How to get plugged into the AI community

May 28, 2019

Explore the bustling world of AI conferences, where networking is key to unlocking opportunities. Discover how to choose the right events and engage actively, rather than just attending. Delve into the art of crafting memorable presentations, from selecting a topic to delivering it effectively. Learn tips for newcomers on building connections through volunteering and local meetups while navigating the diverse AI landscape. Whether a seasoned speaker or a curious learner, there are invaluable insights for everyone!

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ANECDOTE

Atlanta Deep Learning Meetup

Chris Benson started the Atlanta Deep Learning Meetup due to a local gap.
It unexpectedly attracted many attendees from the start.

ADVICE

Meetups for Beginners

Attend local meetups to connect with the AI community.
Offer to speak on a topic to accelerate learning.

INSIGHT

Large Industry Conferences Focus

Large industry conferences showcase AI applications and infrastructure.
These conferences attract large companies and startups focused on practical AI solutions.

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Chris and Daniel take you on a tour of local and global AI events, and discuss how to get the most out of your experiences. From access to experts to developing new industry relationships, learn how to get your foot in the door and make connections that help you grow as an AI practitioner.

Then drawing from their own wealth of experience as speakers, they dive into what it takes to give a memorable world-class talk that your audience will love. They break down how to select the topic, write the abstract, put the presentation together, and deliver the narrative with impact!

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Featuring:

Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

Local Meetups - Great for first steps, local help and relationship building, job connections, involvement in local projects, etc. Mostly free!
- PyData
- TensorFlow
- PyTorch
- Deep Learning
- etc.
Large industry conferences - Great to see what some of the larger companies and innovative startups are doing with AI, application and infra focused, etc. Expensive.
Smaller, topical events or events focused on particular tools - Great if you are heavily invested in particular tech or a topic like NLP. In general you have to look around quite a bit to find these.
- TensorFlow dev summit
- Spacy IRL
- PyTorch developers conference
- AllenNLP Summit
- Applied Artificial Intelligence Conference
- DataSciConhttps://datascicon.tech/
- Etc.
Research conferences - Meant to be an outlet for original research. Great to see how research orgs/institutions are pushing the boundaries and doing groundbreaking things. Hard to get into and very academic.
- NeurIPS
- EMNLP
- ICLR
- CVPR
- etc.

Some conference talks from the Practical AI hosts:

Chris Benson’s upcoming talk at LiveWorx 2019 in Boston on Wednesday, June 12, 2019: Artificial Intelligence Strategy: Digital Transformation Through Deep Learning
Examples of previous AI talks by Chris Benson
Building GPU-Accelerated Workflows with TensorFlow and Kubernetes
Fully Reproducible ML Deployment with Spark, Pachyderm, and MLeap

Upcoming Events: