*Deadline for submissions: Sunday 25th April*
FREE tickets for those with Showcase posters at event
About DataFest 2021
DataFest 2021 will cover a nine-month period of events themed around Our Data. Starting with a launch event on March 25th and culminating in Data Summit in November, DataFest in practice will cover 3 weeks in May, September and October, each with their own sub-themes of “Our Future”, “Our People” and “Our Planet”.
About Data Tech 2021
In each of the three DataFest weeks, there will be one online half-day Data Tech event. Data Tech is an event for data professionals: if you are a data scientist, an analyst, a recent graduate in data or an experienced IT professional, Data Tech is for you.
Previous Data Tech events were highly focused on very technical data science and academic content, but this year we intend to broaden our content to reach out to the whole spectrum of data professionals. With keynote speakers, parallel sessions with audience questions, and an associated Masterclass, there will be plenty of content. With Data Tech, we want to explore our role as data professionals in building Our Future, helping Our People, and saving Our Planet.
What is a Showcase?
The Showcase will be an exhibition of content around our event theme. It will work similarly to a poster session, with the work available for browsing independently by attendees throughout the conference, and a dedicated presentation slot as part of the agenda during which attendees can visit the Showcases that most interest them.
Modelled on an academic poster session, the idea is that your content will be available throughout the event for attendees to browse independently. They will be able to leave questions for you, indicate and vote for their favourite showcase, and even leave their event contact details to allow you to set up a networking meeting where relevant.
There will also be one half-hour slot in the agenda during which attendees will be able to visit the Showcases that have most interested them. Each accepted showcase will host three ten-minute sessions for attendees. The host of the session will control the entrance and exit of attendees into the session, for which training will be provided. There will then be an opportunity to either present or to take questions from your audience.
The Call for Showcase Submissions
For Our Future, deadline for submissions extended to April 25th 2021 – apply by filling in this form.
Future events will include a similar call:
- Our People will run in September. We would expect our call to open around July/August and to focus on reaching out to serve non-data communities
- Our Planet will run in October. We would expect our call to open around August/September and to focus on how data can help on our journey to net zero.
The Details
Showcases should be relevant to the event theme, and must fall into one of three categories:
- Case studies (what we did),
- sector spotlight (what we do that we should share), or
- practical techniques (how we do this).
The Showcase submissions will be reviewed against the following criteria:
- Relevance: The event theme is “Our Future”, and the focus will be on ways of building a future in which data and technology can be used in new ways to add real value.
- Impact & innovation: You should demonstrate a level of innovation and impact; impact may be projected but must be considered.
- Technical depth: Your content need not provide academic-style depth but should be achievable with current technology or near-future capability, and should provide enough detail for data professionals to understand your approach.
- Suitability: Does the proposed content align with the category it is proposed for: case study, sector spotlight or practical techniques?
Your content need not be fully developed to apply, but we will be looking for some indication that you have planned for the development.
There is no restriction on who can apply: students and academics are welcome, as are members of voluntary organisations or corporate representatives. We want to Showcase Scotland’s data and journey into Our Future, so if you have a data story worth telling, submit it with this form!
An example of a Showcase
We’ve put together this example of a very generic data project to give you some ideas. You do not have to put your content together on a single slide like this. We have done so to illustrate how the showcase tells the story of the project to an audience with different levels of technical knowledge; and to provide some ideas for the sort of content you may wish to include.
In our example, “Our challenge” is a summary of the origins of the project: why it was needed and what the technical difficulties were. By including “Our Team”, attendees get to see the people behind the project, and of course if they come to your presentation they know who they are talking to. The flow chart guides the viewer to the components of the project, and we’ve included additional information that people who want more depth can click on, such as a link to a paper with more details about the technical nuts and bolts. The sidebar contains video content from a leader who explains why this was so crucial and from a data scientist who talks about their approach. There’s also a link to the dashboard.
There is no harm in a little humour, as we’ve illustrated with a “head of morale”, it’s part of being engaging. However please do keep your content both professional and inclusive.