We thank Anoop Kumar Prasad from Personal Guru for taking part in the Data Science Interview Series.
How did you first get into data science?
Data Science has always fascinated me. It was my teacher who fiund out that I have a spark for insights. I realised the meaning of Data Science much later. It all started with Data Recovery first (which is not the case for most) . Gradually, I started working with JSON files and slowing into deployment.
It was a long journey, since school days I was fascinated with arrangment of data, then data recovery, data manipulation, data discovery, cyber, education field, and others. Winning International Rank 1 in Science Olympiad, back then boosted my confidence. Understanding the deeper meaning of Science realised it all depends on one’s perception and research. Gradually, in my college days, I started working with IoT and saw how data is important for understanding a behaviour. I interned with a few companies which made me working with different data types and a few tools. I started working on “SMART Asthma Alert using IoT and predicting threshold values using Decision Tree Classifier”. This project pushed me towards a new angle of visualising data and it’s sub works. Gradually , I started working with Covid19’s mathematical model which helped me to gain theoretical knowledge. I started working with the EdTech organization and realised I am new comer in the field which makes a sense for me to learn more. During extra hours, I learnt various ways how I could help and provide better insights. This helped tremendously for the growth of the organisation.
What are the key skills that you use every day as a data scientist, and how did you develop them?
I use ETL concepts frequently. Also, visualisation of Data was something which was required from time to time.
What are the top challenges you currently face as a professional data scientist, and how do you go about tackling them?
Challenges, I face are the internet issue of India. However, there are traffic congestion from time to time which gets linked with a short vuffer time.
How important is the domain knowledge of the business/industry you’re in as a data scientist, and how did you acquire it?
The important of domain knowledge is immensely rare to find in this field. The industry I work with is Ed Tech i.e Education mixed with Technology. Application development alongwith knowing how to redirect data and avoiding the outliers was an important concern. Through implementing and fixing of codes and learning new skills for various resources helped me to acquire it.
3 words that best summarize how you learned ML and data science:
Udemy : Curated content, paid, good teachers, certified.
Youtube: Uncurated content, mostly free , best teachers, not certified.
Research: Self learning, reading, reading and reading books, papers, attending conference, implementation, approval from guide.
Books: which books have helped you the most in your journey and why?
R for Data Science by O Reily, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning by Christopher M. Bishop.
Courses: what courses/programs have you taken that have significantly contributed to advancing your career in data science?
Particularly, my own minor projects have helped me.
One can surely check out Coursera, Udemy and Youtube for their alike courses.
Prefer, implementation of projects more.
What is the biggest improvement that you introduced in the last 12 months that has considerably improved your workflow?
The biggest improvement is developing most of the works on cloud and implementing different methods of data insights.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into data science today?
Get into Data Science once you have developed a few programs by yourself and being into Data Science also ask for 1-2 rigorous learning of implementing methods and applying insights to the stakeholders.
What inspires you about working in Data Science?
Data, inspires me.
The information which I observe and bring it to the form of insights which results is marketing, business growth and much more inspires me how beautiful is the growth ? of myself and the organisation.
Tag one or two people in your industry who you would like to see answer these questions.
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