DATA experts from across the public sector, academia and industry will speak at Scotland’s first data technology event.

DataTech will be held at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh on March 14.

After responding to a call for proposals, the 11 speakers have been selected to join three keynote speakers: Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, Jared Lander and Debbie Bard.

Data Tech is a new Technical Day event, part of DataFest19, bringing together technical communities, practitioners and academics alike, who work on similar challenges across different sectors.

The speakers will cover a range of topics from supercomputing, to deep learning, to tools for data visualisation. Stochastic Solutions CEO Nick Radcliffe will discuss the science of bad data and test-driven data analysis, whereas Piers Campbell, data science lead at Kainos, will talk about a collaboration with the DVSA to improve road safety using machine mearning.

Dr Caterina Constantinescu, data scientist at The Data Lab and chair of DataTech’s organising committee said: “We’re thrilled to have these 11 talented researchers and data scientists join our first-ever DataTech event. This event was a direct response to feedback from prior years of DataFest. It’s great to facilitate an event where Scotland’s data community can share new methods, best practices and practical applications. The interest and number of submissions that DataTech has generated exceeded our expectations and is testament to Scotland’s rise as a global centre of data.”

The 11 speakers who have been announced include Ben Moews, Valentin Radu, Benjamin Bach and Anastasia Ushakova of Edinburgh University.

Joining them is Nick Radcliffe, Piers Campbell, Boris Mitrovic of Mudano, Euan Gardner of NHS Scotland, Lancaster University statistics lecturer Alex Gibberd, Matthew Collison of Newcastle University and EPCC’s Nick Brown.

DataFest19 has been extended to two weeks for the first time, to take into account the huge interest in the DataFest Fringe Events programme around the country, which is expected to be bigger than ever before. Fringe events include meetups, debates, public engagement and Data Science training programmes.

The extended DataFest19 follows on from the success of DataFest18, which saw in excess of 3000 participants, and more than 45 events, including hackathons, networking and inspiring workshop sessions for school pupils stretching from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Inverness, Dundee, and Aberdeen.