ES
Reviews and events

Back to on-site conferences on Data Science

29/11/2021
Here are our recommendations for Data Science conferences that are announcing new dates for on-site events.

One of the most stimulating aspects of our work is to be able to assist in real time to the development of new technologies, new approaches or the continuous -and vertiginous- improvement of Artificial Intelligence systems. Whether it is learning new solutions or being involved in the improvement of one of them, the work in Artificial Intelligence is constantly changing.

To keep up to date with all these developments, we can attend the multitude of Data Science conferences that are held every year around the world. Whether they are more generalist or more specialised, they are the ideal place to discover state-of-the-art solutions and share our learnings. For this reason, at BBVA AI Factory we have an extraordinary budget to attend any event or conference relevant to our work.

After this last year and a half of hiatus, many conferences are already planning their return to on-site events.

Domain specific conferences

Recsys 2021 was held last September in hybrid format (online and in-person)

FAccT

Where: Seoul, South Korea
When: June 21-25, 2022
Format: on line and in-person
⎋ More information

FaccT acronym corresponds to Fairness Accountability and Transparency of socio-technical systems and it gathers researchers and practitioners interested in the social implications of algorithmic systems. Systems based on AI and fueled by big data have applications either in the public sector as in multiple industries such as healthcare, marketing, media, human resources, entertainment or finance to name a few. In order to understand and evaluate the social implications of these systems it is useful to study them from different perspectives, this is why this conference is unique on its own because of its multidisciplinarity. It gathers participants from the fields of computer science, social sciences, law and humanities from industry and academia to reflect on topics such as algorithmic fairness, whether these systems contain inherent risks or potential bias or how to build awareness on their social impacts.

Data + AI Summit 2022

Where: San Francisco, United States
When: June 27-30, 2022
Format: in-person (although some kind of hybrid participation is announced too)
⎋ More information

Formerly known as Spark Summit, the conference -organized by Databricks– offers a broad panoramic of recent developments, use cases and experiences around Apache Spark and other related technologies. The variety of topics can be interesting for many roles in the Data Science and Machine Learning arenas (e.g., Data and ML Engineers, Data Scientists, Researchers, or Key Decision Makers, to name a few), and it’s always oriented towards big data and scalable ML pipelines. The presentations typically have a practical orientation and also include hands-on training workshops and sessions with the original creators of open-source technologies, such as Apache Spark, Delta Lake, MLflow, and Koalas. The contents from the previous edition are available on demand for free here. After two editions in a digital format, this year the Summit will be held in San Francisco although some kind of hybrid participation is announced in the webpage.

Recsys

Where: Seattle, United States
When: Sept. 18-23, 2022
Format: in-person
⎋ More information

RecSys is the premier international conference that aims at portraying recent developments, trends and challenges in the broad field of recommender systems. It also features tutorials covering state-of-the-art in this domain, workshops, special sessions for industrial partners from different sectors such as travel, gaming and fashion industries, and a doctoral symposium. RecSys started with 117 people in Minnesota in 2007, and has reached this year (i.e. 2022) its sixteenth edition. One of the key aspects of this conference so far has been its good mix between academy and industrial participants/works.

General conferences on ML/AI

A moment during KDD 2019

AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Where: Vancouver, Canada
When: February 22 – March 1, 2022
Format: in-person
⎋ More information

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is a prestigious society devoted to advancing the understanding of the mechanisms underlying intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines. Its conference promotes the exchange of knowledge between AI practitioners, scientists, and engineers. It explores advances in core AI and also hosts 39 workshops about a wide range of AI applications like financial services, cybersecurity, health, fairness, etc. Check out the 2021 conference and also a review of the 2020 edition.

Applied Machine Learning Days (AMLD)

Where: EPFL. Lausanne, Switzerland
When: March 26 – 30, 2022
Format: in-person
⎋ More information

Each year the conference consists of different tracks on different topics. It is a conference oriented to the application of Machine Learning, so you can find very varied topics each year. It stands out for its good balance between academia and industry, its keynotes and, above all, its workshops. These are sessions prior to the conference itself where you really learn 100% hands on. Check out the one held in January 2020.

The Society for AI and Statistics

Where: Valencia, Spain
When: March 28 – 30, 2022
Format: in-person (still under discussion)
⎋ More information

Web description: Since its inception in 1985, AISTATS has been an interdisciplinary gathering of researchers at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics, and related areas. And it is true. It is a mainly statistical conference with applications in the field of Machine Learning. It requires a good knowledge of statistics to understand the concepts discussed there and to be able to exploit it to the fullest. The invited speakers are of a high level (many from the Gaussian side) and the organizers take great care in the choice of the venue ;). Check out the last proceedings.

KDD 2022

Where: Washington, United States
When: August 14-18, 2022
Format: in-person
⎋ More information

KDD is a research conference that has its origins in data mining, but its reach extends to applied machine learning, and nowadays defines itself as “the premier data science conference”. More than other conferences on ML or Ai which are aimed at the academic research community, this one is especially appealing to people with “Data Scientist” as job title. Its main differentiators are: an applied data science track, a track on invited Data Science speakers, and hands-on tutorials. The bar is still very high technically, but a large fraction of the research comes from the real world and corporate research has a high weight.

Within KDD, at BBVA AI Factory we have been actively involved both in the organization and the program committee of the workshop of Machine Learning for Finance for the last 2 years, after participating in the KDD Workshop on Anomaly Detection in Finance in 2019. Read our report on the 2019 conference to grasp a better idea of this event!