TIC

MAY - AUGUST 2020

PARTICIPANT
WELCOME PACKET
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WELCOME & PROGRAM BACKGROUND

DATA SCIENCE FOR ALL /

COLOMBIA
Welcome to the DS4A / Colombia 2020 program, sponsored by MinTic.
We are thrilled for you to attend this world class program for data
science learning and career development.

The program features the premier data science and AI training in

the world. Lead Instructor Natesh Pillai of Harvard University, in
combination with a Teaching Assistant team from top institutions in the
US and top graduates of previous DS4A programs, will work with you to
explore data science in ways unlike any other program. Our training is
hyper-practical, based on business cases and real-world commercial
contexts.

In addition to training, DS4A supercharges your career by matching

you with actual companies and job opportunities. Throughout the
program, you will work side by side with data scientists and managers
from Colombia’s leading companies.

Because program entry is merit-based, you will be surrounded by

top talent. You will work with fellow participants who are engineers,
scientists, managers, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Participants
are from Colombia’s leading institutions and come from a variety of
industries.

We look forward to working with you over the 12 weeks of the program,
as we master data science and the many ways it can impact our world.
Through lectures, interactive cases, and immersive group projects,
you will learn what is possible from skills like querying big data, robust
linear modeling, and advanced machine learning.

In addition, you will be plugged into the region’s most prestigious data
science community. For a sneak peak, see the video from our DS4A
2019 program here.

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/ CONTENTS

PROGRAM CALENDAR 04

CLASS REQUIREMENTS 05

OUR LEARNING PHILOSOPHY 06

CLASS STRUCTURE 07

CURRICULUM OVERVIEW 08

CERTIFICATION 09

TEACHING ASSISTANTS 09

ACCESSING CLASS MATERIAL 10

ZOOM 10

SLACK COMMUNICATION 11

THE FORUM 11

PRACTICUM PERIOD 12

PAST PARTICIPANT TESTIMONIALS 13

ABOUT CORRELATION ONE 14

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12 WEEK PROGRAM

PROGRAM CALENDAR

MAY JUNE CLASS 1-16

PRACTICUM PERIOD

FINALE

JULY AUGUST

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CLASS REQUIREMENTS
This class is virtual, in our “Live Online” mode. However, we simulate a live classroom
throughout the program.

In this intensive program, each class counts. Participants must plan to attend each class.

Classes will begin at 8am sharp. Participants should plan to log in to their computers and be
fully prepared to work at 8am. Classes end at 6pm.

Participants need their own computers for class.

Participants need to have a strong internet connection during class days.

Before the first class, participants should set up their laptops with a data analysis
environment and with the proper communication tools used during the course:

Instructions for setting up your data analysis environment are on the class website.

Download Slack’s desktop and mobile applications and set up your profile by
following these instructions.

Download Zoom to your desktop and create a profile by following these instructions.

You will be given pre-work before the program starts. This is a short case that will help
prepare you for the course. You are expected to complete the pre-work before the first day
of class.

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OUR LEARNING PHILOSOPHY

We have a learning philosophy with three core tenets:

1 2 3
Data Science is Data Science is Data Science is best
best learned via best learned by learned by working
practical examples hands-on doing, collaboratively
not by reading or in groups, not
watching individually

We operationalize this learning philosophy in our Data Science For All program. Specifically,
each topic is taught via a practical case study, i.e. a practical problem that one would
encounter in the real-world that needs to be solved. Furthermore, while lectures are an
important part of the program, the majority of participant time will be spent learning by
doing, via homework assignments, cases, problem statements, and capstone projects.
Finally, participants will be assigned to a team of four to six people at the outset--this team
assignment will persist throughout the program and will form the core of your peer “Project
Group”.

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CLASS STRUCTURE
The program takes place in Correlation One’s Live Online format. This format is
conducted fully online, using programs like Zoom for interactive lecture broadcasts
and Slack for dynamic class communication. The purpose of Live Online is to combine
the world-class lectures and resources of online-only education with the personalized
advising of in-person education.

Throughout the course, you will have a pair of Teaching Assistants to support you. These
TAs are here to answer your questions and help you through the course, including with
your Final Project. Always feel free to reach out to them if you need anything. Further
details on your TAs can be found in the “Teaching Assistants” section of this document.

