Matt Eland!
AI Specialist & Wizard at Leading EDJE
Bio!
An AI Specialist and Wizard at Leading EDJE who is known to teach software engineering, AI, and data science concepts in the most ridiculous ways possible. Matt has used machine learning to settle debates over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, reinforcement learning to drive the behavior of digital squirrels, data analytics to suggest improvements to his favorite TV show, and AI agents to play board games and create an AI agent with the personality of a dog. Matt is the author of "Data Science in .NET with Polyglot Notebooks" and "Refactoring with C#" as well as several LinkedIn Learning courses. Matt helps organize the Central Ohio .NET Developer Group, runs several blogs and a YouTube channel, has a Master’s of Science in Data Analytics, and is a current Microsoft MVP in AI and .NET.
Session!
Side Quests: How creative tinkering and exploration can transform you, one side project at a time
If you're anything like me, you like to build fun things and have fun while doing so. In this fun talk we'll talk about the value of side projects as a tool for perpetual learning, growth, emotional health, and career development in the tech world.
We'll tour the landscape of side projects and why you might want to pick one up, how to select a side project and get started with one, how to constrain the scope of a side project and make progress against it, and how to bring side projects to their inevitable conclusion.
Side projects aren't easy, though, and so we'll talk about getting unstuck, finding time for side projects, what to do when you're bored of a side project (or tempted by a new one), and ways of growing and staying healthy in those seasons of life when side projects just aren't feasible.
Along the way, you'll hear some tales of interesting, innovative, amusing, and even horrifying side projects I've taken on over the years and hear a few specific ways that side projects have impacted myself and those I've had the privilege of mentoring.
Where/When?