Reflecting on 2023: Ifeanyi Idiaye, Data Scientist
Every December in The Data Lab Community, we like to take a bit of time to reflect on the year that's been. We ask our members to share their highs and lows, the challenges they've faced, and what they've learned along the way.
Today we hear from Ifeanyi Idiaye, a Data Scientist and 3rd place winner of our inaugural Data Visualisation Competition!
Thanks Ifeanyi!
The year 2023 has been an interesting year for me, as I have had highs and lows throughout the year in my field of data science and data analytics. Nevertheless, I think I have more to be grateful for than to be sad about. I would like to begin with what I would consider to be the main low I had this year.
It has not been easy keeping up with the rapidly evolving AI landscape, with new AI models being released almost on a weekly basis. And since I do not presently have the resources to enable me take full advantage of them to build solutions and products like many people are able to do, it has been quite frustrating. I have seen many people build a lot of fancy and cool AI solutions using these open source models and tools, but I have had to limit myself to those models and tools that my compute resources can handle and that won’t bother my pocket. Nevertheless, I have tried to make the most of the situation to still come up with interesting stuff nonetheless. Maybe someday I will be able to afford Nvidia GPUs and then run AI models easily and then build a lot of cool stuff.
As for the highs, well one major high for me was starting my Medium blog in August when I began writing about my projects. To date, I have written over 15 articles on Medium, and they have been received quite well too, which makes me happy. With the articles, I am able to share my knowledge and experience with others, thereby contributing in my own little way to the tech community. And for this, I am grateful for platforms like The Data Lab Community, which I am able to leverage to share my blog articles. I also enjoy sharing my data analysis projects with The Data Lab community, and it makes me happy when other community members engage with my posts.
Another high for me is successfully completing the Spotify Data Importer project I worked on for many months in collaboration with the Social Media Foundation. It’s been one of my most challenging projects because of its complexity. However, that project is now in the bag, and I am super happy about that.
But one event ranks as my biggest high of the year 2023, and that is being one of the 3 winners in the recently concluded Data Visualisation competition organised by The Data Lab community. Why does this rank the highest? It is largely because of the recognition it gave me. I quickly went from zero to hero because I was able to beat other strong competitors from around the world to be one of the 3 winners. That’s simply amazing! It still feels surreal any time I think about it.
So, yeah, 2023 has largely been an amazing year for me in the data science and tech space, and I am looking forward to more data and tech adventures in 2024. I am happy to be a member of The Data Lab community there in Scotland even though I am currently living miles away in Nigeria, and I am looking forward to interesting events that will be organised by the community in 2024. Maybe someday I will be able to attend one of these events in person, and then get the chance to meet and interact with the heroes of the community.
Ifeanyi Idiaye