Women in Data Science (WiDS) at Stanford is an annual technical conference designed to educate, inspire, and empower data scientists around the world. Everyone is encouraged to participate. It’s a global conference with 150+ regional events worldwide, and it provides an opportunity to hear about the latest data science-related research and applications across a broad set of disciplines. Since its inception in November 2015, the number of participants has constantly growing year over year.

This year, on March 4, the Women in Big Data (WiBD) NorthWest Chapter hosted a live-streaming of the Women in Data Science Conference from Stanford University. The event took place at Intel’s Ronler Acres Auditorium in Hillsboro, Oregon. 100+ registrants had the chance to learn from industry leaders about their work and their journeys. The audience represented researchers, big data scientists, data analysts, and machine learning experts, as well as multiple local business owners who wanted to learn about how they can effectively use big data, as well as its impact on their businesses. Topics ranged from privacy and cybersecurity to data ethics, data visualization, and much more. Click here to view a recorded version of the program.

Throughout the day we had a few coffee breaks. During this time, many looked for an opportunity to network and share their experiences. The audience actively discussed industry transformations and how big data can help solve today’s complex challenges.

Over lunch break we had an amazing mentoring session. Mentors networked with audience, inspired, shared their expertise and provided guidance to many. The audience was thrilled and provided us very positive feedback, including:

• “The discussions were very rich and fulfilling for me as a mentor.” – Monica Ene-Pietrosanu 
• “A good opportunity to network and get some perspective on the field.” – Attendee

The event concluded with a call to action where we encouraged everyone to connect, collaborate and execute together—to take this engagement forward and get involved as a sponsor, speaker, mentor, volunteer.

Live-streaming of the Women in Data Science Conference from Stanford University was a success due to an amazing audience and great mentors. Thanks to the WiBD Northwest Chapter Committee (Meena, Agata, Sravani and Mangai) for flawlessly planning and executing the event.

The author, Agata Gruza, is a Big Data Software Engineer at Intel Corporation. She works on performance enhancements and software security mitigations.