Machine Learning and Data Science (xx) Love at Movable Ink

[](https://s3.amazonaws.com/movableink-blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/25222111/15761751682_69907f47de_o.jpg)Here at [Movable Ink](http://movableink.com/ "Learn More About Movable Ink"), we’re serious about gender equality. We are excited to support initiatives aimed at bringing more women into STEM fields by getting involved and supporting community efforts advocating this cause.This past week, Movable Pink hosted the inaugural event of the [NYC Women in Machine Learning and Data Science](http://www.meetup.com/NYC-Women-in-Machine-Learning-Data-Science/) meetup. This group fosters informal discussions on machine learning and data science related topics, with the purpose of building a community around women in these fields. The inaugural event consisted of a series of lightning talks and culminated with a keynote delivered by [Claudia Perlich](https://sites.google.com/site/claudiaperlich/home "Claudia Perlich"), Chief Data Scientist at [Dstillery](http://dstillery.com/ "Dstillery"). If you have not heard of Claudia yet, let’s just say she’s a data science rockstar, and some of her accomplishments include the [Advertising Research Foundation](http://www.thearf.org/ "Advertising Research Foundation")’s (ARF) Grand Innovation Award and being selected as a member of the [_Crain’s NY_](http://www.crainsnewyork.com/ "Crain’s NY") annual 40 Under 40 list.**Lightning talks –** Some interesting machine learning/data science topics were covered by speakers from the industry. With a span of 5 minutes each, the lightning talks covered the following topics:* Fashionably Data – speaker Anna Smith* Big Data and Hadoop – speaker Esther Kundin* Python Map Reduce vs Scalding – speaker Emily Samuels* Clustering Ferguson – speaker Dara Elass**Who attended?** We had a diverse attendance, spanning both the industry and academic scenes. Some of the represented groups include:* Columbia university* NYU* Acxiom* Blenheim capital* Bloomberg* Distillery* Metis* RentTheRunway* SpotifyWe were excited to see such a great turnout and vivid enthusiasm around machine learning and data science topics. Stay tuned for future events from the NYC Women in Machine Learning and Data Science meetup. Meanwhile, take a moment to check out some of the event pictures [here](https://www.flickr.com/photos/126938788@N02/sets/72157646904610333/ "View the pictures from the meetup!").