2019 Data Con LA

Thank you all for attending Data Con LA 2019!! We hope to see you again next year!!

Highlights Reel / 2019

Photos

Keynote Speakers / 2019

[keynote_section year=”2019″]

Slides

Session Videos

Check out our track and session info for 2019 here!

Startup Showcase / 2019 Startup Showcase

Congratulationsย 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. ย 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.ย  MountainTop Data maintains a database of tens of millions of business contacts and companies.ย  Data Con LAโ€™s partnership with MountainTop Data can give you access to this data, free.ย  For more information and to apply for a data scholarship check here.

Finalists

Judges

Aaron Crow

VP of Engineering at SPIDR Tech
Aaronย is the head of engineering at SPIDR Tech, building the worldโ€™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,ย Aaronย cares about strong engineering culture, team building, and surfing.

Arvind Murthy

Founder and Chief Strategist at Ursa South
Arvindย is an entrepreneur with experience in brand building on social media.ย  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.ย ย He is an active startup advisor and early-stage investor with a focus on consumer wellness, personal care and the future of food.ย Arvindย received his undergraduate degree from the UC Riverside and a Master of Science from Columbia University.

Dr Vandana (Ana) Mangal

Faculty at UCLA MS Online and Curriculum Innovation Advisor at Pepperdine University
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

Innovations Advisor at BLAST
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

Founding Director, USC Marshall Venture Fund at Marshall School of Business - USC
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

Partner at TenOneTen
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 ofย LA Venture podcast

Punnoose Isaac

VP, Data at Headspace
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 โ€œBig Data: Unlocking Success.โ€ Learn about ___. This film profiles trailblazing experts from MGM Resorts International, Toyota Financial Services and other innovative companies. Weโ€™ll discuss the power, pitfalls, and potential in harnessing and interpreting data. Our panelists will reveal how todayโ€™s wealth of data drives strategic decisions across industries and share their visions for the future.

Why It Matters: According to a Forbes article,ย โ€œWhether 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 bringsโ€.

What Youโ€™ll Take Away: Learn how you can leverage data in your roleโ€”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.ย  In this session,ย Stacey Broadwell, Brand Ambassador,ย Linkedin Local – Los Angeles, will interview five women leading data at prominent brands.ย  This is a must-see session for anyone interested in catapulting there careers to the next level.ย  We will discuss career paths, overcoming obstacles, blind spots and leading as a woman.ย  But must importantly, we will discuss how we can raise the boats of every woman through kindness, words and action.ย  Join us!ย  Men welcomed and encouraged to attend.

Sponsors / 2019

Host

2019 - University of Southern California USC

Platinum

2019 - Accenture
2019 - Datastax
2019 - Socal Edison

Gold

2019 - FabFitFun
2019 - Hulu
2019 - MariaDB
2019 - Neo4J
2019 - PB
2019 - PureStorage
2019 - Socialgist

Networking

2019 - Stott and May

Silver

2019 - Cloudera
2019 - GumGum
2019 - Hallmark Labs
2019 - LA Times
2019 - Memsql
2019 - Netflix
2019 - OmniSci
2019 - PatientPop
2019 - Signify Technology
2019 - Verizon

Bronze

2019 - Bird

Partner

2019 - Another Reality
2019 - Census 2020
2019 - City of Glendale
2019 - ETCUSC
2019 - Hack for LA
2019 - LA Cyber Lab
2019 - LAAC
2019 - LAPL
2019 - Level
2019 - LinkedIn Local Los Angeles
2019 - Los Angeles Big Data Users Group
2019 - MountainTop
2019 - Phase Two
2021 - AILA
2022 - Archangel Technology Consultants, LLC
2022 - OpenSUSE
2022 - RMDS

Tutorials / 2019

DataScience

Data Scienceย tutorialย 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

Tutorial Instructor

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. Thisย tutorialย 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, thisย tutorialย will be focused on developing an example blockchain.

