your visibility in this competitive world and also made me aware of different opportunities and platforms that I can use to create a place of mine in the fellow community. I had to go through multiple dry runs and talk rehearsals before taking the stage at WiDS Pune as a speaker. I still remember, in my first dry run I took 20 minutes to complete the presentation. But with guidelines shared on how to speak, the do’s and don’ts in presentation and dry runs helped me prepare well and I was able to cover the same 20 minutes content in 12 minutes.

The notion of public speaking both excites & scares me. Being fresher in the Data Science domain, I was scared to death when I got to know that I will be sharing the stage with top-notch personalities of the Data Science field. Being honest, talking in front of a large number of people, or being the center of attention isn’t necessarily my thing.I was overwhelmed by the feedback I got after my talk. In addition to being a speaker, our company also had a stall at the conference. More people approached to see live demonstrations. The conference helped me expand my network and I got great exposure too.
Organizers were constantly in touch with us, they shared details with us like testimonials, feedbacks, ratings, etc and also sought feedback from us about our experience. It’s a very good initiative taken by WiDS to encourage women working in different domains to step forward and share their knowledge which will also help people to upskill in the field of Data Science, give them a platform to learn, grow and support them by knowledge sharing and creating opportunities and not only that It will also create a great networking platform for businesses who have not yet adopted or used Data Science.
I would like to tell all the future participants and speakers to make the most of the platform and opportunities you will be exposed to at WiDS events. Hopefully, you come away from it with as much as I did.

Shipra Jain – Sr. Data scientist – SAP Data intelligence Product Development

It was the 2 nd conference for WIDs Pune and my first time to be presenting in Conference with pure Women Data Scientists. I must say it was a roller coaster ride. To begin with, I started of getting in touch with Sucheta Dhere, main organizer of WIDS Pune event. I still remember our first discussion on whatthe apt topic is to present in a conference like this, which is unique in its nature for number of reasons. Few reasons like 1) Only for Women Presenters 2) Data Science applications 3) Innovative Data Science applications. “Data-Science applications which are Innovative and that stand-out”

I had an hour-long discussion with Sucheta, whose main focus was to use the opportunity to bring as innovative Data Science application as possible, that I would have implemented in my organization and she was not ready to accept anything less than “innovative”. That’s when my interest to participate in the conference deepened. I was happy to be associated as Speaker with WIDS Pune which valued both opportunity and time for folks involved and that was the level of professionalism I was expecting.

I chose to speak “Self-Driving Supply-Chain – Procure to Pay”. My presentation covered the details on how AI and Machine Learning can be instrumental in achieving End to End Process Automation and intelligence in intensive workflows as Procure-to-Pay Supply Chain. I got the opportunity to present some of the niche implementations like achieving end to end orchestration via Single Unified SAP Data Intelligence platform and implementing niche AI algorithms such as CHAR-Grid, BERT Char-grid and Conversational AI. My session was very well received, and I learnt from WIDS organizers that it become one of the most technical sessions that gained many questions & appreciations from the audience. I was happy to personally answer those questions and sent back to WIDS, a way to keep the connect going with audience.

I was also impressed with how WIDS Pune automated the Q&A process by introducing their Bar-Code enabled app. It definitely made the whole process High-Tech, free flowing and introduced an innovative “Questions tracking mechanism”. This is one of my key-takeaway from the session as to how we can bring in technology and make it so worthwhile. Something that conference should definitely leverage. I also got the privilege to connect and hear some of the other esteemed speakers which I find very useful and important in the world of Data-Science.
All in All, I thoroughly enjoyed associating with WIDS Pune. I appreciate WIDs to have given me this opportunity to be a Speaker @ their conference and I am glad that my work would have brought valuable insights to audience. Looking forward to participating in WIDs in future too!

Vidyullatha Palle

WiDS Pune Conference, I never knew there were such events being held; endeavours and professional journeys of women being exclusively promoted with a noble purpose of encouraging prospective data scientists and ML or AI aspirants, till I was approached to be a speaker at the event. I was in awe when i got to read some articles on Sucheta Dhere, how selflessly she was strategizing these events, which need the strength of an army, let’s not forget the skills needed to lead so many volunteers administering each a role to play to make the event a grand success. If I’m asked to describe entire conference in one word, I’ll be in a huge confusion to choose between impressive and well-organised.

Days prior to the conference, I was well informed of scheduled time of my speech, the details of other speakers, venue, point of contact for travelling, wids2020 app, directions to venue, even the code to get 50 % off uber fare etc by Ms Dipti. The moment I got off the flight I got a call from Prajakta, enquiring if I have reached safely, assuring me that breakfast was ready, which was very well thought of. I was received by a volunteer at the venue and accompanied me through the huge campus and introduced me to Prajakta and left to receive other speakers and guests. Prajakta introduced me to other speakers and other members of WiDS team, all of us had nicely prepared breakfast talking about our backgrounds and career profiles which was a sheer delight. That’s when I got to see girls in white t-shirts, volunteers, that made this event absolutely pleasant at every step. They navigated us to leave to conference hall, showing all the stalls installed.

