[Proposal] Around the World with Numeratis

Overview

NumerCon and the time I spent with my fellow Numeratis were the exact “booster jab” I needed to wake the “meetup organizer Joe” up after two crazy years of COVID and hibernation in a man cave. After NumerCon, I am confident that 1) many countries are now ready for in-person tech events and 2) we need to bring this fantastic in-person experience to more Numeratis around the world.

So, fam, here is my proposal for Global Numerai Community Meetups.

Goals

  • Demystifying Numerai - many top data scientists out there are just not too sure about the crypto elements and/or the tournament format. Speaking with and listening to long-term participants can be an effective way to build trust. This was exactly how I learned to trust Numerai after watching Jon’s Office Hours with Arbitrage.
  • Knowledge sharing and brainstorming - although we may not share all our secret sauce, meetups are great opportunities to bounce ideas off each other and may lead to new models with crazily high TC.
  • Face-to-face discussions between Numeratis and Numerai team - a lot more than just asking the team “wen scores” in person, these events can provide a quick and direct feedback loop for both participants and the Numerai team.

Specifications

  • Main objective - meetups with talks from community members + the participation of CoE and/or Numerai team members
  • Secondary objective - workshops
  • Nice to have - mini unconferences (see Unconference - Wikipedia)

Costs (depend on location)

First Few Steps

  • Create multiple groups (e.g. London Numeratis, Tokyo Numeratis) on meetup.com
  • Plan and announce the first few meetups in 2022 ASAP (we can pick the first few locations based on my old dashboard users’ data and vote on them)
  • Call for speakers
  • Promote meetups both internally (rocket.chat/forum) and externally (social media)

My Background

  • I have organized 100+ similar tech events (meetups/workshops/conferences) for work in 40+ cities from 2016 to early 2020. (See Jo-fai Chow - Senior Data Science Evangelist - H2O.ai | LinkedIn)
  • [Bonus fact] I stopped traveling for events in March 2020 due to COVID. I got bored at home and accidentally stumbled upon some Office Hours with Arbitrage videos. The rest is history.

[Optional] Gamification / Rewards

  • Numerai swag for meetup participants (recommended)
  • NFTees for event organizers and speakers (motivation moon high!)
16 Likes

Love it. Lets do it! One vote yes from me here

2 Likes

Sure we need it! Not everyone can fly around the globe for NumerCon.

3 Likes

perhaps travel expenses should also be provided for speakers - if in person?
Love the idea, bring it on :slight_smile:

Sure thing. Proposal updated :ok_hand:

London Meetup (Saturday, 16th July) - Call for Speakers

Good news! For our first meetup in London, I have booked the Microsoft Reactor London - one of the very best meetup venues in Central London. I have also created this Eventbrite page for registration so go and grab your ticket.

The community meetup is essentially a platform for our community members to share their Numerai experience and to learn from each other. That’s why I need your help again. I need some talk proposals from the community.

If you are interested in giving a talk at our London meetup, please submit a talk proposal here (just reply to this message). Just like the other proposals, I will leave the final decision to CoE.

Your talk proposal should include the following:

  • Talk title
  • Abstract
  • Speaker bio
  • Duration (e.g. 20/30/45/60 mins)
  • Any additional info (e.g. forum posts, tweets, memes)
4 Likes

We did it! The first Numerai community meetup in London! :raised_hands:

A big thank you to @arbitrage and @aventurine for coming all the way from the US. The community also learned a lot from @boogies999 and @jelford :pray:

My expenses in total = USD 719.72 (see the receipts here).

I will have a chat with the CoE and figure out how to share the materials later. We had some positive feedback on the day. I will send out a simple survey later to collect more data.

More importantly, let’s start planning the next event! :earth_asia:

11 Likes

[Update] Materials from Meetups - A New GitHub Repo

I will be adding content to this repo → GitHub - councilofelders/meetups: Materials from CoE sponsored meetups from time to time.

For example, check out the videos of the welcoming and closing remarks at our London meetup to get a feel for the atmosphere :uk:

3 Likes

NYC Meetup (Saturday, 24th September) - Call for Speakers

For the second meetup, I have booked a room at NYC Seminar & Conference Center in Midtown Manhattan.

The Eventbrite page is ready so go and grab your ticket.

The community meetup is essentially a platform for our community members to share their Numerai experience and to learn from each other. That’s why I need your help again. I need some talk proposals from the community.

If you are interested in giving a talk at our London meetup, please submit a talk proposal here (just reply to this message). Just like the other proposals, I will leave the final decision to CoE.

Your talk proposal should include the following:

  • Talk title (all I need for now)
  • Abstract (optional)
  • Speaker bio (optional)
  • Duration (e.g. 20/30/45/60 mins)
  • Any additional info (optional - forum posts, tweets, memes)

See you in New York!

1 Like

Second Numerai Community Meetup :statue_of_liberty: :white_check_mark:

It’s great meeting the NYC community. Big thank you again to @aventurine, @surajp, @richai, and the AI Arena team for giving a talk.

My expenses in total = 5,179 USD (see the summary here)

I am editing the videos from the event right now. Keep an eye on GitHub - councilofelders/meetups: Materials from CoE sponsored meetups

3 Likes

So we have done four meetups in 12 months :partying_face:

We are now looking ahead and planning our next event. I will have more info to share with you all when it is ready.

Watch this space! :wink:

1 Like