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• 5:30 PM: Walk-in with food and drinks • 6:30 PM: Introduction by Jeroen Janssens • 6:35 PM: Welcome by Cognizant Digital Studio • 6:40 PM: Talk 1: "What is Real Programming?" by Felienne Hermans • 7:15 PM: Book Raffle 1 • 7:20 PM: Talk 2: "Thoughts on doing Agile Data Science" by Edwin Thoen • 7:55 PM: Book Raffle 2 • 8:00 PM: Talk 3: "Prescriptive Analytics: Methodologies and Challenges" by Sophia Katrenko • 8:35 PM: Community Announcements • 8:45 PM: Drinks • 9:30 PM: End

• Talk 1: What is Real Programming?

Is Excel a programming language? That question has kept my mind occupied since I wrote a PhD thesis on spreadsheets as code. And is CSS programming? My friend Lara Schenk asked this question on Twitter twice and got interesting answers… So, what is a programming language? What do people think, and what arguments do they use? After a lot of debate, I thought it was time for a scientific experiment and collected data from (to date) over 600 developers. In this talk I will talk about the results which I analyze with Python (which is of course the one programming language to rule them all) and discuss the implications of this study.

• About Felienne Hermans

Felienne is associate professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science at Leiden University, where she heads the PERL research group, focused on programming education. On Saturdays she teaches children programming in a local community centre. Felienne was also one of the founders of the Joy of Coding conference, with a similar goal, which she organized for 6 years. Since 2016, she has been a host at SE radio, one of the most popular software engineering podcasts on the web. When she is not coding, blogging or teaching, she is probably knitting, running or playing a (board)game.

• Talk 2: Thoughts on doing Agile Data Science

During the past decade, Agile has become the leading philosophy for many software engineering teams. Agile is a set of values and principles that promote quick delivery and short-cycled improvements to products. In this talk I explore what it means to apply the Agile philosophy to the development of data science products, such as machine learning models and the production of automated research reports. How can we, as data scientists, have continuous delivery, keep the business involved throughout the process, and integrate software development with the explorative nature of our work?

• About Edwin Thoen

With a degree in Applied Statistics he started to work on data science projects in business six years ago. First as a consultant, then at Rabobank and currently at Funda. Within the data science spectrum his main interests are interactive data analysis, solving machine learning problems with statistical models, and maintaining an effective workflow. Edwin is the author and maintainer of the padr R package and contributes to other open source projects on a regular basis. He lives in Oegstgeest with his wife and two boys, where he enjoys family life, playing tennis, and cooking.

• Talk 3: Prescriptive Analytics: Methodologies and Challenges

Prescriptive analytics has received substantial attention in the recent years and exemplifies a shift from descriptive and predictive analytics to actionable insights. In this talk, I will review existing solutions in prescriptive analytics and introduce Cognizant's Learning Evolutionary AI Framework that enables business decision making by discovering optimal strategies.

• About Sophia Katrenko

Sophia Katrenko is Senior Manager Data Science at Cognizant who has worked in advertising, research, finance, publishing, and continues exploring Data Science & Analytics in other sectors, preferably with a measurable impact on society. Prior to joining Cognizant, she had led content enrichment and commercial bibliometrics projects at Elsevier serving global markets. Sophia holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Amsterdam on the topic of information extraction.