Today I was excited to attend the Women in Data Science (WiDS) meeting in Geneva, held as part of a series of events on International Womens’ Day. It was great to see so many women interested in data science coming together at this conference – many thanks to the WiDS team as well as the sponsors, particularly Expedia Group, Richemont and the EPFL Extension School. These days women are not uncommon in data science, but still represent the minority – so it’s great to see so many young women being inspired to follow this career path.
The conference talks began with Lisa Wolffhugel and Amalia Spataru from Microsoft Switzerland, who gave a very interesting overview of “Responsible AI in the era of generative AI”. Amalia was one of the numerous SDSC alumni at the WiDS conference – great to see what she is working on now. Following this, I gave a talk; I think most of the audience got the idea of sustainable agriculture but I’m not sure how many of them understood isotopes.
Following a much-needed coffee, the conference continued with workshops. Esther Voituron from Data Organisation helped us understand how to effectively tell a story with data, focusing on knowing your audience, being confident in your data, and using the right visual tools. Sabrina Amrouche from ZYTLYN gave a really nice workshop on time series modelling – it was cool to see how the same tools are used, whether we are predicting future N2O emissions from a cropland, or travel demand for industry and marketing.
Sabrina’s workshop and the conference in general showed how the common thread of data science is transforming so many fields, from science to industry. It’s so important that data scientists come from all walks of life, and great to see initiatives like WiDS promoting inclusivity in the field.
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