Abraham Elmahrek

Tutorial Instructor

Speakers / 2019

Amarita Natt

Amarita Natt

Managing Director at EconOne Research

Annie Flippo

Annie Flippo

Head of Data Science at Thinknear by Telenav

Ash Pahwa

Ash Pahwa

Instructor at Caltech

Boaz Brudner

Boaz Brudner

Senior Engineering Group Manager at Zillow

Chaitanya Rudrabhatla

Chaitanya Rudrabhatla

Executive Director at Sony Pictures Entertainment

Christian Siagian

Christian Siagian

Organizer at AILA

Dan Kernaghan

Dan Kernaghan

Technical Director, Big Data Solutions at Pitney Bowes

David Anderson

David Anderson

Principal Solutions Engineer at MemSQL

Don Malloy

Don Malloy

Chair JCC at OATH

Eysha Shirrine Powers

Eysha Shirrine Powers

STSM, Chief Architect, IBM Z Cryptographic Portfolio at IBM

Fiona Li

Fiona Li

Manager, Analytics at Ticketmaster/ Live Nation

Jacklyn Agor

Jacklyn Agor

Head of Business Development & Sales at Puppet Master Marketing

Jatinder Assi

Jatinder Assi

Data Engineering Manager at GumGum

Jayaraman Palaniappan

Jayaraman Palaniappan

Principal Solutions Architect at Agilisium

Jayesh Patel

Jayesh Patel

Sr. Data Engineer at Rockstar Games

Jeff Cooper

Jeff Cooper

Senior Director, Data at FabFitFun

Jeffrey Carpenter

Jeffrey Carpenter

Developer Advocate at DataStax

Jesse Mauck

Jesse Mauck

CEO at Zigr Inc.

Jesse Steinweg-Woods

Jesse Steinweg-Woods

Senior Data Scientist at Honey

Jim Benedetto

Jim Benedetto

Chief Data Officer at Core Scientific

Joe Devon

Joe Devon

Founding partner at Diamond and Co-Founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Joey Beitdashtoo

Joey Beitdashtoo

EVP, Corp Bus Dev & Alliances at Systech Solutions

John Peach

John Peach

Sr. Data Scientist (Applied Scientist III) at Amazon/ Alexa

Jose-Luis Ambite

Jose-Luis Ambite

Research Team Leader at USC ISI

Juan Vasquez

Juan Vasquez

Data Programs Manager at City of Los Angeles Office of Finance

Kaylin Linke

Kaylin Linke

Head of Solutions Architecture at Socialgist

Ken Chang

Ken Chang

Cybersecurity Researcher at University of California - Berkeley

Lorenzo Rossi

Lorenzo Rossi

Data Scientist at City of Hope Medical Center

Maria Khalusova

Maria Khalusova

Developer Advocate at Jetbrains

Mark Quinsland

Mark Quinsland

Sr. Field Engineer at Neo4j

Mingmin Chen

Mingmin Chen

Senior Software Engineer II at Uber

Mukund Kaushik

Mukund Kaushik

Head of Digital at SoCal Edison

Obaid Sarvana

Obaid Sarvana

Software Innovation practice at Accenture

Piyush Kumar

Piyush Kumar

Director Technology at MakeMyTrip

Preet Singh

Preet Singh

CEO at Enginelitix

Rashmina Menon

Rashmina Menon

Senior Data Engineer at GumGum

Robert Hodges

Robert Hodges

CEO at Altinity

Shweta Shetty

Shweta Shetty

Software Architect at Teradata

Sonia Macias

Sonia Macias

Sr. Scrum Master at Sensei Ag

Stan Dyro

Stan Dyro

Sr. Data Engineer at Los Angeles Times

Tim Kreytak

Tim Kreytak

CEO at Ironside

Todd Stoffel

Todd Stoffel

Product Manager at MariaDB

Vivian Sultan

Vivian Sultan

Professor-IS & BM at CSULA

Organizers / 2019 Organizers

Subash D’Souza

Subash D’Souza

Director, Cloud Data Engineering at CSU - Chancellor's Office, Founder at Data Con LA & Data 4 Good

