Shows
The Gradient Boost NewsletterPodcast: An NLP Project to detect deception in speechThe Gradient Boost is platform to help you learn, get upskilled and get tech jobs through building mentor guided projects. We partner with experienced professionals around the world (Data Scientists, Data Engineers, DevOps Engineers and Software Engineers) and companies to create projects on our platform simulating real world tasks. Once you unlock a project you get access to videos guiding you through logic behind each project and get support and feedback from mentors.On Friday, we invited Victor Palacios, a Data Scientist at KNIME to an informal chat about a project he will be launching on our platform...2021-12-1325 min
The Gradient Boost NewsletterComplete a project through The Gradient Boost platform, get upskilled and get hired by Indicina (Engineering Manager)The best way to learn, upskill yourself is through building real world projects. What if I told you building a real world project can also get you a job. The Gradient Boost has partnered with Indicina; a fintech using “advanced machine learning technology to unearth unique customer financial data, enabling digital lenders to make smarter credit decisions” to launch a project to both help you upskill yourself and that will be used as a technical test for Indicina to find and interview candidates for an Engineering Manager role they are actively hiring for.In simple terms if you meet...2021-12-1000 min
The Gradient Boost NewsletterProject Podcast: Building a price estimation software to predict the price of unreleased gamesHope you are having a great week.As a reminder, The Gradient Boost is a platform enabling users to learn, get upskilled and get tech jobs through building mentor guided projects simulating real world tasks. Our projects are created by a combination of experienced professionals in Data Science, Data Engineering, DevOps and Software Engineering and companies. The best way to learn technical skills and kick start a solid career in these high paying fields is through building real world projects not only helping you understand how to apply your skills to practical business problems, but to communicate your...2021-12-031h 02
The Gradient Boost NewsletterAn Informal chat with Wale Akinfaderin: Data Scientist at AWSWe invited Wale Akinfaderin to an informal chat. Wale is a data scientist at Amazon Web Services. He was previously the lead data scientist at Duke Energy Corporation and holds a PhD in Physics from Florida State University. We invited some users on our platform and other guests to join the chat, adding more diversity in the line of questioning to make it a more interesting chat. We touched on multiple topics ranging from understanding the difference between different ‘careers’ within data science, changing expectations as one transitions from junior to intermediate to senior and some of the interesting proj...2021-04-271h 43
The Gradient Boost NewsletterPartnership with the Port Harcourt School of AI Round TableWe recently spoke to Stephen Oladele, the dean of the Port Harcourt School of AI about our partnership to further our collective cause of enabling world-class data education for students looking to get into data science in Nigeria (and eventually Africa). We dove into detail regarding the intersection of aspirations and visions that led to this collaboration and how we see it developing in the future and more importantly helping students looking to get into data science achieve better outcomes.For full details of this partnership, here is a link to the press release from the P...2020-11-2748 min
The Gradient Boost NewsletterWeekend Workshop with Ephraim A. EbongOver the weekend we invited the Lead of Business Intelligence and Data Science at Custodian Investment (a publicly listed holding company operating in the insurance sector in Nigeria), Ephraim A Ebong to chat to some of our students about his journey into data science, including some of the projects he has worked on and share some insights regarding what it takes to excel in data science. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thegradientboost.substack.com2020-11-231h 06
The Gradient Boost NewsletterThe Gradient Boost round table with the Assistant VP of Data Science at ABSA and the Chief Data Officer at Kobo360We recently held a round table discussion between Dumebi Okwechime, the Chief Data Officer at Y-Combinator backed Kobo360 and Khanyisa Noganta, the Assistant Vice President of Data Science at ABSA (South Africa). The Gradient Boost team joined the round table to have a discussion on the role of data science in corporations and its evolution in different sectors.We also spoke about the different problems encountered in data science leadership, adoption of data science and in data collection in different organizations.For the YouTube video: This is a public episode. If you would like...2020-11-1758 min
The Gradient Boost NewsletterThe Gradient Boost Podcast: Josh Ojo Aromukudu and our Imposter SyndromeIn this episode, we spoke to Josh, a junior data scientist part of Sanlam’s graduate program in South Africa. One major theme was imposter syndrome, something we can all relate to (yes, ALL). Our co-host for today is one of our students, Boipeo Motsosi. We got pretty personal about how self-doubt affects us and how breaking into a new career can be daunting yet so rewarding. Watch our facial expressions as we tear up about our lost hopes and triumphs on the YouTube version here: This is a public episode. If you would li...2020-10-201h 03
