Springboard Rise, our first data and design summit, brought together more than 250 students, alumni, and mentors for a full day of learning, networking, and fun at LinkedIn’s stunning San Francisco headquarters.
The day began with a celebration of the Springboard community by co-founders Parul Gupta and Gautam Tambay, who shared the company’s story and reiterated our mission to bridge the world’s skills gap by helping as many people as possible access high-quality, affordable education that they can translate into new-economy roles.
Brian Xu, a data scientist at LinkedIn, followed up with an appropriately data-backed reminder of the increasing demand for talented data scientists and UX designers.
The attendees then moved on to different sessions and lightning talks led by 24 speakers from companies like Google, Dropbox, Uber, Quora, Pandora, and Facebook.
Communicating With Stakeholders: Influencing Business Decisions Based on Data featured Albert Chen, a data scientist at LinkedIn; Drishan Arora, a senior data scientist at Google; and Vineet Goel, a data infrastructure engineer at Robinhood.
Diego Mendes, senior product designer at Facebook; Henry Modisett, design lead at Quora; and Joann Wu, senior director of consumer design at LinkedIn, shared their experiences helping to build massive online communities.
Five Springboard alumni came together to talk about their experiences completing the data science and UX design courses, in addition to their career transitions. Legion product designer Tommy Koo explained how important mentorship was to his success.
Amanda Coopersmith, program manager at Parity Partners, moderated the entertaining, moving, and informative Women in Tech panel. It featured Bekah Thayer, the Lean In programs manager at the Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation; Sameera Poduri, a data science manager at Uber; Megan Witmer, a UX researcher at the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative; and Mansha Mahtani, a data scientist at Instagram.
The women discussed career transitions, how to judge a company’s culture during the interview process, and the importance of mentorship.
Mansha Mahtani delivered one of the quotes of the day during a conversation about mistakes and learning from failures: “Sleep is so underrated. Please get enough sleep.”
Related: Women in Data Science: Advice From 4 Experts
Check out more of the tweets and Instagram photos from summit attendees. And hear from some of them in the video below:
Since you’re here…
Switching to a career in data analytics is possible, no matter your background. We’ve helped over 10,000 students make it happen. Check out our free data analytics curriculum to gauge your interest, or go all-in with our Data Analytics Bootcamp.
