Challenge
The goal was to host a conference with workshops and trainings for people with various levels of prior knowledge and differing interests within the topics around data and AI. The planning stages of this conference thus required a high degree of flexibility and variability in the creation of the curriculum of the offered workshops and trainings. In addition, the workshops were to have a high practical component and offer participants clear added value for their everyday work.
Approach
For the conference, we decided on a two-day event – this time span was ideal to enable the compatibility of the event with the daily work of the participants and at the same time ensure depth and added value of the content. In order to address as many different participants as possible, the curriculum was designed in such a way that the workshops and training sessions consisted of the three core areas of Data Engineering, Data Science and Data Strategy. At least one event per area was held in each of the four time slots. Various networking opportunities were also offered during the lunch break and as an evening event. For the participants to immerse themselves in the subject matter in as hands-on as possible, interactive tools were provided to directly apply the newly gained knowledge during the trainings. For this purpose, a cloud infrastructure with exercises was set up for the more than ten workshops, most of which took place simultaneously. The event was planned and organized over a period of six months together with our partner BARC GmbH, whereby we flexibly coordinated our activities on a weekly basis.
Results
During the two-day event at the University of Frankfurt, more than 50 participants were able to learn about current and relevant topics around data and AI in twelve workshops and training sessions from the fields of data science, data engineering and data strategy. During the lunch break as well as during the evening program, which took the form of a meet-up followed by drinks and snacks, participants from a wide range of industries and professional fields got to know each other in a relaxed atmosphere. Participants were awarded a certificate for attending the conference.