My online portfolio helped show my experience in the space - DSBoost #20

Welcome to the 20th issue of DSBoost, the weekly newsletter where you can discover interesting people in the ML/AI world, get the main takeaways of a relevant podcast, and stay up to date with the latest news in the field!

💬 Interview of the week

This week we interviewed Derrick Mwiti, who is a Machine Learning Developer Advocate and Data Scientist. Enjoy:

What did you study/are you studying (if your background is different from DS, how did you end up in the field)?

I studied Mathematics and Computer Science, majored in statistics, and naturally gravitated toward data science and machine learning. 

What are your favorite resource sites and books (ML/AI)?

machinelearningmastery.com and Kaggle 

O’Reilly and Packt have good books on data science and machine learning. 

What got you into your current role (portfolio, certification, etc.)?

I started blogging on Medium while learning data science and machine learning. 

After a few articles, a community manager of a machine learning company contacted me to write articles for their company. I wrote over 100 articles for them. The requests kept coming. 

I applied for the current role, and my online portfolio helped show my experience in the space. 

What do you enjoy the most in your work?

I enjoy testing different machine learning products and creating and documenting projects. Creating content that helps ML professionals solve their problems faster is rewarding. 

What tools do you use the most / favorite tools?

TensorFlow and PyTorch 

Do you use ChatGPT or other Al tools during your work? If so, how do they help you? Do they change your approach to problems?

I use ChatGPT and other AI tools from Poe. For example, I can use them to explain some pseudo code quickly; of course, you need to understand what going on because these tools can hallucinate some information. 

Sometimes I also use them to fine-tune some text and get it in different variants to make it more compelling. 

But I don’t use them that much nowadays, but I occasionally try to play with the technology. 

What is your favorite topic within the field?

Computer vision and NLP. 

Which one of the recent AI/ML models will have the most significant impact on the industry in your opinion?

Large language and diffusion models will definitely change the way we work. Of course, jobs will be lost with every innovation, but others will also be created. These models will make it easier and quicker to prototype things. They are also making it faster and cheaper to accomplish things that would have taken a lot of money and time. For example, you can create a video with an AI voiceover and character in minutes.  

What are you currently learning or improving (topics you are interested in nowadays)?

Been interested in diving deep into NLP and computer vision topics, such as large language models and diffusion models. 

What is the biggest mistake you've made? (preferably DS related)

Studying R, never used it professionally. 

What is your most significant achievement? (preferably DS related)

Creating content that drives a tonne of traffic to machine learning companies and therefore helping them reach more developers and potential clients. 

Can you share a fun fact about yourself?

The name Mwiti means someone who walks, and I tend to walk fast ;) 

🧵 Featured threads

🤖 Key news of the week

As you all may know, Apple released Vision Pro, their first augmented reality (AR) headset. Capable of merging digital content seamlessly with the physical world, enabling users to remain present and connected with others.

With an innovative spatial operating system and a user interface controlled by natural inputs such as eyes, hands, and voice, Vision Pro will offer an immersive experience where digital content feels physically present in the user's space.

Its ultra-high-resolution display system and advanced features like EyeSight will make it possible to transform any environment into a personal movie theater and maintain connectivity with those nearby.

❓The question is…

…will this AR headset have a significant impact on the development of new Computer Vision models? Could we be at the beginning of another revolution like the iPhone? Leave your opinion in the poll 👇

Why do you think like that? You can expand your opinion in the comments 👇