iX Teacher Spotlight — Manuel Garrido Peña — Data Science 2018

"Working with datasets allows you to discover things that nobody has ever before, on a daily basis!"

 Manuel Garrido, iXperience 2018 Data Science Head Teacher – Lisbon

Manuel was born in Lisbon, Portugal, but has lived most of his life in Murcia, a small town in South East Spain. After attaining his Masters in Industrial Engineering and another in Management at IE Business School, he was hired to develop analyses and models for the main Spanish political parties during the 2012 election.

He moved to NYC in 2011 and spent four years there, first working as a senior Research Analyst for NBCUniversal, then working as a Data Scientist at Namely, an HR Startup.

Recently, he launched an extensive MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), focusing on teaching Data Science in Spanish.

What are you working on now?

Besides expanding my online Data Science Course in Spanish, I am the CTO of Tribeclick, an ad tech startup based in Valencia, Spain.

What do you enjoy most about the Data Science industry?

I've always loved data – compact sheets of information displayed in a tidy way. Working with datasets allows you to discover things that nobody has ever before on a daily basis!  Adding computer engineering to that means I get to build new things constantly too.

Why did you decide to get involved with teaching and how do you continue to keep things fresh?

• I realized I liked teaching in Business School, when after class, some other students would stay while I explained the most numerical topics (basic accounting and finance). I put it on hold for a few years, but when I went back to Spain, I realized I had the required expertise to start teaching.

• I like to keep up to date with technologies and algorithms (it's part of the job), so I always like to add that into my classes.

What are you most looking forward to about iXperience this summer?

I am really looking forward to meeting interesting students that are willing to get into the awesome world of Data Science!

• How do you see the Data Science industry changing in the next year to five years? What skills will professionals need to have?

• As the industry shifts to Python, I see this language completely removing R as not only the industry standard, but also the academia standard for Data Science.

Also, because of the Pydata ecosystem maturing, I expect less and less people to be involved in Machine Learning only, and more companies looking for a “Full Stack Data Scientist” – someone who can implement a predictive pipeline from start to finish.

What skills will iX students have after graduating from your class?

After graduating, students will be able to build a predictive pipeline from beginning to end, starting from data acquisition, data processing, predictive modelling, and finally deploying a model on a predictive app.

What’s one piece of advice that you have for the iX class of 2018?

This program is only a bootcamp, so that means there is plenty of room to grow and learn after the program has ended! I recommend not stopping at what I will teach you (the “this is all I need to know” mentality), but to continue exploring, and gaining more knowledge after the program.

What would students be surprised to learn about you?

I am a huge Historical Reenactment nerd. I have forged my own sword, and even made my own shield.