It is only a little over a month for the biggest machine learning conference – Machine Learning Developers Summit 2022. And it is happening in person, after two years! The fourth edition of this coveted conference will take place on January 19-20, 2022. For regular attendees, it is the one-stop destination to get acquainted with everything machine learning. However, for those attending for the first time, consider this article a peep into what you are in for! 

Major highlights of MLDS conferences gone by

MLDS 2021

MLDS 2021 was attended by AI and machine learning startups and companies from across the globe. Among the attendees were representatives from large tech companies, SMEs, and startups that are revolutionising the space and exposing the attendees to their growth stories and use cases that worked for them through the years.

MLDS 2021 was a three-day event that gave attendees access to machine learning experts, practitioners and entrepreneurs. The event saw more than 1,500 machine learning developers and 60 speakers from 200 companies. MLDS 2021 had a lineup of some of the most established speakers, including – Anish Agarwal (Director – Data & Analytics, India at NatWest Group), Alok Kumar (Head of Data & Analytics at DBS Bank Singapore), Bragadeesh S (Head Of Analytics at Daimler AG), Shirish Gupta (Team Lead/Data Scientist-1 at Novartis), Sachin Garg (Head of Data Science at PayU), among others.

MLDS 2020

MLDS 2020 was conducted over two rounds – one in Bangalore and the other in Hyderabad. The conference covered the technical and business aspects of machine learning that attracted developers and C-suite executives from all over the country. One of the most awaited features of this conference was a hands-on session by Julia programming co-creator Viral Shah where he addressed big trends in AI 2.0, differentiable programming, and implementation of machine learning using Julia.

Apart from Shah, Savin Goyal from Netflix gave an insightful talk on ‘More data science, less engineering with Netflix’s Metaflow’ where he demonstrated how Metaflow could be used to make ML processes reproducible.

Other presenters include Vinodhini Ranganathan, Senior Data Scientist at Cisco; Data science leader Mathangi Sri; ZS Chief Technology Officer Abhishek Trigunait and Data Science Manager Sagar Madgi; Mohanraj Vengadachalam, Data Scientist at Renault Nissan; Sundara Ramalingam N, Head of Deep Learning practice at NVIDIA, etc.

Another major highlight of the event was the machine learning hackathons – MLDS Hackathon and Codeblitz, which were conducted by Analytics India Magazine’s MachineHack team. For the MLDS hackathon, the topic was Drones: StatLog Prediction to classify the status of Drone based on the multiple such instances of Drone Flights. Winners from the two hackathons took away prizes worth more than ₹50,000 in total.

MLDS 2019

This was the first in the series of highly successful MLDS events. Organised over a two-day conference, the event was structured as a platform for learning and networking, featuring some of the whos who from the developers’ community in India speaking about the latest topics of AI and machine learning.

The key highlight of the summit was the keynote speech by Sandeep Alur, Technical Evangelist, Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft. Alur explained how Microsoft was driving digital transformation and democratising AI with customised solutions on Azure. He also outlined industry solutions and platforms by the tech giant to help developers build models.

Day 2 saw a panel discussion on AI For You, which was moderated by Pragati Ogal Rai, the Director-Developer Audience at Microsoft. This discussion saw participation from Vijoy Basu, Senior Director, Data & Analytics, Cognizant, Praveen Srivatsa, Director at Asthrasoft Consulting, and Shweta Gupta, Senior Engineer & Architect at Microsoft.

Intel also had a huge presence at the summit. The company representatives conducted a series of tech talks, panel discussions, and keynote talks. Intel’s focus was to expand the AI Software Portfolio that puts tools in the hands of developers.

40 Under 40

Another constant feature at the summit is the much anticipated 40Under40 awards that recognise India’s young data scientists and leaders who nurture, support and further promote the growth of the ML and analytics ecosystem. This year is no different, and the nominations are being accepted for the same.

MLDS 2022 will be bigger and grander than the previous years. Watch out this space for more!

Note: The company names and designations are corresponding to the year of the event.