I am somewhere hidden in the mass of great researchers. Deep Learning Indaba held at Stellenbosh University in September 2018. This is a series of master classes that brings advanced knowledge of Machine Learning and Deep Learning to students, researchers and industry professionals. This brings together experts from across the world to expose researchers to state-of-the-art methods and practical skills.
I was one of the four individuals UBER sponsored fully for this program. This permitted me to have brilliant exchanges with outstanding AI researchers. It was also an avenue to represent AIMS-Cameroon which had two participants.
The lectures from Moustapha Cisse, Nando de Freitas, Jeff Dean and many others gave me a better perspective of deep learning. There were also practical sessions with Tensorflow and it was my first time using Google Colab to code. I felt delighted to be invited to the Google dinner event where we listened to Google's plan for Africa. Among all the companies present, I also had time to talk to people from Dataprophet, IBM and DeepMind.
I didn't only listen to talks, I also had time to talk to various people about the research idea I had been working on for 6 months prior to the event. Infact, I was overwhelmed when Nando de Freitas came by my poster presentation and he took pictures of it. He took me to the DeepMind desk and asked the process to get an internship for Master's student (though I finally didn't get this opportunity, I remain very humbled that a great scientist could take joy at my work). I remember the feeling of my 2 mins poster presentation to Moustapha Cisse and thinking how I performed (he encouraged me by saying there could be future collaborations. I am working hard to get to levels to collaborate with such caliber of scientists).
This event opened my mind to the reality of how women are doing great in this domain. I also joined Women In Machine Learning (WiML) event night and I became a member of this community. It was my first time experiencing post-winter cold and I kept reminding myself how Cameroon is blessed to have just two seasons (raining and dry).