Thank you all for attending Data Con LA 2019!! We hope to see you again next year!!
Highlights Reel / 2019
Photos
Keynote Speakers / 2019
Slides
Startup Showcase / 2019 Startup Showcase
Congratulations to our winners!!
1) Lexset
2) EVVEMI
3) Blue.Social
Prizes:
First Place – $1000 cash and a 1 one-on-one feedback and strategy session with a VC from TenOneTen Ventures.
Second Place – $500 cash.
Third Place – $250 cash.
Data Con LA Business Data Scholarship
The Data Con LA 2019 Startup Showcase and MountainTop Data are partnering to offer data scholarships to all qualifying startups. This scholarship is available for any startup that needs targeted account and contact information for marketing, or access to a large business data pool for product functionality, or has a product that monetizes business data. MountainTop Data maintains a database of tens of millions of business contacts and companies. Data Con LA’s partnership with MountainTop Data can give you access to this data, free. For more information and to apply for a data scholarship check here.
Finalists
Judges
Aaron Crow
Aaron is the head of engineering at SPIDR Tech, building the world’s first automated customer service platform for law enforcement agencies and fire departments. SPIDR's platform is allowing police and others serve their communities better, every day. Among other things, Aaron cares about strong engineering culture, team building, and surfing.
Arvind Murthy
Arvind is an entrepreneur with experience in brand building on social media. He is the founder of Ursa South, a digital agency that helps startups and established global brands connect with and craft brand stories that resonate via social media and in-person activations. He is an active startup advisor and early-stage investor with a focus on consumer wellness, personal care and the future of food. Arvind received his undergraduate degree from the UC Riverside and a Master of Science from Columbia University.
Dr Vandana (Ana) Mangal
Dr Mangal teaches AI, Transportation and Program Management at UCLA. She also advises Higher Ed institutions including Pepperdine University to bring innovation into the curriculum in the digital era. In her previous role as ED of the Easton Center at UCLA Anderson, she played a key role in bringing technology into the curriculum and Anderson now ranks #4 in tech careers for MBAs. She has published four books, papers and articles and speaks at conferences and forums.
Ethen Yao
Ethen is a financial technologies innovator with more than ten years of experience in financial technologies. He has thirteen financial technologies related patents, and has co-founded several financial technology platforms, such as, Blast.com, a FinTech savings and investment platform; Armatic.io, a Software as a Service accounts receivables automation and management platform, and more. Ethen's expertise in finance is supported by degrees from Harvard University and Villanova University. He also has professional subject matter certifications from Oxford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. Ethen is also an investor and advisor at Blast, ATM.com and Givsum. Ethen is currently leading esports innovation efforts and agency digital transformation at Damage Esports in Los Angeles.
Michael Rivera
Michael is the Founding Director of the USC Marshall Venture Fund. The Venture Fund is an industry agnostic venture capital fund investing in early-stage startups created by USC students, alumni, faculty, and staff or that stem from intellectual property generated at the university. Michael is active in the Southern California ecosystem as a mentor with Backstage Accelerator, Quake Capital Accelerator, and Blackstone Launchpad Accelerator. Michael founded and managed an early-stage venture firm in Santa Monica prior to joining USC. Michael received his J.D. from the Pennsylvania State University School of Law and his B.A. from Georgetown University. He is a member of the Washington, D.C. Bar. He serves on the Board of the Jason E. Sabbag Memorial Scholarship Fund at Georgetown University.
