Hello all,

We're celebrating Oxmas with our final talk of the term from Microsoft and a special Oxmas themed Geek Night. Microsoft will be giving an introduction to machine learning, and we expect this talk to have high attendance so please be sure to arrive early if you want to guarantee a seat.

Shortly before the Microsoft talk on Wednesday there is another Microsoft talk on their Bot Framework, which will serve as preparation for a hackathon hosted by CodeSoc and Microsoft in Hilary (details below).

Next week we will be holding our termly general meeting, which can be attended by any CompSoc member.

If you're interested in joining the society, please remember to bring five pounds to any of our upcoming events, and we can provide you with a membership form.

Have a great week,

Thomas and the rest of the committee

Events

Microsoft: Machine Learning Demystified

Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science - 7:00pm Wednesday (7th week)

Bianca Furtuna from Microsoft will be joining us for a talk on machine learning, which will be followed by free pizza and drinks.

Machine Learning can solve all your problems, it can tell you what to do better and how to improve your business processes, increase revenue, reduce waste etc.

Well, not really. Machine Learning is not magic. You don't just apply machine learning in your organisation and intelligent, innovative solutions come out of nowhere. Machine Learning has its limitations and its beauty, but it all comes down to data and questions. You need good data and the right questions and then you are good to go.

In this session, we are going to look at a typical machine learning process and how to apply it to some real world data. We are going to use Azure Machine Learning to transform data and ideas into models that are production ready in minutes, all of this while keeping the real world in mind.

Geek Night 7: Oxmas

Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Saturday (7th week)

We're going to have some Christmas themed programming (and food!) to celebrate the final (official) Geek Night of the year.

Bring your laptop, and we'll supply the food.

Please note that there will be an "unofficial" Geek Night in 8th week, however we won't be creating a Facebook event for it.

Termly General Meeting

Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Wednesday (8th week)

The committee will report on its activity this term, and we plan to pass a few minor changes to our constitution. In order to meet quorum, we need at least 20 people to attend. If you cannot attend but you are a member of the society, please inform a committee member of your intention to vote by proxy.

Food will be provided :).

Bloomberg Information Session

Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science - 1pm Tuesday (7th week)

Zahir Hussain is doing a talk in the department tomorrow on what it is like working at Bloomberg.

The information session will give you an overview of what the 3500+ Bloomberg developers do and how the software we build drives some of the world's most important financial decisions.

We will discuss some of the complex challenges our developers can face including dealing with billions of messages a day. We will also discuss how Bloomberg embraces open source and the languages we use followed by the campus opportunities and how you can apply.

Zahir looks after the training needs for Engineering new hires and experienced developers. He teaches on the graduate training program and guides new hires towards successful careers at Bloomberg. In addition, he runs a software development team that builds applications to support our internal training and documentation departments.

When he is not learning, coding or teaching, he is running... moving from newbie to completing his 3rd half marathon in a year.

Introducing the Microsoft Bot Framework

Department of Computer Science - 4:30pm Wedenesday (7th week)

We hope you are as excited as we are about the upcoming CodeSoc Hackathon! To give you the tools you need we are happy to host the Pre-Hackathon Prep Talk "Introducing the Microsoft Bot Framework" by Microsoft. This talk will give an introduction to the Technology that will be used in the upcoming Hackathon in Hilary.

No matter what your coding back ground is, experienced hacker to complete beginner, you are welcome to join the CodeSoc hackathon. Experienced or beginner, do come along to this talk as it will tell you what you need to know to allow you to create the coolest apps in the hackathon and simply have more fun hacking!

This is also a good way of meeting all of the CodeSoc committee members and potential teammates/fellow coders :)


The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page, Twitter, or visit our website for more information about the society.


--
Thomas Denney
Secretary - Oxford University Computer Society
secretary@ox.compsoc.net