Hi, everyone! My name is Basty, and I’m a data scientist and educator from Metro Manila. If there’s something I value so much, that is education. Education has allowed me to not only dive into the amazing world of code and data, but also to encourage and inspire others to do the same. Read more about me here.
Outside of work and school, I love playing video games like Valorant and League of Legends. I also love listening to Broadway musicals (HAMILTON, DEH, TICK TICK BOOM ALL THE WAY!). Lastly, I LOVE watching Friends, New Girl, HIMYM, and The Big Bang Theory.
Now, let’s take a look at my scrapbook!
It’s tiiiiime for the main event of the Data Science Fellowship in Eskwelabs, DEMO DAY! You read that right, I’m talking about the day where every student and team will showcase the knowledge and experience they’ve garnered throughout the 15-week bootcamp through their capstone projects. Sounds exciting right? In this 2-part series blog post, we’ll be talking about Demo Day and why it is the culminating event of the bootcamp, and we’ll also dive into the projects that the students made themselves! But my commentary for that is coming in part 2—so stay tuned!
So, Demo Day. You might have heard of it already if you’re a fan of the kdrama series, Start-Up.
But if you haven’t yet, then no worries my friend, I’ll walk you through it! Now the phrase “demo day” is commonly equated to “showcase.” It basically represents the end of a program, where participants are given the opportunity to give their culminating pitch about their respective projects.
Demo day is actually very common in the startup industry. These are events usually organized by incubators and accelerators, wherein the participating startup founders pitch their ideas to a room full of potential investors, with the hope of securing an investment for their business.
In Eskwelabs’ case, Demo Day is a day of celebration—a celebration of the students’ capstone projects, which represents everything they’ve gone through in the whole duration of the bootcamp. From learning how to code in Python and how to gather, clean, visualize, and analyze their own data, and from implementing machine learning algorithms to real-world problems and to presenting a capstone project they proposed, designed, and executed themselves! WOAH. That’s a lot! Indeed, you will learn and apply so much in the Data Science Fellowship.
The students will each be presenting their respective capstone projects. But it is also worth noting that they will be presenting to a live open audience, and of course don’t forget…judges! People from any industry are invited and welcome to attend the Demo Day to witness what the students have prepared and even ask their own questions.
Now I also mentioned judges…dun dun dun (insert intensifying music). Every Demo Day, Eskwelabs invites the best of the best judges from industries that are suited to evaluate the students’ projects to really cultivate their presentation and communication skills in front of an audience/stakeholders.
And since there is an audience and a set of judges, there is also a Q&A portion allotted for each presenter. This portion of the event is where we can really see the amount of mind and effort the students’ have put into their project, through how they can successfully answer the questions thrown at them.
Demo day is a chance for the students’ to showcase their respective capstone projects that represents a culmination of everything they’ve learned, but why is there a need for one? A bootcamp, especially the 15-week Data Science Fellowship of Eskwelabs, is designed to be intense and rigorous. Understandably, not all applicants are taken into the bootcamp (it depends on whether or not they pass the entrance assessment!) for it takes a lot of motivation to take on the pace of the program.
The Fellowship itself already equips students with projects—4 data sprint projects to be exact! With that information alone, it is already worth celebrating the amount of effort, dedication, and hours put in by the Fellows. Add the big capstone project and you leave the bootcamp with a portfolio of 5 impressive data projects you can call your own and show off to your current or future employers.
It is truly exciting to see what the Fellows of Cohort 9 have prepared! So on this Demo Day, let’s celebrate their hard work and achievements, and the beginning of their careers in data.
We hope that Eskwelabs having Demo Day as one of the key features of its Data Science Fellowship will also encourage you and other data enthusiasts filled with dedication to check out the 15-week program.
Who knows? Maybe you’re gonna be in the next Demo Day presenting your own capstone project!
August 26, 2022 (Friday) is Cohort 9’s Data Science Fellowship Demo Day.
From the scrapbook of Basty Vergara | Connect with Basty via LinkedIn and Notion
Updated for Data Science Fellowship Cohort 10 | Classes for Cohort 10 start on September 12, 2022.
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