Conference, when it got started with introduction of WiDS2020 by Ms Sucheta, I was wondering:
# what it takes to pull an event like this
# how paperless conference can report data and feedback from recipients
# how even the student volunteers have crystal clarity on their responsibilities
Registration using face recognition, capturing audience emotions through the sessions, speech to text conversion of speakers notes using rammer.ai and QR code-based attendance Q&A sessions definitely made this event unique and absolutely impressive.
Each speaker was introduced delightfully and key points were reiterated thoughtfully. As I was in Track2, we had Ms Manjiri, Ms Aparna and Ms Sanika, who listened to speakers’ presentations carefully and engaged audiences navigating easy through the sessions. I got to attend the sessions of almost all of speakers in Track2, all presentations were fresh wrapping the breadth of diverse fields.

I had plenty of opportunities to network with other speakers, students and faculty members of COEP. I got to see the stall installed by Dr Nazreen Khan, that attracted huge number of students. Albeit it was a mere small talk, interaction I had with Ms Praveena stands out, as her positive attitude and skills of orchestration could not go unnoticed.
Oh yeah, did I mention lunch was yummy including desert kulfi and campus was expansive with lush green lawns!
Yes, I have come up with one word to describe the whole event, ‘Amazing’.

WiDS 2020: Itti Singh, I am sold! – Sneha J

After a small cup of tea, we all got back into the small auditorium to attend the session which was something I was looking forward to listen to.

Customer 360- Making it happen.
And man, it started and I just couldn’t blink for a second. Itti Singh was a breeze of fresh air in the room and started with her chirpy voice and smiling face to explain something most of us find it a bit too much to deal with- Marketing.
However, a business needs a great marketing plan, a good customer base and loyalty and that’s what Itti touched upon.
She explained about to to make customer feel special and personalised using data science and analytics. She helped understand with simple example of swiggy on how they can influence us through marketing techniques to keep giving business to them and remain loyal to the service.

She was pro in explaining how to identify brand churning and how businesses look at it. And much more things related to making customer feel like a person and not like a number.
Lastly, she concluded by regarding customer as the ultimate boss and explaining how you can change the entire human resource in the company but it is further hard to bring back the lost customer.
With her cheerful smile, she encouraged the crowd to join in marketing and use data science for designing customer 360 strategies. She also answered happily question about which techniques to use for doing different cases of customer 360.
Even before she left the floor, I had given her 5 stars on WiDS app. I can confidently say that Ma’am, I am sold!

Women’s in Data Science – Supriya Shinde

We have to not only develop AI, but build trust in AI as well.
Innovation in public service
It’s all about how the social benefits of AI go beyond everyday routine and the world of work: artificial intelligence will be a blessing for environmental protection and climate action.Depending on the individual plant, this can reduce CO₂ by 10 percent within two years.
Plan the Unplanned because it’s time to stop being hysterical about artificial intelligence. We need to focus on its benefits in everyday life.
Making it Happen ! Yes why not ?
AI creates Market !
At the same time, artificial intelligence has huge economic potential !
And so AI must also be “Invented for life”

My First Ever Conference On Data – Tejali Gangane

Few days ago, I was just searching through thte internet for conferences / workshops / seminars on data science. Then there came the first link for Women in Data Science.
Without giving it a second thought I clicked on the link and started to read about it. I realised it was being held nearby. So I registered for it. Later I also saw the option for volunteering, I registered for that too.
Later I was wondering, how come are they allowing anyone to become volunteer for their event, indirectly believing in a stranger to help them out execute the event. I thought it was just to see how many people might be interested.

But later we got a mail regarding the tasks or roles we might need to go through as a volunteer, reporting was 7 a.m. on the day of the event that is 29th Feb’20.
Fast forwarding to the day of the event, as I mentioned earlier I registered for being a volunteer too; I was AN HOUR late. I thought that now maybe I should just go and attend the session and forget about volunteering.
(I wanted to be a volunteer, just to understand how these events are executed, meet new people, understand the process of organizing a conference, etc. )
At the registration desk, I told one of the two people who were sitting there, that I have registered for the conference and also for volunteering, but I am an hour late. And he said, that it was okay. And that i could still be a volunteer.

Benefit of being a volunteer : TSHIRT. YESSS.
There were many roles, I chose the one which led to being in the auditorium (where the sessions were being held). As I wanted to attend all the sessions.
There were many speakers from different backgrounds ready to share their knowledge, experience about the work they have done and how their comtrbution in data science.
I have never been to any data science conferences (as mentioned in the title, FIRST EVER). It felt so good to attend this, got to learn so many things. Which I will share in the further article.
Takeaways from the conference :
• Data Science does not always mean python or models. Because that’s what comes to iur mind whenever we hear these words.
• People regardless background or age or gender can enter into this field.
• Came to know about the startup NIARAMAI. Which is basically focusing on building software for detecting breast cancer at a very early stage.
I have been interested in this field for a few months now and every time I read articles by few of the data scientists, most of them have mentioned many times to attend conferences/workshops/seminars or write articles, perform hands on, etc. In short everyone might have mentioned it.

