In this podcast episode, we talked with Isabella Bicalho about Career advice, learning, and featuring women in ML and AI.

About the Speaker:

Isabella is a Machine Learning Engineer and Data Scientist with three years of hands-on AI development experience. She draws upon her early computational research expertise to develop ML solutions. While contributing to open-source projects, she runs a newsletter dedicated to showcasing women's accomplishments in data science.

During this event, the guest discussed her transition into machine learning, her freelance work in AI, and the growing AI scene in France. She shared insights on freelancing versus full-time work, the value of open-source contributions, and developing both technical and soft skills. The conversation also covered career advice, mentorship, and her Substack series on women in data science, emphasizing leadership, motivation, and career opportunities in tech.

0:00 Introduction 1:23 Background of Isabella Bicalho 2:02 Transition to machine learning 4:03 Study and work experience 5:00 Living in France and language learning 6:03 Internship experience 8:45 Focus areas of Inria 9:37 AI development in France 10:37 Current freelance work 11:03 Freelancing in machine learning 13:31 Moving from research to freelancing 14:03 Freelance vs. full-time data science 17:00 Finding first freelance client 18:00 Involvement in open-source projects 20:17 Passion for open-source and teamwork 23:52 Starting new projects 25:03 Community project experience 26:02 Teaching and learning 29:04 Contributing to open-source projects 32:05 Open-source tools vs. projects 33:32 Importance of community-driven projects 34:03 Learning resources 36:07 Green space segmentation project 39:02 Developing technical and soft skills 40:31 Gaining insights from industry experts 41:15 Understanding data science roles 41:31 Project challenges and team dynamics 42:05 Turnover in open-source projects 43:05 Managing expectations in open-source work 44:50 Mentorship in projects 46:17 Role of AI tools in learning 47:59 Overcoming learning challenges 48:52 Discussion on substack 49:01 Interview series on women in data 50:15 Insights from women in data science 51:20 Impactful stories from substack 53:01 Leadership challenges in projects 54:19 Career advice and opportunities 56:07 Motivating others to step out of comfort zone 57:06 Contacting for substack story sharing 58:00 Closing remarks and connections

🔗 CONNECT WITH ISABELLA BICALHO Github: github https://github.com/bellabf LinkedIn:   / isabella-frazeto  

🔗 CONNECT WITH DataTalksClub Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html Datalike Substack - https://datalike.substack.com/ LinkedIn:   / datatalks-club  

In this podcast episode, we talked with Guillaume Lemaître about navigating scikit-learn and imbalanced-learn.

🔗 CONNECT WITH Guillaume Lemaître LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillaume-lemaitre-b9404939/ Twitter - https://x.com/glemaitre58 Github - https://github.com/glemaitre Website - https://glemaitre.github.io/

🔗 CONNECT WITH DataTalksClub Join the community - https://datatalks-club.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-2hu0sjeic-ESN7uHt~aVWc8tD3PefSlA#/shared-invite/email Subscribe to our Google calendar to have all our events in your calendar - https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r?cid=ZjhxaWRqbnEwamhzY3A4ODA5azFlZ2hzNjBAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ Check other upcoming events - https://lu.ma/dtc-events LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/datatalks-club/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/DataTalksClub Website - https://datatalks.club/

🔗 CONNECT WITH ALEXEY Twitter - https://twitter.com/Al_Grigor Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/agrigorev/

🎙 ABOUT THE PODCAST At DataTalksClub, we organize live podcasts that feature a diverse range of guests from the data field. Each podcast is a free-form conversation guided by a prepared set of questions, designed to learn about the guests’ career trajectories, life experiences, and practical advice. These insightful discussions draw on the expertise of data practitioners from various backgrounds.

We stream the podcasts on YouTube, where each session is also recorded and published on our channel, complete with timestamps, a transcript, and important links.

You can access all the podcast episodes here - https://datatalks.club/podcast.html

📚Check our free online courses ML Engineering course - http://mlzoomcamp.com Data Engineering course - https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp MLOps course - https://github.com/DataTalksClub/mlops-zoomcamp Analytics in Stock Markets - https://github.com/DataTalksClub/stock-markets-analytics-zoomcamp LLM course - https://github.com/DataTalksClub/llm-zoomcamp Read about all our courses in one place - https://datatalks.club/blog/guide-to-free-online-courses-at-datatalks-club.html

👋🏼 GET IN TOUCH If you want to support our community, use this link - https://github.com/sponsors/alexeygrigorev

If you're a company and want to support us, contact at [email protected]

Links:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/frontline100/ Ba Linh Le's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ba-linh-le-/ Sabrina's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabina-firtala/ Twitter: https://x.com/frontline_100?mx=2 Website: https://www.frontline100.com/

Free LLM course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/llm-zoomcamp

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We stream the podcasts on YouTube, where each session is also recorded and published on our channel, complete with timestamps, a transcript, and important links.

