Running an 'AI Club' for our employees

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Date posted
7 October 2019
Reading time
6 Minutes
Chloe McAteer

Running an 'AI Club' for our employees

What is AI Club?

Four clubs, four locations and one shared goal to give our employees the opportunity to learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI), to inform them how it can be applied to real world situations and to help them build the skills that will be needed to embed AI into the way we deliver solutions.

The idea of running an AI Club originally came from our Birmingham office, but it was clear to see that a club like this would be beneficial across more offices as well. So, it was decided that one would be created in Belfast, London, Gdansk and Birmingham.

Why AI Club?

One of the main driving factors in creating a course like this was down to the recent establishment of the AI Practice which focuses specifically on the delivery of AI projects.

Technology is constantly advancing, and AI is no different. Over time, the team will need to disseminate its niche knowledge in order to support the growing demand for more intelligent solutions. AI Club serves as a medium for spreading this information, supporting the upskilling of employees.

/></figure> <h2>Making it digestible </h2> <p>The main question when organising this event was who should attend? Speaking with all of the club leads across all locations, it was decided that we didn't want to limit this course to only a small portion of the company. We wanted it to be available to everyone, regardless of background or discipline, just as long as they had an interest in trying something new and building their knowledge.</p> <p>For the Belfast chapter, the plan was to hold the course for one hour, one evening per week. A nice short session to try and not overwhelm people, allowing people to go away and digest the information before coming back for a new session. AI is extremely complex and it's important to take one step at a time.</p> <p>Week one of the course has just started with an introduction to Python. As the weeks progress, we will cover a range of different machine learning techniques - through both presentations and practical exercises. Each week we will be covering different topics and we have different mentors from our AI Practice running the different sessions.</p> <p>Some of the topics that we intend to cover between now and Christmas include data cleaning techniques, linear regression, binary /multi class-classification, neural networks and we will be finishing with natural language processing. </p> <h2>AI Club going forward </h2> <p>The goal of AI Club is to create a casual, relaxed environment for people to learn about AI - whilst also providing the opportunity to ask questions and work with others to solve problems. And as the weeks go by we'll be able to tell if we've achieved it :) </p> <p>If AI is your thing, why not pre-register for <a href=AICamp next year?

Find out about student and graduate roles here opening Autumn 2019.

About the author

Chloe McAteer