The Gradient Boost NewsletterThe Gradient Boost Podcast Presents: Co-founder round-tableIn this podcast we had a co-founder round-table with Emmanuel Sibanda, Jasmine Desvarieux and Vivian Opondoh (The Gradient Boost co-founders), one of our students from the May 2020 cohort, Ajibol Lawal and our advisor and investor Dumebi Okwechime, the Chief Decision Scientist at Renmoney. We kept this fairly an open ended discussion, having one of the students ask us questions to probe our vision going forward and to tell us more about his experience learning data science through The Gradient Boost’s 4 month Introduction to Data Science program.We also spoke about Ajibola’s experience interviewing with our hiring part...2020-09-121h 16
The Gradient Boost NewsletterThe Gradient Boost Podcast presents: A chat with the CTO of Niqao (Ghana), Kwadwo- Agyapon-NtraSome time ago we spoke to Kwadwo Agyapon-Ntra, he is currently the Chief Technology Officer of Niqao, an e-commerce in Ghana enabling users to pay for products in installments that recently raised a $100 000 in seed funding through Meltwater’s MEST program. Kwadwo has a background in Electrical and Computer Engineering.We spoke to Kwadwo about balancing learning data science while building his venture, how data science ties into his existing skillsets as a software engineer, the value of mentorship when learning, unfinished online courses (I am sure we all have a few of these) and the value of ha...2020-09-071h 03
The Gradient Boost NewsletterThe Gradient Boost Podcast: An informal chat with the Head of Data Science and Analytics at Lulalend (a fintech in South Africa)A few weeks ago, we had a chat with Karel Verhoeven, the Head of Data Science and Analytics at Lulalend, an SME financing startup in South Africa. We got to learn a bit more about projects his data science team works on, specifically touching on how they predict risk and determine whether to give out a loan or not.Karel also gave his thoughts regarding the challenges he encounters mentoring both aspiring and junior data scientists and the benefits of aspiring data scientists who are more practical and hands on.We co-hosted this podcast with Sebastian Dyantyi...2020-08-2254 min
The Gradient Boost NewsletterThe Gradient Boost Podcast: Chatting with Chris Orwa, the Lead Data Scientist at I & M Bank in KenyaWe recently spoke to Chris Orwa. Chris is the Lead Data Scientist at I & M Bank in Kenya, an avid blogger and a freelance Data Journalist at Nation Media Group.We spoke to Chris about his ‘accidental’ journey into data science, data journalism, the value of data science in both large businesses and SMEs and how well it is received. We also had a more abstract discussion about how data influences decision making both in corporations and in public policy, specifically asking the question if data should outweigh instinct and contextual knowledge and where the limitations of data driv...2020-08-151h 11
The Gradient Boost NewsletterA chat with the Lead Data Analyst of Sparkle- Tayo, a digital bank in Nigeria about how they are using data to better understand customer behaviorSome time ago we spoke to Adetayo Kolade, the Lead Data Analyst at Sparkle.ng. One of our students, Akinloye, co-hosted this podcast. Sparkle is a digital bank in Nigeria focused on developing innovative features such as split payments to allow you to share bills, payment links that allow you to transfer money to another account without having the other person’s account details, aiding users with budgeting and other innovative features. Sparkle was founded by the former Diamond Bank CEO Uzoma Dozie.Sparkle is one of the companies that are offering a paid internship to one of the le...2020-08-071h 02
The Gradient Boost NewsletterAn informal chat with Dumebi Okwechime, the Chief Decision Scientist at Renmoney about the Data Science landscape and scaling a Data Science team in NigeriaWe recently had an informal chat with Dumebi Okwechime, the Chief Decision Scientist at Renmoney. Dumebi previously led the Data Science team at Barclaycard and Infosys in the UK. In this chat we spoke about the data science landscape in Nigeria, getting into more detail about the challenges of scaling a data science team in the country, specifically issues regarding the local talent pipeline giving real insight into what someone looking to get a job in Data Science needs to do to truly stand out. We also got more context on how Renmoney uses data to drive decisions...2020-08-0142 min
The Gradient Boost NewsletterThe Gradient Boost Podcast: Co-Founder round tableAs a primer to launching our podcast we had an informal round-table between 3 of the co-founders of The Gradient Boost about our mission, our ecosystem, about ourselves and about The Gradient Boost.Our podcast will be about having conversations about all things data science related in Africa. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thegradientboost.substack.com2020-07-2552 min