Back to the future – Girl Code talks AI @ ING
Another awesome Girl Code meetup has taken place last Wednesday and this time we were welcomed at ING. A new company for us, but not a new hostess. We were lucky enough working with Victoria again. We’ve met her at Booking.com during our ‘The challenges of a (Girl) Coder’-meetup and now she’s kicking ass and empowering women at ING. So, when she called for another meetup at her new office and suggested a topic high on our wish list: we couldn’t possibly refuse. The topic in question was: Artificial Intelligence. Yeahhhh!
This technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence – Ginni Rometty
The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race – Stephen Hawking
AI, a term of which it’s true definition is still debated on, but most of us still have a hope, fear or opinion about. Some people can’t wait for what the future of it will bring, some just hope it won’t be as scary as they envision it to become. This night was all about lifting a corner of the veil covering it by our professional Girl Coders.
The talks
First up was Flavia with her key note titled: Demystifying AI – Robots are coming! During her talk she deconstructed the hype around AI and it’s differences with Machine Learning. It was a very interesting, inspiring and highly amusing talk of 40 minutes, so I will not be giving a summary of her whole talk. If you didn’t attend our meetup last Wednesday, you really should try to keep an eye on her and hear her talk some time about this and other topics yourself! Highly recommended! But one thing she really stressed to us is the importance of a good and complete dataset. ‘Cause your AI will be biased, and it’s predictions no good if the dataset is already biased. So a true challenge for us humans is: to keep making sure the data we feed it is the best and most complete it can be.
After a little breather it was time for Esther’s demo. Esther has been a member of Girl Code since the earliest days and is one of those inspirational people we really wanted on our stage some time. Wednesday was finally that time, ’cause our topic perfectly fits Esther, you know her being a Master of Science in it. During her short demo she showed us how we all, with a little time (like 40 minutes), can set up our first AI using TensorFlow. Check her slides to get on it!
We finished the talks with a panel discussion. Flavia and Esther were joined on stage by Janna (IT Chapter Lead) and Bidisha (IT Manager). They answered all the questions and ideas of our Girl Coders in the audience. And they did so with great passion! We closed the evening by getting to know each other and meeting up with what have become good friends while enjoying some truly delicious snacks and drinks provided by Victoria and her awesome team.
It was another AWESOME night! Thank you all for coming and making this another success as always. You ARE Girl Code :-)
If you want to join us next time, we already announced our next one at bloomon March 21st. RSVP’s will open up in January when we announce the whole program after a little holiday break. So keep an eye on meetup, to make sure you have a spot!
Happy holidays and see you next year!
Ineke 