Events New and Old
Forecasting: Using Machine Learning Techniques in Energy, Environment and Agriculture
January 10, 2017 at 7:00pm
Dr Daniel Silver will review a series of projects undertaken by the Acadia Institute for Data Analytics . These amazing projects can estimate crop yield from smart phone images, do solar energy forecasting, manage building energy, determine stream flow rate and aquifer recharge prediction, sales forecasting, and classifying objects in UAV agriculture field images.
Many of these problems utilize high resolution observed and forecasted weather, high definition and multi-spectral digital images, and 5 minute through 60 minute data flow rates. These projects use a variety of machine learning methods. Come learn about standard neural networks, random forests, more advanced deep and recurrent neural networks, as well as transfer learning.
Creative Computing Course 2017
January 9, 2017 at 6:00pm
Creative Computing is a course developed by an international network of educators passionate about exposing kids to the computer sciences. Broken up into 7 units, this course uses the popular Scratch programming environment to aid young people (aged 8 to 13) in learning the basics of software development. Scratch is used over the world by students to easily create animations and games while acting as a stepping stone to the more advanced world of computer science.
The Startup Life: Feel The Frost Byte
December 13, 2016 at 7:00pm
Business-hypothesis-driven experimentation. Iterative product releases. Validated learning. Pivot. Pivot. Pivot. Welcome to the tech startup world of John Frost .
From the early days of Frostbyte Interactive, Aerhyve Aerial Technologies, and now PrecisionHawk, John’s pursuit of innovative products and services in the digital tech space runs years long. Join us for a fireside chat with John where we will explore the inner working of a person committed to the startup life. We will examine his failures, study lessons learned from the startup trenches, and most importantly celebrate his successes.
Understanding The World Through R
November 8, 2016 at 7:00pm
The world is bubbling over with data. When analyzed, data can provide the inquiring mind with useful information that can suggest outcomes and support decision-making. Be it the data generated about business practices, human behaviours, the biological world; being able to understand what your data is telling you is incredibly empowering. “R” is a free, accessible, and powerful programming language that offers a suite of tools for data analysis.
Our tour guide, Trevor Avery — biostatistician, faculty member at Acadia University, and coordinator of R-bar — will provide us a primer on R. Through a series of examples, he will demonstrate the various strength of R in data analysis and data visualization. No experience with programming is required to learn about what R can do for you. Just bring your inquiring mind.
10 Ideas for Your Next Social Media Campaign
October 11, 2016 at 7:00pm
Wes Booth will break down and share 10 tips he’s learned over his 10 year experience in the world of social media. Everything from emerging platforms and tools you can use to promote your business, to specific tips for boosting your marketing campaign success, and how to go above and beyond for your audience and customers. Wes won’t promise you life changing results because that’s not possible, but what he can do is prepare you to be in a position to have success and offer you practical things to take away and test out on your business. Come ready to like, share, comment and put into action everything you learn!
The Realtime Web: Intro To Node.js
October 11, 2016 at 7:00pm
Node.js is a rapidly growing technology that has been making big waves in the world of web development. Node lets you easily build fast and scalable network applications perfect for the realtime web. In this workshop you’ll learn how to get started using Node, its background and history, and the problems it seeks to address. We’ll get our hands dirty building a realtime chat server to get a feel for the amazing power of Node.
UX Fist Fighting - Designing For Usability
October 11, 2016 at 7:00pm
10 years of picking fights and getting kicked out of a meetings - Mike Downs shares his personal quest to define “usability.” Mike will dive deep in to describing why usability is important for your websites and web applications. He will offer up pointers on how to think about your own projects with a user focused mind.
Mike has over eighteen years of Internet marketing strategy and product management experience helping create, shape, and launch technology products on the Web. Mike is very passionate about how human beings use computers. Focusing on usability and user experience for the last 10 years, Mike has helped retail giants like Macy’s and The Gap as well as government organizations like Tourism British Columbia and Service Nova Scotia deliver experiences that engage their audience.
CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap
September 20, 2016 at 6:30pm
CODE: Debugging The Gender Gap exposes the dearth of female and minority software engineers and explores the reasons for this gender gap and digital divide.
Tech jobs are growing three times faster than our colleges are producing computer science graduates. By 2019 there will be 182,000 jobs in information and communications technology that will go unfilled by homegrown Canadian talent because not enough people will have the right skills.
Ballmer Peak
July 12, 2016 at 7:00pm
When surveying a bunch of #Refreshers what we should do for July:
A) Take off and enjoy the sun (47.1%)
B) Keep on trucking - regular Refresh meetup for July (35.3%)
C) Other - drink beer (17.6%)
… so we drink beer!
Join us for a crazy selection of craft beer, pizza and banter. Bring your laptop and we can put the Ballmer Peak to the test**. Come chat about the BIG plans for Refresh in September and beyond…
Inspiration. Imitation. Innovation: Transforming The Physical World With Open Source Hardware
June 14, 2016 at 7:00pm
Powered by open source hardware and software, students, engineers, and garage tinkerers alike are hacking the physical world. Using inexpensive “mini computers” like the Arduino, these makers are building interactive devices that can sense and control other physical objects. In this presentation, we will look at opportunity the Open Source Hardware Movement has created for everyday people to hack our technological world. Ian McKay will introduce us to hacking the Arduino with a newbie how-to. We will do a live build of a project, playing with sensors, controlling devices and mad scientist programming.