The Web Summit, Europes largest technology-industry conference was held in Dublin this week. An annual event since 2010, the Web Summit attracted over ten thousand visitors from over 90 countries. The Web Summit puts Ireland on the international startup and internet scene. With speakers like Elon Musk (founder of Paypal, SpaceX, and Tesla) and representatives from new and successful internet companies such as Coursera, Stripe, Hailo, Vine and Mailbox, speaking, I was sickened to not have one of the coveted €1000 euro tickets. (Granted only €1000 for the last week or so!)
The speakers were spread over 4 different stages and spoke on a broad range of topics. Some of the best talks about data science and data visualisation are embedded here:
Des Traynor – Designing Dashboards: From Data to Insights
Des Traynor, founder of Intercom, takes us through the fundamentals of good data display techniques. What are the disadvantages of bubble charts? Why not use a bar chart? What are the common tricks used by people to deceive us with data?
David Coallier – Data Science… What Even?!
David Coallier, a data science from Engine Yard, speaks about data science – what is it? What tools do you use? What are the best packages for doing data science? What does it take to become a data scientist?
Casper Schlickum – The Big Data Myth
Casper Schlickum, managing director of Xaxis EMEA, talks about the myth of big data. Is anyone actually using big data? Has anything actually changed with the way people do business as a result of the big data explosion? Should we care about big data? Great speech from a leader in the industry.
Dwight Merriman, MongoDB
And to add some balance to the big data debate, Dwight Merriman, from MongoDB, talks about Big Data, unstructured data, data science. What are we using data for now? How has the way we see data changed? What are actual uses and advantages for Big Data?
I haven’t been able to watch everything, so if you think I’m missing any key talks, please do let me know.