Organizers / 2019 Committee Leaders

Annie Flippo

Annie Flippo

Marketing Co-Chair

Arti Annaswamy

Arti Annaswamy

Senior Manager, Reporting Solutions & Data Operations at WB

Charla Myers

Charla Myers

Marketing Co-Chair

Germain Louie

Germain Louie

Sr. Private Equity Alliances Manager at Sage Intacct

Jason Brancazio

Jason Brancazio

Sessions Co-Chair

Jimmy Kim

Jimmy Kim

Locations & Catering Co-Chair

John Kim

John Kim

Watchmaker's Apprentice | E-Commerce

Kaloyan Todorov

Kaloyan Todorov

Managing Sr. Data Scientist at FIGS

Marc Waddell

Marc Waddell

Marketing Peofessional

Rich Ung

Rich Ung

Data Scientist at Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution

Ruben Barrios

Ruben Barrios

Information Security Student at Red River College

Sanjeev Sehgal

Sanjeev Sehgal

SVP, Sales at Satwic

Subash D’Souza

Subash D’Souza

Director, Cloud Data Engineering at CSU - Chancellor's Office, Founder at Data Con LA & Data 4 Good

Volunteers / 2019 Volunteers

Aaron Artea

Aaron Artea

Systems Engineer at VPLS

Adriana Chavez

Adriana Chavez

Recent Graduate of Mathematics, BS

Alexandra Stone

Alexandra Stone

Marketing Coordinator at Evocative Data

Aman Mathur

Aman Mathur

Data Science Engineer at SnackNation

Anastasia Ivleva

Anastasia Ivleva

Marketing Specialist

Andy Nakamura

Andy Nakamura

Senior SQL DBA at Keck Medical Center of USC

Angela Chung

Angela Chung

Data Specialist at Beverly Hills Cancer Center

Anna Damir

Anna Damir

Junior Data Scientist at Rouse Services LLC

Arnold Borres

Arnold Borres

Associate Software Architect at UST Global

Bob Newstadt

Bob Newstadt

Director of Business Intelligence at HopSkipDrive

Bradley Fojas

Bradley Fojas

Full Stack Engineer at Programination

Calvin Huang

Calvin Huang

Technical Recruiter at SMCI

Cassidy Liu

Cassidy Liu

Senior Business Intelligence Analyst at Green Dot Corporation

Courtney Fowler

Courtney Fowler

Supply Chain Operations Manager at Flexport

Crystal Sandoval

Crystal Sandoval

Project Management Intern at The Walt Disney Company

Damita Chavis

Damita Chavis

Marketing Strategist at Creative L

Darla Higgins

Darla Higgins

Senior Manager, Systems Projects at Los Angeles Metro

David Harnick-Shapiro

David Harnick-Shapiro

Data Engineering Consultant

Dimas Soeprapto

Dimas Soeprapto

Sr. Analyst, Advanced Analytics at Edwards Lifesciences

Edmond Choi

Edmond Choi

Volunteer at Data Con LA

Eli Selkin

Eli Selkin

Co-Founder & CTO at upful.ai

Emily Coit

Emily Coit

College Student

Eric Mena

Eric Mena

Inventory Modeling Technical Specialist at The Boeing Company

Farrah Au-Yeung

Farrah Au-Yeung

Project Management Intern at SCOPE

Glen Porter

Glen Porter

Music/Film/TV Entrepreneur

Hafeez Poladzade

Hafeez Poladzade

Data Scientist

Hamed Gorjiara

Hamed Gorjiara

Graduate Student Researcher at UCI

Hana Ueda

Hana Ueda

Volunteer at Data Con LA

Hasan Diwan

Hasan Diwan

Director of Analytics at Jackson Street Analytics

Humberto Zuniga

Humberto Zuniga

Sr. Product Owner at Disney

Jack Jeng

Jack Jeng

Executive Director - Research & Analytics at Paramount Pictures