Here is an example of a typical class day:

7:45AM-8:00AM 8:00AM-12:30PM 12:30PM-1:30PM 1:30PM-6:00PM

Participants log on Lecture stream Lunch Group work/Office Hours
with Teachers/Extended
Case Review/Extra
Programming

LECTURES
Taught by Lead Instructor Natesh Pillai, these are interactive lectures which you will follow
with a Jupyter notebook. Questions via Slack are encouraged, and will be answered by
your “TA”s (Teaching Assistants) and Professor Pillai throughout the lecture.

LUNCH
Participants are free to have lunch as they choose for 1 hour between lecture and the
afternoon activities.

GROUP WORK
A large part of the course is a Final Project (described in greater detail in the “Curriculum
Overview” section). For your Final Project, you will work in a team of 4-6 people to solve
a real-world data-science problem. There will be allotted time every class day for your
Project Group to meet and work on your Final Project. Use this time to advance your
project and ask your TA critical questions.

SPEAKER SERIES
Office Hours: TAs will conduct team office hours with each project team. TAs are also
available for individual office hours, where you can speak with them one-on-one to ask
any questions you have.

EXTENDED CASE REVIEW

TAs will review Extended Cases each Saturday, allowing time for questions. Extended
Cases are discussed further below, and are the “homework” of the class.

EXTRA PROGRAMMING
Throughout the program, Correlation One will offer additional enriching opportunities to
complement the curriculum. Examples include guest speakers and networking sessions.

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CURRICULUM
The lectures will cover the following topics:

PRE-WORK / BASICS OF PROGRAMMING

WEEK 01 / WEEK 02 / WEEK 03 /

DATA SCIENCE, MACHINE BASICS OF PYTHON (CONT.); CODING DATA VISUALIZA-

LEARNING AND ARTIFICIAL DATA INTERPRETATION TIONS; DATA INTERPRETATI-
INTELLIGENCE AT A GLANCE; ON (CONT.); EXPLORATORY
BASICS OF PYTHON DATA ANALYSIS

WEEK 04 / WEEK 05 / WEEK 06 /

EXPLORATORY DATA ANALY- SQL IN A BIG DATA WORLD; TEXT PROCESSING; DATA-
SIS (CONT.); DATA WRANG- DASH DRIVEN DECISION-MAKING
LING & CLEANING; AWS

WEEK 07 / WEEK 08 / WEEK 09 /

LINEAR MODELING - CLASSICAL MACHINE LEAR- REGULARIZATION; SEN-

VARIATIONS & EXTENSIONS NING MODELS & CROSS-VA- TIMENT ANALYSIS; DEEP
LIDATION LEARNING

WEEK 10 / WEEK 11 / WEEK 12 /

SURVEYS & EXPERIMENTS; PROJECT WORK PROJECT WORK

WEB SCRAPING;
CONVOLUTIONAL
NEURAL NETWORKS;
REINFORCEMENT LEARNING

Each lecture will consist of a mixture of instruction, exercises, and built in Q&A time.
The program will also consist of two other crucial components:

EXTENDED CASES
These serve as the “homework assignments” of the program. They are structured as
complex, multi-part business problems, and participants must leverage all of the skills
they have learned from that week’s lectures in order to solve them properly. Cases are
given out in the middle of the day on Fridays, and participants are expected to work on
them throughout the following week, to be completed and turned in by the beginning of
class on the following Friday. Each extended case is designed to take approximately 5 - 9
hours to complete.

FINAL PROJECT
Each participant will be assigned to a 4-6 person Project Group for the duration of the
program. Participants will work with their groups to produce the Final Project. The Fi-
nal Project is meant for trainees to apply and showcase the data analysis, modeling,
engineering, and visualization skills they have developed throughout the program. Each
project group can either (i) choose a real-world data science challenge submitted by a
Colombian business or public entity; or (ii) create a relevant project based on their own
interests.

Final projects will be showcased at the Finale at the end of the program. Winning project
teams will be awarded several prizes based on research quality, presentation clarity, and
impact.

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CERTIFICATION
Participants enrolled in the program are eligible for certification upon successful
completion of the program. To receive certification as a “Data Science For All / Colombia”
graduate, participants must:

Attend at least 90% of lectures & activities

Complete at least 75% of Extended Cases with a ‘Satisfactory’ rating

Contribute sufficiently to the completion of their Practicums. At the end of the

program, we will conduct a survey whereby we ask each participant to rate how each of
their teammates contributed to the Practicum; this information, in combination with TA
judgment, will be used in determining certification.

