🎉ML Community Wrapped: 2023
As we usher in a new year, it brings us immense joy to reflect on the incredible journey of our ML Community since its inception in September 2023. This article encapsulates the essence of our collective endeavors, growth, and accomplishments throughout the past year. From humble beginnings to becoming a thriving hub for machine learning enthusiasts, this report serves as a testament to the passion, dedication, and collaborative spirit that define our community.
September: Setting the Stage 🌟
September marked the inception of a thrilling chapter for GDSC Unilag. With gusto and grit, we embarked on a journey to infuse new life into a collective passion for machine learning so we birthed the first ever GDSC ML Community in Unilag. The stage was set, and our first act was nothing short of spectacular.
A community is only as strong as its foundation, and ours was forged with detail. September saw the selection of a dynamic team, a group of visionaries who shared a common goal — to cultivate a space where machine learning could thrive. Together, we embraced change and eagerly dove into the task of revitalizing the existing ML study group.
We cleared the waters, bidding adieu to uninterested folks after collecting their responses through a form. The transformation was symbolized by a change in name — our study group morphed into the official ML Community. A beacon for machine learning enthusiasts, beckoning them to join our vibrant space of learning, collaboration, and growth.
October: Unfurling The Plan✨
In October, we had our virtual debut. It was a symphony of introductions and aspirations. We discussed our year-long plan, a roadmap of exciting events, engaging activities, and shared aspirations. It was a virtual gathering that set the tone for the twelve months ahead, promising a year filled with discovery, camaraderie, and machine learning marvels.
One of our community leads, Ifihanagbara Olusheye gave a talk on the topic: “The Relevance of ML Today”. Catch the recording on YouTube here.
Open source for ML Enthusiasts?
The community was not left out as we had our very own open source event tailored for data folks🔥
It was a co organized technical session moderated by one of the community leads — Oluwafolabomi Adebayo-Oke . It was handled by Samuel Bamgbola — a Microsoft certified AI Engineer, also one of the community leads and Josiah Adesola — a community member and a Machine Learning Engineer with lots of open source experience. They gave practical steps on how to contribute to open source as a data folk, it was an amazing one! 🌟
Later into the month, we published a beginner-friendly guide titled 📖“A Guide to Open Source for ML Enthusiasts”. It was jointly authored by some of the leads with technical writing experience, they are: Oluwafikayomi Adeleke , Ifihanagbara Olusheye , Samuel Bamgbola , and I. It also contains resources ranging from repos that accept no-code ML contributions to advanced implementations. 🤝🏾
To wrap up the month, another community lead — Demilade Kolawole-Jacobs organized a fun game night with very interesting questions, there were prizes for the winners and it was a blast! 🚀
đź“Ľ Catch the recording of the technical session here.
November: A Restructured Cadence🎓
November unfolded as a chapter of evolution for our ML Community, where the traditional notes of study jams found a new rhythm. In a departure from convention, mentors took the lead, guiding participants through the diverse landscape of topics in a symphony of shared knowledge. With the help of the global community of Google ML Developers, we were able to use a well curated list of resources from Kaggle to execute the study jam such that it accommodated ML enthusiasts from all levels of technical expertise.
With a fresh approach, each week became a canvas for mentors to paint their expertise. Assigned to different topics, participants navigated the landscape under the guidance of seasoned mentors. The mentorship model replaced the traditional teaching method, transforming each study jam into a collaborative journey.
Certificates as Crescendo: Acknowledging Milestones.
As the weeks unfolded, the Kaggle certificates became tokens of accomplishment. A crescendo of recognition, these certificates symbolized the commitment and effort invested by each participant. At the end of the one month study jam duration, the ML Community issued her own certificate to participants based on the number of weeks they completed, it served as a tangible proof of the shared voyage through the intricacies of machine learning.
December: The Wrap
🏆 ML Hackathon Highlights: 52 applications, 10+ teams, 3 winners
Extended Networks W.A Limited reached out and shared a set of problem statements that they believed could be solved with ML. We had a deliberation among the core team and decided to hold a hackathon across different GDSC chapters. The data was tricky because it was recorded from different devices and had an unfamiliar naming convention so we had an ML engineer from the company explain the dataset to participants over a webinar session.
The teams were assigned mentors on request and there were 2 stages of submissions. We reviewed based on 7 criteria: Model accuracy, generalisation, novelty, clarity and documentation, feature engineering, visualisation, and team collaboration. The first stage consisted of a review session from internal reviewers (Toluwani and Olorundara) while we had external reviewers for the final review, one of whom is an ML Engineer at Extended Network — Mbasi Japhet.
Special thanks to Mojolaoluwa Adedokun for taking some time out of her schedule to help us with the second review process.
To cap off this incredible experience, we had the privilege of taking the stage to announce the winners at the biggest student’ Devfest in Nigeria. Big thanks to Idris Olubisi and Sodiq Akinjobi for honouring the prize ceremony.
Throughout the hackathon duration, Hafsah Anibaba, the current GDSC lead, UNILAG and Olorundara worked alongside 2 employees at Extended Networks; Remmy OBIA and Mbasi Japhet, it was a fruitful and seamless period of interaction.
🌟 Lessons Learned as a team: These experiences strengthened our knowledge on the importance of collaboration, adaptability, and the immense impact a united community can have. It was a learning experience that will undoubtedly shape our future endeavours.
Looking Forward…
In the ever-evolving landscape of machine learning, our community has been a dynamic force, fostering knowledge exchange, skill development, and meaningful connections among its members. As we unwrap the layers of our activities, events, and achievements, we invite you to join us in celebrating the milestones and envisioning the exciting possibilities that lie ahead in 2024. To join us, click this link. This report is a reflection of the vibrant tapestry woven by each member, making “ML Community Wrapped” a chronicle of shared successes, shared knowledge, and the shared vision that propels us into the future.
We thank out members for being an integral part of the journey. Let’s unravel more stories together! 🚀
This article was written by Olorundara Akojede (dvrvsimi)
GDSC ML Lead -Unilag.