Jagruthi Prabhudev

Jagruthi Prabhudev

SDE Intern at Amazon

Jeffrey Guerra

Jeffrey Guerra

Security Analyst at Verizon

John Park

John Park

Solution Architect

Josue Louis

Josue Louis

Technical Recruiter at Eleven Recruiting

Justin Doh

Justin Doh

Data Analyst at Advanced Bionics

Justin Javier

Justin Javier

Data Analyst at Kaiser Permanente

Kanad Basu

Kanad Basu

Senior Data Scientist at SnackNation

Ken Chang

Ken Chang

Cybersecurity Researcher at University of California - Berkeley

Kimberly Ming

Kimberly Ming

Graduate Student Researcher at CGU

Kingsley Nwankwu

Kingsley Nwankwu

Undergrad Biomedical Engineer at USC

Korok Chatterjee

Korok Chatterjee

Postdoctoral Researcher at UCB

Kunal Lalwani

Kunal Lalwani

Machine Learning Engineer Intern at Qualcomm

Manimaran Ramasamy

Manimaran Ramasamy

Senior Technical Analyst at UST Global

Maria Zhang

Maria Zhang

Business Analyst at friendly Franchisees Corporation

Mario Brenes

Mario Brenes

Application Architect at Falkonry

Maryna Pavlenko

Maryna Pavlenko

Volunteer at Data Con LA

Mercedes Vega

Mercedes Vega

First-year MPH Student at CSULA

Michael Ma

Michael Ma

Financial Engineer at Amerihome

Michelle Emelle

Michelle Emelle

Regional Manager, Southern California at TEALS Program

Miguel Niblock

Miguel Niblock

Data Science Intern at Gaming Analytics Inc

Mitzi Bandera

Mitzi Bandera

Data Analyst at Foundation for California Community Colleges

Murali Kadambala

Murali Kadambala

Sr. Director, Finance(Technology) at LA Metro

Nancy Melucci

Nancy Melucci

Lecturer at CSUDH

Nathan Danielsen

Nathan Danielsen

Senior Software Developer at Farmers Insurance

Nicole Jeong

Nicole Jeong

Data Integration Analyst at Zillow

Niloufar Pour

Niloufar Pour

Software Engineer at Teradata Labs

Olga Pyatokha

Olga Pyatokha

Data Scientist at FanDuel

Oren Ben-Joseph

Oren Ben-Joseph

Manager of Systems & Analytics at Los Angeles Metro

Priya Chauhan

Priya Chauhan

Senior Director of External Relations at First Source

Reza Rahman

Reza Rahman

Volunteer at Data Con LA

Robin Olaya

Robin Olaya

Production Manager at L'agence

Rosana Lin Ho

Rosana Lin Ho

Data Scientist at KB Home

Ryan Hsu

Ryan Hsu

Standardized Test Instructor at Elite Prep

Samantha Chappell

Samantha Chappell

Data Scientist at UCLA

Samara Miramontes

Samara Miramontes

Development Partner at Private LLC

Shailesh Shukla

Shailesh Shukla

Vice President at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Sheila Torrico

Sheila Torrico

International Project Manager

Sitotpal Sarkar

Sitotpal Sarkar

SQL Server DBA at USC

Sudha Raamakrishnan

Sudha Raamakrishnan

VP, Product Manager - Enterprise Data Lake at PennyMac

Susan Thompson

Susan Thompson

Business Analysis Consultant

Sylvia Tran

Sylvia Tran

Data Scientist at Gracenote

Tianxing Wang

Tianxing Wang

Product Management Intern at WB Games Boston

Tina Wang

Tina Wang

Business Intelligence Manager at Endpoint

Tony Chia

Tony Chia

DevOps at IRIS.TV

Vanya Koonce

Vanya Koonce

Partner at Thrive

Yvonne Coit

Yvonne Coit

Director at Capgemini