Program graduates can highlight their certification to their existing employers or in

interviews with potential employers, and also indicates membership in Latin America’s
most prestigious AI community.

TEACHING ASSISTANTS
Throughout the course, you will have two TAs overseeing your learning experience and
project-related work. All of our TAs are very experienced and eager to help you learn
during the program. You should contact these TAs regarding questions related to the
course material or your project, and generally use them as a resource throughout the
course. You will interact with your TAs in three main ways:

Slack Your TAs will have a specific Slack channel that you and other participants will use
to interact with them directly. Please see the “Slack” section later on in this document for
additional details.

Team Office Hours Once per each lecture day, you will meet with your TAs at a scheduled
time with your project team. These meetings will be used to help keep your team on track
with your project and answer any questions you may have.

Individual Office Hours During lecture days when your TAs are not meeting with teams
during Team Office Hours, they are available to meet with you one-on-one. You should
message your TAs on Slack through the TA-specific channel. If both of your TAs are busy,
you can post in the #extra-help Slack channel -- another TA who is available will see your
post and meet with you via Zoom.

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ACCESSING CLASS MATERIALS

REGISTERING FOR CLASS WEBSITE
Class participants will receive a unique link by email which will allow them to register for
the class site. Once you receive the email, you will be directed to a page in order to provide
a password. After that point, you will be able to log in at any time into the class site at
https://colombia2.ds4a.io/ with your email and password.

CLASS MATERIALS
You will be able to access all class materials on the class website. Lectures and other
programming will be recorded and will be added to the class website shortly after they
occur. Class materials will be made available on the class website on the Monday or
Tuesday before the corresponding lectures. On the class website, you will be able to
download cases and make submissions as required.

ZOOM

Lectures, meetings with project teams, office hours, and most of the live parts of the
program will occur via Zoom.

You should have the Zoom app installed and have your own Zoom account before the
first day of lecture. You will need to login into Zoom with your email address to make an
account (you should use the same email address you used to sign up for DS4A). You can
download Zoom here.

Zoom links to lectures and other programming will be posted on the #official-
announcements channel on Slack. Please make sure you have accepted the invite to join
Slack before the first day of class.

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SLACK COMMUNICATION
DOWNLOADING SLACK
Slack will be the primary channel of communication for program topics. Because all
important program announcements will be made through Slack, all participants should
download Slack’s desktop and mobile applications from the links below (or app store on
your phone), and enable notifications:

Mac: https://slack.com/downloads/mac
Windows: https://slack.com/downloads/windows
Android: https://slack.com/downloads/android

You will receive an invite to join the private slack for the training program via email. Finally,
complete your profile by adding your full name, phone number, and a short blurb about
yourself.

GUIDE FOR USING SLACK

We have already set up a few channels for class-wide communications, which are
described below. Please review the guide before the first day of class.

#<ta names>_ta-questions (e.g. jane-george_ta-questions) This is your TA-specific

channel you will use to communicate with your TAs. You will be added to this channel prior
to the first day of lecture. You will have two TAs that are responsible for assisting you and
a subset of other participants. If you have questions during the lecture days (both during
lecture and outside of lecture) you should ask them here (or message them directly). This
will also serve as a channel for you to ask project-related questions. For questions on
extended cases, you should ask them on the Forum.

#official-announcements Correlation One staff and TAs will post official announcements
to this channel.

#extra-help If you want to speak with a TA one-on-one but your TAs are busy meeting
with project teams, you can post in this channel to request individual office hours. An
available TA will see your post and set up a Zoom call to talk about your questions.

#tech-support Post any tech issues with the training materials in this channel and a TA
will assist you.

#live-chat Public channel for participants to post during lecture. This channel does not
have a set topic, it’s purpose is for you and other participants to interact with each other
and the lecturer during lecture.

#resources Public channel for all participants and TAs to post data science-related
resources for each other, such as interesting articles, videos, and data sets.

#social-<city> (e.g., #social-bogota) City-specific channels for you to chat with other
participants in your local area, plan social events (post-COVID), etc. Use these channels
to build relationships with other participants. Feel free to create a channel for your city if
one does not currently exist.

#networking Public channel for you to share your LinkedIn profile, network professionally
with other participants, post about job opportunities, and discuss career-related topics.

