Data Science for Non-Data Scientists

Overview:

Today, most companies are capable of building their own data science teams and most people looking to become data scientists have a myriad of educational options. Yet data science adoption at a majority of organizations continues at a glacial pace. Fast Lane’s Zombie Apocalypse curriculum is a dynamic and fun way to upskill the non-data scientists in your organization so that you can start reaping the benefits.

The Problem:

In a recent report, Gartner estimated that 85% of big data science projects fail! We believe this is due in fact to a “Last Mile” divide between data scientists and their project stakeholder /subject matter expert counterparts. Data scientists are generalists who need these stakeholders to frame the problems that need solving and to provide them with the data they need in order to solve those problems.

The Solution:

Upskill the employees and stakeholders with basic coding skills and data science literacy that will empower them to bridge the gap. That doesn’t mean that they need to become data scientists (a costly and impractical solution). And ensure that they have FUN doing it: What’s better than identifying and destroying zombies before they eat your brain?

In the Zombie Apocalypse Curriculum, students will learn:

The fundamental components and process of a data science project
How to frame their requirements through the lens of machine learning
The vocabulary needed to communicate their requirements

The Results:

By acquiring these skills, an organization can work toward realizing the strategic and financial benefits of integrating machine learning into their business processes
Leverage their data science teams more efficiently
Increase critical collaboration between teams
Boost morale by eliminating friction points and by defining a role for non-technical employees

Course Description

This course aims to give non-technical stakeholders the skills and data science literacy to participate as a core member of a data science project team. Over the five days, students will be tasked with saving the world from the Zombie Apocalypse using basic Python, Pandas/Excel, and machine learning skills.

Who Should Attend?

Any stakeholder with no or limited technical background who participates in digital transformation or data analytics projects
Non-technical professionals who have a need to partner with their data science team
Business Intelligence professionals who want to gain experience using Python’s data analytics tools
Non-technical business managers

Watch our interview with course creator Joe San Pietro!

Prerequisities:

Basic knowledge of Python

Course Content:

Module #	Description	Lessons & Labs
1	Python Fundamentals Review Lists Dictionaries Loops Functions What Data Science Is & Is Not	Anaconda environment setup completion Navigating the Terminal/Command Prompt Git/Github Jupyter Notebooks
2	Pandas Data Visualization Seaborn Visualisation Tool OSEMN framework overview	Obtaining our Data Importing Data into a Dataframe Scrubbing Checking for Null Values Fixing Data Types Removing "Dirty" Data EDA Using Seaborn, students will explore their daataset and create visualizations in order to understand critical information such as where zombies & humans are located and how much ammo is needed to survive
3	Data Science Algorithms & Modeling Linear Regression Model Interpretation	Model Prepping Normalization/Scaling Creating Training and Test Datasets Linear Regression Predicting the bounty for killing zombies in your neighborhood
4	Classification Algorithms Model Interpretation Confusion Matricies ROC F-Score	We'll use the following classification algorithms to determine whether or not someone is a zombie: Logistic Regression Decision Trees Random Forests XGBoost
5	Time-Series Algorithms	Team-Based Capstone Project: Build an end-to-end project using the OSEMN framework Students can bring their own work-related dataset or select from one of our curated offerings