On September 2-3 the American University of Armenia hosted DataFest Yerevan third annual international conference. Philip Morris’s PMI Science R&D Center, that has a big contribution to the development of Data Science in Armenia and values such projects, was also one of the partners of the conference. In addition to supporting such projects, PMI Science R&D Center also offers various scientific support programs for the specialists of the sphere and research groups. DataFest Yerevan is a conference dedicated to machine learning that aims at fostering the development of the sphere of artificial intelligence in Armenia and creating a platform for foreign professionals where they will be able to communicate, share their experience and establish new connections.  

This year the annual conference united more than 600 specialists of the field and more than 30 speakers. During the 2-day lectures the speakers discussed such topics as machine learning, data science, data engineering and problems, tools and features of MLOps topics.

“This time the conference is more popular, the number of participants has almost doubled. The number of speakers has also increased, and we faced the need to add a conference room to make the lectures more accessible,” mentioned the Co-organizer of DataFest Yerevan Conference Zaven Navoyan.

A number of organizations have sponsored the conference, and some of them introduced their speakers. Leandro Loos, Engineering Lead, Principal Ent Data Scientist Dinesh Pothineni and Head of Advanced Analytics CoE Rikard Sandstroem from Philip Morris International were among them. The specialists introduced the lecture titled “The journey of scaling the advanced analytics environment for data exploration.” 

According to Leandro Loos, data science has a crucial role in business: “Advanced analytics is very useful and can play a crucial role in day-to-day operations and decision-making processes. It is very important to present our perspective, working style and data science platform in Armenia, because by listening to new opinions, we get a chance to improve. On the other hand, coming to Armenia, we had the opportunity to see what great work PMI Science R&D Center is doing and what other companies are doing within the framework of the DataFest conference.”

According to the other representative of PMI Company Dinesh Pothineni, data has become a vital asset and differentiator for contemporary companies: “Along with the increase in the volume and types of data, it is of key importance to organize and analyze them correctly. For an international company like Philip Morris, this means making sure that every data scientist has timely access to the information to develop ML models and deploy them in a business context to create value. Events like the DataFest conference are not only useful for exchanging ideas with other companies and ML professionals, but also for sharing experiences on the use of data science in international companies like PMI.”

Summerizing the conference, Head of Data Science Department at PMI Science R&D Center Narek Melkonyan mentioned: “It is primary and crucial for us to support and participate in such initiatives in the field of data science, and we really value our collaborations with leading local institutions and companies, with the aim of contributing to the rapid growth and expansion of opportunities in the field. We constantly try to involve local companies and specialists in the international projects implemented at PMI Science R&D Center, trying to create a platform and opportunity for companies and specialists in the field to get acquainted with the international experience of data science and apply it to expand the potential for the progress of the domestic economy.”

The conference also featured speakers from HuggingFace, DeepMind, eBay, NVIDIA and other leading organizations, presenting the latest research and developments in data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

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