Making New Slack Channels You are encouraged to create additional Slack channels
to facilitate communication and other activities, like group projects or social gatherings.
Slack channels can be related to class-material, or something casual like sharing favorite
recipes or home-office perks during quarantine.

THE FORUM
The Forum, which can be found on the class website, will be used to ask questions related
to extended cases. In addition to asking questions, you should also answer questions
other participants ask on the Forum if you know the answer. This will increase not only their
learning but also your understanding of the material as well. TAs will also be monitoring the
Forum and responding to questions.

Please do not use Slack to ask extended case questions - you should post them on the
Forum instead. The purpose of this is to make sure all participants benefit from the answer.
If you post an extended case question on Slack, TAs will tell you to post it on the Forum
and answer it there.

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PRACTICUM PERIOD
PURPOSE
The purpose of the Practicum Period is to give participants dedicated time to advance
their Practicums after learning the full slate of DS4A curriculum. The period will involve
consistent team work on your Practicum, advised by your TAs, in the lead up to your
Practicum presentation at the Finale.

TIMELINE
From Sunday, July 19th - Thursday, August 6th, you will work full-time on your Practicum.
This will largely consist of teamwork, with your TA serving to answer critical questions and
guide your thinking.

Your Group will present your Practicum on Saturday, August 8th, at your Finale.

PARTICIPANT ACTIVITY
During the Practicum Period, your team will be free to work on your Practicum whenever
you see fit. We encourage teams to schedule formal times to meet remotely in a consistent
fashion. You should dedicate at least the normal class hours on the Fridays and Saturdays
during the Practicum Period to working on your Practicum.

Your TAs will be fully available during the normal class hours on the Fridays and Saturdays
to assist with Practicum-related questions. TAs will also be able to assist Sunday -
Thursday according to your group needs.

OUTCOME
The outcome of the Practicum Period is a recorded presentation that will be presented
during the Finale on August 8th. Your presentation should be done with all sensitive
information redacted, and should show your problem solving approach in a compelling
way.

Accompanying your presentation will be a summary of your project to easily demonstrate

the value of your project to others, along with a detailed report on your project. The
detailed report will give a comprehensive description of the data sets, analysis performed,
and outcomes of your project. Correlation One will provide additional guidance on your
project deliverables further along in the course.

Top teams will receive a number of prizes including media interviews, awards presented
by top officials in the Government of Colombia, and recognition among the entire DS4A
program. All teams will receive multimedia of their presentation to be used in career
promotion.

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PAST PARTICIPANT
TESTIMONIALS
DS4A propels graduates’ careers and changes lives. DS4A graduates have experienced
career advancement, found new job opportunities, started companies, built professional
networks and made friends for life. We pride ourselves on your success, and testimonials
from some of our graduates are below:

KAREN
“Learning from Natesh, a Harvard
professor and one of the best data
science teachers in the world, has
been so inspiring! You can’t find this
level of teaching anywhere else.”

ADRIÁN
JESSICA
“DS4A changed my life! By the final
week, I had already received three “DS4A gave me the inspiration
job offers, including one from my to make a major career change. I
dream company, Ecopetrol.” got an incredible job in healthcare
through DS4A!”

CRISTIAN
“The program instructs you in com- JAIRO
pletely practical skills. Everything “I love the DS4A community. To be
is very useful. DS4A has allowed part of a group of passionate and
me to take on new projects at my talented people is a tremendous
company, like building a dash- resource. I started a company with
board visualization for business two fellow participants and our
performance…I received a big entire class still keeps in touch,
promotion in less than one month!” sharing job opportunities & ideas!”

DS4A COLOMBIA:
WATCH VIDEO

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ABOUT CORRELATION ONE

The AI & data talent market is broken. The shift towards a data economy is rapidly
transforming the roles of 200M+ analytical workers, and enterprises and governments
lack the tools to manage this transformation.

Correlation One is the market leader in the data talent space. We enable companies to
attract, assess and train analytical talent to build their data advantage. We have built an
expert community of 150,000+ data scientists and 600+ relationships with the world’s
leading universities in the US, China, UK, Canada, and Ireland.

Our global data science programs, including our signature Datathons, have helped foster
the AI talent ecosystem in multiple regions around the world. Our programs have also
earned worldwide recognition, including a Harvard Business School case study.

We have developed custom talent solutions for some of the most sophisticated employers
in the world, including Citadel LLC, JP Morgan, Point72, Deloitte, and the National Science
Foundation.

For more information on Correlation One, please visit our website.

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