Did you know that Ada Lovelace is considered the first computer programmer, and not Charles Babbage? That the first computer mouse was made out of wood, not plastic? That Onyx is software, and not a pokemon? Or that there are about 14 times more Python packages than there are R packages?
These are some of the questions that the attendees of our Meetup had to struggle with in our data science pub quiz last Sunday. And they did so amicably! In teams of 3-4, they sat down at a virtual table in Gather.town to brainstorm answers to the questions I put to them, with the clock ticking. As a glance at the podium above reveals, the excitement never faded with a race that stayed close until the bitter end.
We had about 30 people sign-up, and about 15 ultimately joining us at the meetup, which is not too bad given that we announced the meetup only six days in advance. I suspect that the majority did not come solely for the pub quiz, but to learn more about CorrelAid and how they can get involved. In the first half hour of the meetup, Andrew (our Chairman) and Jacob (our Head of Operations) gave an introduction to CorrelAid Netherlands. Jacob talked about our history, how we are organized, and what our aims are. Andrew talked about how we scope projects and zoomed in on one particular project to give the attendees a flavour of what we do, and how we do it. If you missed the meetup, you might enjoy these short videos of Andrew and Jacob explaining their role at CorrelAid Netherlands.
This was the first online meetup we organized – with Trevina, our community manager, playing a key role behind the scenes – and I quite liked the way we set it up, with some informational content at the start followed by a fun and engaging activity. After soaking up all the information Andrew and Jacob provided, and exhausted after the pub quiz, everybody relaxed in the online pub environment and chatted for another half hour or so. I enjoyed the conversations a lot, and I met some very interesting people working on cool stuff. We even had somebody from Canada join! The power of CorrelAid to connect knows no borders :-)
In case you want to experience our events live, follow announcements of future events on Meetup, Facebook, or Twitter; sign-up for our newsletter; or become part of CorrelAid Netherlands by filling out this short survey. We’d be delighted to see you at a future event!
