How the Global Tech Community Is Coming Together for NODES 2020

As a seasoned tech-community organizer of groups in the data science space and a highly engaged data scientist myself, I’ve seen the growth of graphs over the past couple of years. Although I saw the rising trends, I hadn’t really dived into graphs myself until after GraphConnect 2018 (see article: Graphs are the Next Frontier in Data Science).

This is why I accepted the opportunity to help lead the community partnerships for Neo4j Online Developer Expo and Summit (NODES 2020). This is the event of the year for graph professionals from around the globe, and I loved that I had the ability to involve friends and organizers from various tech community groups.

We onboarded over 30 community partners from all around the world. We wanted to get a better idea of what some of these community partners were looking forward to, so – we asked!



Here’s what some of our community partner organizers said:

Thomas Deely
The Knowledge Graph Conference & Community
So much to look forward to! This is a great community-driven event. Looking forward to the talks on Graphs & NLP, CyberSecurity and SRE!

Néstor Álvaro
Spain AI
Graphs are gaining a lot of attention recently, and that’s for a reason. A high number of papers and researchers are working on that, and it’s proven high potential, contributing to its popularity. Neo4j has been in this line for quite some time and it’ll be very exciting to attend the conference. Regarding the talks, and given my background and personal interest in NLP, I’m really looking forward to the talk “NLP and Graphs go hand in hand,” although there are a number of talks that I’m sure I will enjoy, same as the Spain AI community.

Cristina Mulas
Data Umbrella
The talk that I’m looking forward to the most is “Discovering What to Drink with Neo4j,” because I’m interested in recommendation engines.

Mariam Haji
Master Cohorts
I am looking forward to the live demos…. it will help me learn by action.

Layla Bouzoubaa
R-Ladies Miami
I am really excited to engage with others in my field to see how they are using Neo4j and further my exploration and learning into graph databases! I’m looking forward to the talk “Using Neo4j for contact tracing in the Philippines,” because as a public health professional, contact tracing is a key practice in epidemiology. I am currently involved in the contact tracing efforts within the University of Miami so I would like to see how Wilson’s talk can be translated into what I do. Also, I am passionate about the Philippines!

Bruno Goncalves
Data For Science, Inc.
Complex systems, where the whole is larger than the sum of the parts, define our modern technological world. Graphs, with their ability to quickly and accurately describe the relationships between the different components of a system, are the de facto language of complex systems and an essential building block of a new class of machine learning approaches. NODES 2020 will help to bring together ML and graph experts to foster new collaboration and generate new ideas to push this exciting field forward.

Osajoku Tosin
Lagos Women in Machine Learning and Data Science
NODES 2020 is gonna be a very colorful event! Can’t wait to see Neo4j experts across the globe give talks on graph-related topics. I look forward to a talk on Project Hades: Event Management to the Masses by Angad Sharma. This will enhance my event management skills big time. My short quote states: “Worry-less. You can do it when you graph it! ” Thank you, Neo4j organizers, for the great job. ?

Anna Anisin
Data Science Salon
I always support female-forward initiatives and am very excited about all insightful sessions led by strong women at NODES 2020. And of course, I’m looking forward to the session on how NLP and graphs go hand in hand, by Tomaz Bratanic, which I’ll be moderating.

Theresa Seyram Agbenyegah
Pyladies Ghana
PyLadies Ghana is excited for the NODES 2020 collaboration because this is an opportunity to be exposed to how graphs are changing technology and how that can be applied. Also to be exposed and experience the changing of technology through graph application.

Karen Tamrazyan
Cloud Study Network
Graphs are great at handling data relationships, performance, flexibility and many other things! Neo4j is THE flagship graph database and currently the 21st most popular database engine. The NODES 2020 is a “must attend” conference for all data geeks and developers who want to expand their horizons and simply spend quality time with the tech peers. The members of our Cloud Study Network community are really glad to attend this year’s virtual NODES conference!

Sepideh Nasiri
Women Of MENA In Technology
As a diversity and inclusion + women advocate, supporting female-forward initiatives is important, and I’m very excited about all insightful sessions led by tech women leaders at NODES 2020. The session I’m most looking forward is on Artificial Intelligence: To Trust or Not To Trust? with Lorenzo Speranzoni Founder & CEO, LARUS, a topic everyone is thinking about.