The NYAS ML symposium grew again this year to 170 participants, despite the need to outsmart or otherwise tunnel through a crowd.
Perhaps the most distinct talk was by Bob Bell on various aspects of the Netflix prize competition. I also enjoyed several student posters including Matt Hoffman‘s cool examples of blind source separation for music.
I’m somewhat surprised how much the workshop has grown, as it is now comparable in size to a small conference, although in style more similar to a workshop. At some point as an event grows, it becomes owned by the community rather than the organizers, so if anyone has suggestions on improving it, speak up and be heard.
donuts in the morning would’ve been nice.
I really enjoyed the symposium and thought it was a wonderful event. My only complaint is that I (and perhaps other student poster presenters as well) didn’t get a chance to talk to as many people as I would like. As far as I can tell, any approach to resolving this issue would necessarily make the symposium longer — perhaps 1.5 days long. I realize this opens up other issues, but would’ve made my trip a little more worthwhile (although I still had a great time).
I realized that student poster presenter is an ambiguous term in this context. I was referring to all students with posters.
Excellent symposium, just as last year.
It did seem a bit shorter than it felt last year. Maybe starting a half-hour (or an hour) earlier and ending a half-hour later would have been nice. This would also give more time to the student presenters, who had a very short 5-minute period to discuss their work, and it might open up another slot for a student presenter.