As a data science consultancy, Jumping Rivers is already known for providing data assistance and training to clients. But did you know that we also organize free, personal data science meetups?
In this post, we’ll discuss the typical format and topics during our meetings, along with some details on how you can get involved!
Where can you find us?
We host meetings in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Leeds, both of which are advertised meetup.com:
Please see the web pages linked above for more information about these meetings, including upcoming and past events.
Later this month we will organize:
- November 20 NEDS meetingwith a one-hour workshop on programming with large language models (LLMs) in R & Python (delivered by our very own Myles).
- November 25 LeeDS meetingwith lectures on LLM coding tools and explainable LLMs.
Meetup format
All our meetups take place between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM. The first half hour usually consists of informal networking while enjoying pizza and soft drinks.
We then have one or two conversations with local data science experts. Our previous speakers have come from a wide range of sectors including consultancy, government, banking and utilities. Typical discussion topics include LLMs, data science communications, demand forecasting in public health, code review best practices, and building machine learning pipelines on platforms such as databricks and AWS.
The meetup host will also make announcements about internships, job opportunities and data science events happening locally. Between the announcements, networking, and talks, our meetups are a great place to make friends and connections within the data science community, whether you’re a student looking to delve into data science or a seasoned professional.
At some NEDS meetings we also organize a ‘pre-event workshop’, where participants receive a practical introduction to a data science topic. Previous workshops have delved into this machine learning with Python, machine learning operations (MLops) And statistical modeling with R. The pre-event workshops last from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM, but check whether a pre-event workshop is planned so that you don’t accidentally arrive an hour early!
How to get involved
To sign up for our mailing lists, please join the Data scientists from the Northeast And Leeds Data Science Meetup communities. A meetup.com account is free to create and you’ll have access to lots of great local meetups (not just data science). You will then be notified of upcoming meetings taking place in communities of which you are a member.
Although our events are free to attend, we still ask that you register in advance via meetup.com so that we have an idea of the numbers when planning the room layout and catering.
We are always looking for speakers and workshop organizers! To volunteer for a lecture or workshop, or to share announcements with the community about job openings and events, please contact the following addresses:
We can’t wait to hear from you!
Hosting meetups is just one of our ways to contribute to the data science community.
In recent years we have also organized an annual Shiny In Production conference. This normally includes half a day of workshops, followed by a full day of talks from prominent speakers on all things Shiny and web dashboards. Check out our recent Shiny In Production 2025 highlights blog for more information about our last conference which took place in October.
Next year will be particularly exciting as we host our first ever AI in production conference (June 4-5, 2026). This will have a similar format with a day of workshops, followed by a day of lectures. Expect topics like LLMs and MLOps. Check out the Eventbrite listing for more information about this and how to register here.
We also organize a free monthly webinar series. Check out this blog with details on what to expect and how to sign up.
Finally, we also develop software that is available for free to the data science community. Have you heard of diffify.com? This is a free-to-use website that we developed in-house that allows you to compare two versions of your favorite R or Python packages. We’re proud of how diffify has grown over the years and we’re excited to bring you more updates soon, so stay tuned!
That’s all for this post. We look forward to seeing some new faces at our data science meetups in the near future!
For updates and revisions to this article, see the original post
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