AVOCA resident and data analytics student, Neeha Dewlok, has described her chance to present at a world summit as a dream come true.
Dewlok, a digitalisation intern at Fraser Alexander and Postgraduate IIE data analytics student at The IIE’s Varsity College Durban North, has been selected to present her data analytics research at the World Summit on Data Science and Machine Learning Webinar taking place this week.
The summit brings together people from dissimilar domains, such as experimenters, analysts and academics from the data science and machine learning world to discuss data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, algorithms, and data visualisation.
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Dewlok will be presenting her topic, ‘The prediction of heart failure based on medical attributes using Machine Learning techniques and Data Mining attributes’ in a 20-minute time slot and has had to condense her thesis for the summit.
“This was totally unexpected. If January me in 2022 had told me I’d be presenting at an international summit a year later, I wouldn’t have believed it. I was thrilled when I heard that my supervisor submitted my abstract for the conference. It was such a lovely nod of confidence, and I feel privileged to be in this position. This is also a fantastic opportunity to be in a room, albeit virtual, with like-minded people learning and absorbing as much as I can.
“I’m hoping to use this summit as a springboard to learn as much as I can. As the world continues to evolve technologically and digitally, I cannot wait to learn more about the concepts that will be talked about in driving the importance of data science and bringing knowledge to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) which continues to be beneficial in everyday life. Having a passion for being involved within the field of data science and learning about the ways that various algorithms have been simplified to achieve success in this field, is going to be of great significance,” she said.
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Dewlok, who holds a Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences degree said her aim now was to complete her master’s degree.
She also hopes to inspire other young women and people of colour to enter the data analytics field.
“At the end of my first year, my career path initially was aimed at being a software developer, but the closer I got to my final year, the more I realised that data science was the path for me, so I took the opportunity of pursuing the Postgraduate Diploma in Data Analytics to further my knowledge. There aren’t many women in this field of study, and my hope is to inspire others. I think it’s important to see women in this industry as the way forward,” she said.