You can access all the podcast episodes here - https://datatalks.club/podcast.html

📚Check our free online courses ML Engineering course - http://mlzoomcamp.com Data Engineering course - https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp MLOps course - https://github.com/DataTalksClub/mlops-zoomcamp Analytics in Stock Markets - https://github.com/DataTalksClub/stock-markets-analytics-zoomcamp LLM course - https://github.com/DataTalksClub/llm-zoomcamp Read about all our courses in one place - https://datatalks.club/blog/guide-to-free-online-courses-at-datatalks-club.html

👋🏼 GET IN TOUCH If you want to support our community, use this link - https://github.com/sponsors/alexeygrigorev

If you’re a company, support us at [email protected]

We talked about:

Erum's Background Omdena Academy and Erum’s Role There Omdena’s Community and Projects Course Development and Structure at Omdena Academy Student and Instructor Engagement Engagement and Motivation The Role of Teaching in Community Building The Importance of Communities for Career Building Advice for Aspiring Instructors and Freelancers DS and ML Talent Market Saturation Resources for Learning AI and Community Building Erum’s Resource Recommendations

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erum-afzal-64827b24/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Erum55449739

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Vincent’s Background SciKit Learn’s History and Company Formation Maintaining and Transitioning Open Source Projects Teaching and Learning Through Open Source Role of Developer Relations and Content Creation Teaching Through Calm Code and The Importance of Content Creation Current Projects and Future Plans for Calm Code Data Processing Tricks and The Importance of Innovation Learning the Fundamentals and Changing the Way You See a Problem Dev Rel and Core Dev in One Why :probabl. Needs a Dev Rel Exploration of Skrub and Advanced Data Processing Personal Insights on SciKit Learn and Industry Trends Vincent’s Upcoming Projects

Links:

probabl. YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@UCIat2Cdg661wF5DQDWTQAmg Calmcode website: https://calmcode.io/ probabl. website: https://probabl.ai/

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Links:

Biodiversity and Artificial Intelligence pdf: https://www.gpai.ai/projects/responsible-ai/environment/biodiversity-and-AI-opportunities-recommendations-for-action.pdf

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Anahita's Background Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Finite Element Analysis vs. Machine Learning Optimization and Semantic Reporting Application of Knowledge Graphs in Research Graphs vs Tabular Data Computational graphs Graph Data Science and Graph Machine Learning Combining Knowledge Graphs and Large Language Models (LLMs) Practical Applications and Projects Challenges and Learnings Anahita’s Recommendations

Links:

GitHub repo: https://github.com/antahiap/ADPT-LRN-PHYS/tree/main

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Tereza’s background Switching from an Individual Contributor to Lead Python Pizza and the pizza management metaphor Learning to figure things out on your own and how to receive feedback Tereza as a leadership coach Podcasts Tereza’s coaching framework (selling yourself vs bragging) The importance of retrospectives The importance of communication and active listening Convincing people you don’t have power over Building relationships and empathy Inclusive leadership

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tereza-iofciu/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/terezaif Github: https://github.com/terezaif Website: https:// terezaiofciu.com

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Links:

VectorHub: https://superlinked.com/vectorhub/?utm_source=community&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=datatalks Daniel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/svonava/

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

​This podcast is sponsored by VectorHub, a free open-source learning community for all things vector embeddings and information retrieval systems.

We talked about:

Reem’s background Context-aware sensing and transfer learning Shifting focus from PhD to industry Reem’s experience with startups and dealing with prejudices towards PhDs AI interviewing solution How candidates react to getting interviewed by an AI avatar End-to-end overview of a machine learning project The pitfalls of using LLMs in your process Mitigating biases Addressing specific requirements for specific roles Reem’s resource recommendations

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reemmahmoud/recent-activity/all/ Website: https://topmate.io/reem_mahmoud

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Sara’s background On being a Google PhD fellow Sara’s volunteer work Finding AI volunteer work Sara’s Fruit Punch challenge How to take part in AI challenges AI Wonder Girls Hackathons Things people often miss in AI projects and hackathons Getting creative Fostering your social media Tips on applying for volunteer projects Why it’s worth doing volunteer projects Opportunities for data engineers and students Sara’s newsletter suggestions

Links:

Dev and AI hackathons: https://devpost.com/ Healthcare-focused challenges: https://grand-challenge.org/challenges/ Volunteering in projects (AI4Good): https://www.fruitpunch.ai/ Volunteering in projects (AI4Good) 2: https://www.omdena.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/el_ateifSara Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saraelateif/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-el-ateif/ Youtube: www.youtube.com/@elateifsara

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Sarah’s background How Sarah became a coach and found her niche Sarah’s clients How Sarah helps her clients find the perfect job Finding a specialization Informational interviews Building a connection for mutual benefit The networking strategy Listing your projects in the CV The importance of doing research yourself and establishing your interests How to land a part-time job when the company wants full-time Age is not a factor Applying for jobs after finishing a course and the importance of sharing your learnings Sarah resource recommendations

