Mike Tamir of Galvanize, Q&A with Alexy Khrabrov of SF Scala
Recording: Mike Tamir of Galvanize, Q&A with Alexy Khrabrov of SF Scala
hello everybody this is sf spark and we are on location at galvanize university with mike tamir the chief science officer galvanize is a new kind of educational institution it's a community it's a educational program entrepreneurship hub and we're excited to be here uh we have uh canada's open house before our meet up tonight and we have a few words with mike who will tell us about what's going on eyes hi mike hi lexi what is galvanize tell us a little bit about it so galvanize is uh is at the core a an education company focused on merging industry and the tech skills that the industry is looking for we do that through a community and this is our our sf campus is our flagship campus for uh making that happen here on campus we have 300 member companies all looking for coming in with that entrepreneurial spirit looking for technology for students that are that have the technological skills that are in such high demand right now in particular web development data science and our data science program actually comes in two forms galvanize you which is a 12-month master's program taking you from square one where you have the the desire to work with data and the mathematical background that um that can get you in the door and then we take you all the way through the core fundamentals of machine learning mathematics for data science the feature engineering natural language processing and through that expert level so leadership and leadership and communication training for data scientists advanced machine learning optimization high parameter tuning and um and you know we have a course that we're going to be offering we're very uh uh proud of our special topics uh course with uh partnering with ibm watson and uh and so what we call colloquially the big data concepts so scalable systems massive parallel processing distribute distributed learning and that's where a lot of the the spark map produce h2o type tools come in this is great you know when i first heard about this uh there's these three concepts and ryan orban articulated them at the next ml conference which was held here a few weeks before and he mentioned them it's education it's community and it's entrepreneurship right and i think this is this is to me a really amazing combination because it's often missing from traditional academic institutions which are kind of self-enclosed communities but they're not necessarily connected to the entrepreneurship and there is a whole question of technology transfer and kind of the real world is considered you know uh as a kind of a concept which exists outside and here we are basically immersed right we're in the center of the startup capital of the world and i i just wonder you know you're surrounded by all these startups right there there's startups which have suites here they're startups you know kafka working desks the lobby is full of people who are coming and going who are belong to the startup community how does this affect the education which you are giving here and kind of the the interactions which are happening that's a really great question really gets to the core of our philosophy at galvanize i like to use the metaphor of how we train uh we train doctors uh so so doctors aren't trained med students aren't trained by just giving them a theory that's an important part you need to know about medicine to be a doctor but that's only a part of being a doctor and the same thing happens with being a data scientist part of the reason why there's such an a vacuum of of talent and people are are always looking for new data science talent is because we don't give or there's not as much of an opportunity to give the theory the practice and the experience and galvanize is sort of like a teaching hospital for data scientists all of our faculty members are practicing data scientists which means that the faculty goes around they consult with companies in this industry not the ivory towers the industry tower environment and then students get to shadow those faculty members as they're working on data science projects and listen to how you engage with the ceo how you engage with the client how you build something for them and how do you communicate the value of that product in the end that's great great to hear and it sounds to me like it's a classic model of apprenticeship which exists in many crafts right because they know some folks say that uh data science computer science is an art and or a craft so that reflects this kind of approach where it's not enough to read about it it's not maybe enough to practice it by yourself you have to you know the best way to learn is from following established practitioner right and kind of learn the tools of the trade so i think this is this is an interesting uh reincarnation right all these kind of guild uh practices in in the modern nation i think this is best suitable to reflect what's happening in the workplace right and and uh we are in the middle of the thousands of startups i wonder how do you see the interactions so that some of the students already uh kind of uh uh finishing their education the zip film courses right in the regional courses and and and the different graduates uh already some of them are working in the industry i wonder what do you see uh what kind of feedback do you receive from the companies hiring these folks and and how does the this feedback affect the programming uh you're providing here yeah so uh the the zipion program we acquired the zephyon academy several months back and we've been integrating that into the galvanized philosophy zipfion was really aligned with what we are doing here with the giving the training that's necessary to the students to be able to deliver high quality uh high quality projects but also really focusing on partnering with the industry in order to get them the skills they need in order to find that job and to break into the industry as quickly as possible um we've placed students at uh you know some of the greatest uh you know great greatest names out there in technology at facebook at uber and that's really a testament to the quality of the training and getting those core data science skills that you need to be a junior data scientist this is great and so i will probably close with kind of a question uh and suggestions from you to the two groups of of folks uh if let's say i'm a prospective student who wants to enroll in galvanize uh what is the ideal preparation and what is the ideal stage in my life uh to do that and also if you are a company which needs to hire a galvanized graduates right like you know nitro where i'm a uh scientist you know needs a lot of data scientists what a company like us should do to collaborate with galvanized university to get these great students absolutely so we have a couple of avenues depending on which program is right for you if you're looking for a three-month immersive program to become a data scientist you can go to galvanize.com and start the application process right away the skill set that's necessary for for a g-school data scientist is uh you know there's quite a bit of coding that you need to be able to pass through and there's quite a bit of of mathematics that we that we that we test for because we really want you to get the most out of those three months if um if you're looking for a long reform program a 12 month accredited program then galvanizeu.com is where you go you can request info or start the application process there what we're looking for is students that are really you know have the potential to gain all of these skills we have a little bit more time to teach all the mathematics the statistics and the coding um in the way that best suits a data scientist um so we're not so much looking for um for prior knowledge but an ability to think analytically and to really be able to to pick up these skills at the rapid intense pace that that we deliver them with galvanize you and then if you're interested in becoming a web developer also you can go to galvanize.com and click on the g-school web development links we have campuses here in san francisco we also have campuses in colorado in boulder and we'll be launching some other campuses very soon in fort collins and in seattle for for data science and for web development how do companies get involved we have uh so we have a pretty a pretty deliberative partnership program for companies that are looking to get involved looking for top-tier data scientists looking for a junior data scientist looking for web developers and these these companies the best way to do it is to go to galvanizeu.com and request info or galvanize.com and also to request info for uh for hiring partnership and we have an entire outcomes team that's focused on matching up the right talent with the right uh the right talent searchers that sounds great i must say we met some of the galvanized team and you know they're great to work with and really helpful and you know today we have an open house here uh i think when you are watching this program there may be other open houses scheduled uh it's really great to come and enjoy all this vibrant community by yourself so we encourage you to go to governmentsu.com see where when this open house are held or they're held in your community in seattle or colorado and definitely stop by and check them out and we hope to see you at some of the galvanized events thanks