27/02/2017
Sabancı University and SAS brought data scientists from various industries and levels of expertise together at the Data Scientist Meetup event held on February 17.
Aiming to provide a medium for exchanging information and ideas on the present and future of data science, the Data Scientist Meetup event was held on Friday, February 17, 2017 at Karaköy Minerva Palas. Speakers of the event were Hepsiburada.com Chief Data Scientist İsmail Parsa, Sabancı University Big Data Behavioral Analysis and Visualization Laboratory Director Professor Burçin Bozkaya, and SAS Analytics Consultant Tuba İslam. The event provided a medium for exchanging information and ideas on the present and future of data science, and networking with the people in the industry.
The first speaker of the event was Hepsiburada.com Chief Data Scientist İsmail Parsa, who shared his extensive experience in Amazon, Microsoft and other leading companies of the world. İsmail Parsa advised participants to complete a graduate degree after gaining a year or two of experience. Parsa discussed the importance of working on both the client and consultant sides, and the ability to look at things from a wider perspective. Emphasizing the importance of customer segmentation and stages that make a difference in modeling, Parsa said, "Your impact will be limited if you can't measure the success of your model."
Burçin Bozkaya introduced the Big Data Behavioral Analysis and Visualization Laboratory founded by Sabancı University in association with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the analytics sponsorship of SAS. Bozkaya explained that one of the key purposes of the Laboratory were to support the industry with research undertaken by the university. Bozkaya said that they approached subjects from both engineering and business perspectives, achieving a success rate of 95% and above in forecasts.
Burçin Bozkaya advised participants: “It should be second nature to you to perform all sorts of analyses on data, and you should feel enthusiastic about it. You should be keenly interested in computers and programming. It is very difficult to progress in this job without a foundation in statistics. Your attitude to business problems also matters. Big data should be used in a way to add value."
Tuba İslam said that SAS has been and will be providing support to many initiatives on data science in Turkey and worldwide. Tuba İslam continued, “Many young people from diverse backgrounds seek careers in data science. We are delighted by this. As SAS, we will continue to invest in and support this field of work."