Minnie Ingersoll
Minnie is a long-time Silicon Valley product leader and operations executive with experience building and scaling impact through elegant technical solutions and great teams. She recently moved back to LA after 20+ years in the Bay Area and is excited to be a part of the growing tech ecosystem of Southern California as an early-stage tech investor. Minnie started her career as an early product manager at Google where she co-founded the Access team; a cross-functional product, policy, and engineering team that spun off Google Fiber. After 11+ years, she left Google to begin her own entrepreneurial journey as the co-founder and COO of Shift, an online marketplace for used cars. Minnie learned a lot of lessons hiring hundreds of employees and scaling a $100M+ business. She is an active mentor and non-profit board member. In her spare time she volunteers for local government, surfs baby waves, and raises baby people. She recently moved back to LA after 20+ years in the Bay Area and is excited to be a part of the growing tech ecosystem of Southern California as an early-stage tech investor and host of LA Venture podcast
Punnoose Isaac
As a thought leader in the BigData world, PI has pursued his several roles and responsibilities with a passion for analytics, business strategy, and engineering. Punnoose was previously Head of Analytics & Data Services, Edmunds.com
Panels / 2019
Panels
IoT
The panel will start by talking about how the city and county are evolving toward being a data driven organization, what that means, and the challenges such a transformation means. The panel will look at what it means for success when it requires government to move from treating data like a tactical resource to being a strategic resource. For this to happen, data has to transcend organizational boundaries within the government. And, as we make progress on this front, we have to also start working to ways where data transcends government boundaries so that neighboring cities and county/city are sharing operational data. This is a far cry from where we are at today but we look at this as a journey, something to progress toward over time. Over the course of that journey, policies, politics, and needs will change so we a key need is not just to solve specific problems, but to lay a foundation for evolution.
Big Data
Overview: Join us and data science thought-leaders for a screening of excerpts from the documentary “Big Data: Unlocking Success.” Learn about ___. This film profiles trailblazing experts from MGM Resorts International, Toyota Financial Services and other innovative companies. We’ll discuss the power, pitfalls, and potential in harnessing and interpreting data. Our panelists will reveal how today’s wealth of data drives strategic decisions across industries and share their visions for the future.
Why It Matters: According to a Forbes article, “Whether gathering data on the front end or making big decisions in the C-Suite, every single person in your organization must buy into the value [data] analytics brings”.
What You’ll Take Away: Learn how you can leverage data in your role—no matter the industry. The demand for data science talent will only increase in our economy as data affects all aspects of our lives. Discuss and network with our guest experts to learn about exciting career and business opportunities.
Women Leading Data
From AI and machine learning to data discovery and real-time analytics, women are leading the advancement of data technologies. In this session, Stacey Broadwell, Brand Ambassador, Linkedin Local – Los Angeles, will interview five women leading data at prominent brands. This is a must-see session for anyone interested in catapulting there careers to the next level. We will discuss career paths, overcoming obstacles, blind spots and leading as a woman. But must importantly, we will discuss how we can raise the boats of every woman through kindness, words and action. Join us! Men welcomed and encouraged to attend.
Sponsors / 2019
Host
Platinum
Gold
Networking
Silver
Bronze
Partner
Tutorials / 2019
DataScience
Data Science tutorial is designed for people who are new to Data Science. This is beginner level session so no prior coding or technical knowledge is required. Just bring your laptop with WiFi capability. The session starts with a review of what is data science, the amount of data we generate and how companies are using that data to get insight. We will pick a business use case, define the data science process, followed by hands-on lab using python and Jupyter notebook. During the hands-on portion we will work with pandas, numpy, matplotlib and sklearn modules and use a machine learning algorithm to approach the business use case.
Zia Khan
BlockChain
Blockchains permeate society and have cultivated followings ranking in the tens of millions. Many have hailed bitcoin, the progenitor of all blockchains, digital gold and one of the most important technologies to date. By design, they are trust-less, permanent, and censorship resistant. This tutorial will help you understand some of the important design decisions that go into building a blockchain and get you started writing your own. The session will be broken down into 4 parts with activities in-between:Introduction To Blockchains: A brief description of what this technology is and some history about how it got started.A High Level Architecture: The different components of blockchains including: networking, block validation, consensus, state management, etc.In-Depth On Validation: A deep dive on blockchain validation including: consensus, fault tolerance, and consistency.In-Depth On Networking: A deep dive into blockchain networking including: gossip and synchronization.Since there are so many different kinds of blockchains and technologies involved in constructing them, this tutorial will be focused on developing an example blockchain.
