What Is Coming Up?

No this time no predictive modelling, I am just going to tell you the truth (100% accuracy & precision). I am talking about an initiative a couple of fellow JADS-students and I recently came up with: a Data Science blog.

1. How it all began

It all started during the JADS-introduction week. Certainly a bit different than my TU/e Intro back in 2014, though it was evident that JADS offers an ambitious informal environment which attracts both very interesting and inspiring people such as Marjel Quekel (Rockstart) and Maartje Paumen (Dutch field hockey player). That made me realise that it would be a great idea to capture the most fascinating stories from the Data Science & Entrepreneurship eco-system in written format. Fortunately, I was not the only one who saw the potential of this “early-stage” idea: after reaching out to a couple of smart creatives and telling them above story they decided to join forces. On that note, the whole purpose of this article is to recruit new talent. Don’t click away now!

Thanks for still staying with me, you are awesome (and probably have a longer attention span than a gold fish 👏). Now back to my story. At first I thought I would title this blog article “We Want You!” (including the Uncle Sam picture). Such a cliché.. Then, I realised my sales pitch would probably be more effective once I tell you a bit more about how it all began (1), the status quo (2) and what you can expect from us in the near future (3). That concludes part 1 ☑️. Up to part 2!

2. Status quo

Although it’s only a 10-day-old (or young?) initiative I can already tell you a bit about the direction we are heading in. As you have probably noticed by now, the chosen format is an online blog. Although we have surely considered creating an old-school paper magazine, we have decided to start off with the blog format for now. The main reason for that is that it allows for more flexibility and requires less manpower.

As for the content, we have defined the following three pillars:
1. Study — Ins and outs about JADS (e.g. construction work, housing), study association, events (e.g. hackathon, intro-week), study abroad experiences, ‘The Hot Suit’ (personal interview with JADS-people).

2. Research (update: has been renamed to “Academia”)— In-depth interviews with professors, PhD’s and PdEng’s about cutting edge technologies such as Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning as well as their views on how the data science industry is moving and opportunities for data entrepreneurship.

3. Career — Interviews with top-tier data science companies (bol.com, Booking.com, Uber), data entrepreneurs and innovative start-ups. In other words, a look behind the scenes at the coolest places where you might do your internship next semester or start your career shortly.

In addition to these recurring pillars, we want to involve the Data Science community (you!) as much as possible. In particular, we warmly welcome the following types of articles:

• Side projects / Start-ups — Have you built the new Facebook after pulling all-nighters for more than a year and in need for market validation? Do you want to pitch your multi-billion dollar idea to a data science community? Are you looking for a technical co-founder? Have you conducted a unique research for your master thesis? Don’t be shy and share your story with the rest of the world!
• Column — We’re open to almost anything data science related. For example your favorite R/Python packages, your view on privacy and ethics in the field of data science, your happiest (or most embarrassing!) experience at JADS; nothing too crazy!

Something For Everyone

Hopefully that all sounds great to you. If so, know that you can be a part of this very blog (even if you think you are not a good writer). Yes, we want you! Even more, unless you have never written any English article in your lifetime, you are illiterate (proof by contradiction), you have an increased risk of heart-attacks when talking to strangers, your mobile photo library is currently completely empty, you have no clue what Photoshop is and you are one of those rare individuals who is not on Facebook, your contribution is much appreciated. Put differently, there is definitely something for everyone:

• ✍️ Writer — Creating an aweome story that inspires our audience.
• 😈 Editor — Making sure the writer doesn’t look ridiculous (checking for grammar, spelling, contents and overall structure). In Dutch: “taalnazi’s”. No seriously, a critical look is much appreciated.
• 🕵️ Interviewer — Doing your homework beforehand (=stalking interviewees online), visiting cool people and impressive companies and asking your tricky and clever questions to capture their untold stories.
• 📷 Photographer — Tweaking aperture, shutter speed, crop-factors, white balance and lightning settings, repeating “say cheese” a bunch of times and making sure interviewees don’t look worse in photos than they actually are (or think they are).
• 👩‍🎨 Designer — Creating visually appealing figures that add another dimension to our blog articles and make people say “Wow, I didn’t no programmers cared about design at all?!”
• ❤️ Promoter — Writing catchy social media posts that seduce people to read our articles and engage in our community.

What’s in it for you? An awesome opportunity to expand your network and discover the ever changing world of Data Science yourself. And in case you wondered, of course you can fulfill multiple roles simultaneously.

One more thing, we know that you have a busy student life. Therefore, we don’t like waisting your (and our) time by having long and weekly recurring committee meetings. You can work where and whenever you want. Promised.

3. What you can expect

Honestly, even for data scientists I think there is a lot of uncertainty in this area. Though, what I can already tell you is that the study association for all TU/e, Tilburg and JADS Data Science students (D.S.A. Pattern) supports this initiative. In essence, that increases the potential audience size to approximately 2000–2500 people.

Lastly, you can do us a huge favour by answering the next two questions in the comments down below. And the good news is: you don’t even have to be a writer, editor, interviewer, photographer, designer or promoter to do that ;-)

1. Recommendations for interesting interviewees / companies. What’s in it for you? Obviously, an article tailored to your interests but also a shoutout in the article itself.

2. Any suggestions for a catchy name for the blog of our “Data Science Association Pattern” (preferably a bit shorter than 29 characters..). What’s in it for you? Of course, eternal fame but we know you don’t care about it. That’s why we also allow the winner to pick a guest for “The Hot Suit” article.

Thanks,
Roy, Stéphanie, Joseph, Rick and (your name?! 😱)

P.S. We highly appreciate curious minds who look beyond what is expected from them. If you made it this far you rock! 🔥