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmestiri/ Website: https://thrivingcareermoms.com/ Personal Website: https://www.sarahmestiri.com/ Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thrivingcareermoms444

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Nemanja’s background

When Nemanja first work as a data person Typical problems that ML Ops folks solve in the financial sector What Nemanja currently does as an ML Engineer The obstacle of implementing new things in financial sector companies Going through the hurdles of DevOps Working with an on-premises cluster “ML Ops on a Shoestring” (You don’t need fancy stuff to start w/ ML Ops) Tactical solutions Platform work and code work Programming and soft skills needed to be an ML Engineer The challenges of transitioning from and electrical engineering and sales to ML Ops The ML Ops tech stack for beginners Working on projects to determine which skills you need

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radojkovic/

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Atita’s background How NLP relates to search Atita’s experience with Lucidworks and OpenSource Connections Atita’s experience with Qdrant and vector databases Utilizing vector search Major changes to search Atita has noticed throughout her career RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) Building a chatbot out of transcripts with LLMs Ingesting the data and evaluating the results Keeping humans in the loop Application of vector databases for machine learning Collaborative filtering Atita’s resource recommendations

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atitaarora/
Twitter: https://x.com/atitaarora Github: https://github.com/atarora Human-in-the-Loop Machine Learning: https://www.manning.com/books/human-in-the-loop-machine-learning Relevant Search: https://www.manning.com/books/relevant-search Let's learn about Vectors: https://hub.superlinked.com/ Langchain: https://python.langchain.com/docs/get_started/introduction Qdrant blog: https://blog.qdrant.tech/ OpenSource Connections Blog: https://opensourceconnections.com/blog/

Free ML Engineering course: http://mlzoomcamp.com Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Adrian’s background The benefits of freelancing Having an agency vs freelancing What let Adrian switch over from freelancing The conception of DLT (Growth Full Stack) The investment required to start a company Growth through the provision of services Growth through teaching (product-market fit) Moving on to creating docs Adrian’s current role Strategic partnerships and community growth through DocDB Plans for the future of DLT DLT vs Airbyte vs Fivetran Adrian’s resource recommendations

Links:

Adrian's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/data-team/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dlt_library Github: https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt Website: https://dlthub.com/docs/intro

Free ML Engineering course: http://mlzoomcamp.com Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ioannis-mesionis/
Github: https://github.com/ioannismesionis Website: https://ioannismesionis.github.io/

Free ML Engineering course: http://mlzoomcamp.com Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Angela's background Angela's role at Sam's Club The usefulness of knowing ML as a data engineer Angela's career path Transitioning from data analyst to data engineer/system designer Best practices for system design and data engineering Working with document databases Working with network-based databases Detecting fraud with a network-based database Selecting the database type to work with Neo4j vs Postgres The importance of having software engineering knowledge in data engineering Data quality check tooling The greatest challenges in data engineering Debugging and finding the root cause of a failed job What kinds of tools Angela uses on a daily basis Working with external data sources Angela's resource recommendations

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aramirez1305/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/angelamaria__r Github: https://github.com/aramir62 Previous podcast talk: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OwGWwZAZDnGQ?s=20

Free ML Engineering course: http://mlzoomcamp.com

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html

Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Maria's background Marvelous MLOps Maria's definition of MLOps Alternate team setups without a central MLOps team Pragmatic vs non-pragmatic MLOps Must-have ML tools (categories) Maturity assessment What to start with in MLOps Standardized MLOps Convincing DevOps to implement Understanding what the tools are used for instead of knowing all the tools Maria's next project plans Is LLM Ops a thing? What Ahold Delhaize does Resource recommendations to learn more about MLOps The importance of data engineering knowledge for ML engineers

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marvelous-mlops/

Website: https://marvelousmlops.substack.com/

Free MLOps course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/mlops-zoomcamp Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

We talked about:

Aleksander's background Aleksander as a Causal Ambassador Using causality to make decisions Counterfactuals and and Judea Pearl Meta-learners vs classical ML models Average treatment effect Reducing causal bias, the super efficient estimator, and model uplifting Metrics for evaluating a causal model vs a traditional ML model Is the added complexity of a causal model worth implementing? Utilizing LLMs in causal models (text as outcome) Text as treatment and style extraction The viability of A/B tests in causal models Graphical structures and nonparametric identification Aleksander's resource recommendations

Links:

The Book of Why: https://amzn.to/3OZpvBk Causal Inference and Discovery in Python: https://amzn.to/46Pperr Book's GitHub repo: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Causal-Inference-and-Discovery-in-Python The Battle of Giants: Causality vs NLP (PyData Berlin 2023): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd1XtGZhnmw New Frontiers in Causal NLP (papers repo): https://bit.ly/3N0TFTL

Free MLOps course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/mlops-zoomcamp Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html