People (mostly me) always assume for conferences and all to be boring, but to be honest, when I attended this event. My perception towards conference or seminars and all has changed. Since, there were so many things I had no idea about it; I got to know about them. There were so many inspirational stories and information shared by the speakers.
The Niramai startup had their demo in the exhibition too, and a large part of audience visited there for breast scan. There were many more companies in exhibition like TomTom, which is basically a map Technology , Eternal Solutions, etc.
In conclusion, the conference was worth attending and I would recommend everyone to attend such conferences atleast once in their life. Also, I got a chance to meet lot of people, got a chance to make new friends, etc. Doesn’t matter if you aren’t from technical background. The speaker was very articulate about the topic and were very clear with what they wanted to convey.

Data Protection in World of Data science – Supriya Shinde

Code of ethics in AI
AI will change every aspect of our lives.
Humans should be the ultimate arbiter of any AI-based decisions.
“If AI is a black box, then people won’t trust it. In a connected world, however, trust will be essential,” AI decisions that affect people should not be made without a human arbiter. Instead, AI should be a tool for people.
We should be able to develop safe, robust, and explainable AI products.

Sneha Joshi – PhD

The experience and vibe of WiDS 2020 was enthusiastic and exciting. The moment I entered the auditorium, I could feel that this is going to be a interesting and learning day ahead.
First opening talk by Sucheta Dhere was full of spirit and motivation, which emphasized on anyone and everyone can use data science.
Since I come from Economics background working in Finance sector, data science for us is an alien field. The way she explained and gave references of how many women from multi disciplinary field have now become torchbearers in Data Science made me felt motivated to know more about data science.

The best thing about WiDS conference was it is a tribe, it is based on collaboration and I am hopeful that now my journey towards learning more about data science and marrying finance and data science will be an exciting one with mentoring and guidance from all the experts in WiDS.
I am most certainly going to make people around me aware of WiDS and sign up for volunteering for future events.
This is just my thoughts from the first session. Wonder, how impactful the rest of the sessions are going to be. Stay tuned!

Shubhanshi Sharma

India a bright spot in the middle of global slowdown has shown an incredible growth in last few decades. This amazing growth empowered not only men but women also. Now women are empowered with equal privileges and opportunities in various domains be it technology, politics or being an entrepreneur. One such opportunity for all the women across Pune has been introduced by WiDS_Pune. My journey in WiDS as a volunteer has been great, everything that I did was a learning, and learning is a process. The whole process can only be understood when one knows the complete picture of the system, therefore knowing how to connect the dots was my initial learning. I learned a lot from this platform not only in terms of technology but soft skills also like intentional networking, conflict management, leadership, teamwork, design thinking etc.

Being from a statistics background, playing with the data has always been my passion, and from today’s WiDS session my favorite and the most essential take away is “Importance of Data governance and Quick navigation” i.e. (the way to draw relevant insights out of data based on predefined business objective with prior consideration of caution/incaution assumptions). One of the major values of WiDS “learning while doing” has proven to be an extremely motivating value for me and have created the power of doing within me i.e. by upgrading not only by upskilling. WiDS Pune has set a perfect example of win-win strategy and teamwork. Teamwork teaches that taking everyone along, arises from the basic premises that no human being is perfect, therefore teamwork always leads to a success story.
Getting an opportunity to learn from outstanding bunch of speakers from a one single platform is highly appreciable and is one of the major highlights of the event. All the hard work done by each member does complete justice to the arrangement of this event (ambience, food arrangements, empathy etc. ). At the end, I would like to conclude, WiDS platform has helped me to grow as a better version of myself, to identify my strengths and focus on my capabilities. I am sure that all of my learning from WiDS will turn out into a fruitful learning.
GREAT IMPACT OF WiDS PUNE IN MY CAREER’S JOURNEY. ##JOY OF DOING!!!!!!!!!

Shivangi C

Doodling is scribbling! They could be meaningful or aimless, there’s no thin line to it. It has evolved over time and so is it’s meaning, slowly! However, being a technology-driven, design-centric person, the artist in me takes doodling a step further into information visualization, as conversational doodling!
Shivangi C, A Design Techonologist from Bird Vision, captures WiDS Pune 2020 Conference in a Doodle Artwork.
When we spoke to her, here is how she demystifies the elements.
With the WiDS logo on the foreground, and 0s and 1s in the background represents flow of data, along with the charts for data visualization. Started capturing the sessions with top left corner, depicting the interlinking of processes, technology, and business. Few censored characters to highlight the protection of data. Quoted “Data is the new science”. Aperfectly balanced see-saw with Data on left and AI on right indicates supported by Women In Data Science, to empower the community message. Decoded the technology laws through doodling. Depicted the diversity of sessions in a single frame and releasing the final output, print(“Algorithms are eating the world”). Wow, how amazing, Shivangi depicted associations through a doodle!

How to keep a track of Gradients (Vanishing/Exploding Gradients) – Leena Bora

https://medium.com/@leenabora1/how-to-keep-a-track-of-gradients-vanishing-exploding-gradients-b0bbaa1dcb93