article, I focus on how one can get probably the most out of attending technical occasions as an information scientist, ML engineer, or different related roles. Attending occasions could be difficult, as there are quite a few methods to spend your time. I’ll thus focus on find out how to prioritize your time between speaking to specialists, attending shows and panels, and visiting firm cubicles. There are additionally different methods to enhance your expertise, akin to correct preparation forward of the occasion and reflecting in your learnings, each of which I’ll focus on on this article.
The inspiration for this text stems from my attendance at NVIDIA GTC Paris 2025 as an information scientist from Findable from June 10 to 12, 2025. I’ll thus focus on my expertise on the occasion, what I discovered, and how one can strategy related occasions to get probably the most out of them.
You too can learn my article on OpenAI Whisper for transcriptions.
Disclaimer: I’m not sponsored by NVIDIA in any manner, and they didn’t affect the contents of this text.
I’ll break up this text into 4 foremost segments:
- Motivation: My motivation for attending the occasion and writing this text
- Preparation earlier than the occasion
- Throughout the occasion
- Reflections after the occasion
That is to spotlight the thought course of I went by way of earlier than, throughout, and after attending the occasion.
Motivation
My motivation for this text is that I used to be attending NVIDIA GTC Paris 2025. This marked my first time at a big convention like this, and thus, I spent a while determining find out how to finest spend my time on the occasion.
I attended the occasion as an worker of Findable, and went there to enhance my technical information, focus on AI with good folks, and hopefully be taught loads. I consider going to such occasions could be an immense studying expertise, however to get probably the most out of the occasions, it’s important to put together and strictly prioritize the way you spend your time.
My aim for the article is to share my expertise on the occasion, and inform you how one can get probably the most out of comparable technical occasions.
NVIDIA DGX GB200 compute system. Picture by the writer,
Planning forward of the occasion
Earlier than the occasion, NVIDIA put out a full session overview on their web page. I went by way of all of the classes on their web page, and chosen as much as the highest three classes I needed to attend per timeslot. Generally, lower than three have been related to me, wherein I simply chosen the related classes. I additionally put the classes in a prioritized order.
I then put all the related classes into my calendar, as you possibly can see within the picture beneath. As you possibly can see, I packed my calendar to be as full as potential. I consider it is a good start line, and in the event you discover out throughout an occasion that you just wish to do one thing else, you possibly can after all determine to prioritize that. For instance, on Wednesday, June 11., I discovered there could be a dialogue with
This naturally outweighed the opposite plans I had that night, and I made a decision to attend that dialogue as a substitute, which turned out to be an inspiring speak.
And that was many of the planning I did for the occasion. Aside from this, I principally took issues on the fly in the course of the occasion.
Through the occasion
There have been three days to the occasion
- Tuesday, June 10: I attended an LLM Workshop
- Wednesday, June 11: Jensen’s Keynote and a few classes within the afternoon
- Thursday, June 12: Periods the whole day
Tuesday June 10
On my first day on the occasion, I attended the workshop on adding new knowledge to LLMs. This was an attention-grabbing workshop going by way of matters akin to:
- Information cleansing/curation
- Analysis (LLM as a choose, and so on)
- Information injection (fine-tuning)
- LLM compression (distillation)
This was an insightful workshop, and I might advocate attending related workshops if they’re related to you and your work. I additionally met some attention-grabbing folks on the workshop, with whom I bought to have insightful technical discussions.
Nevertheless, I consider the best factor you are able to do at such a workshop is to focus on with the instructors. In reflections after the workshop, I spotted I spent too little time discussing with the instructors, as a result of in lots of instances, they’d be actually good folks working at NVIDIA, who may offer you insights into completely different AI matters. If I have been to attend a workshop like this once more, I might spend extra time prematurely getting ready inquiries to ask in the course of the workshop.
Wednesday/Thursday, June 11/12
There are a selection of issues you possibly can spend your time on throughout today. Most notably:
- Attending shows/panel discussions
- Going to the corporate cubicles
- Attending the join with specialists classes
Join with knowledgeable classes are occasions the place you sit round a small desk, amongst a number of different attendees, and also you get to ask inquiries to an NVIDIA worker. The occasions usually had a set subject; nonetheless, you possibly can, in concept, ask any query.
Join with knowledgeable classes have been by far probably the most worthwhile classes I attended throughout my time at GTC Paris.
The principle causes for this are:
- The NVIDIA workers current on the occasion have been tremendous clever and will, generally, give me a very good response to my questions
- I used to be capable of ask questions on business-specific issues (that I, for instance, face at Findable) and obtain solutions to these. That is naturally a lot better than solely asking questions on common AI matters.
To elaborate on the final bullet level: In reference to knowledgeable classes, you are supposed to ask a query. This may very well be as common as:
How do I exploit LLMs for classification?
Nevertheless, it’s usually troublesome for folks to reply such generic questions, as it’s troublesome to know the place to start answering the query. To resolve this drawback, you possibly can present them with an instance (or, in lots of instances, the NVIDIA workers will ask for a selected instance). You may then present them an instance of a selected drawback you’re engaged on at what you are promoting, and obtain a really particular response, which in lots of instances will likely be much more worthwhile.
For instance, I might add to my query
In Norway we’ve a classification customary for constructing paperwork, the place they need to be sorted into round 300 completely different classes. The classes are for instance “Electrical cables”, “Air flow system”, “Furnishings” and so forth.
Offering an instance like this each makes it simpler for the NVIDIA worker to reply your query and makes the response to the query extra related for you. It’s a win-win!
I might additionally like so as to add that you may, in lots of instances, join with NVIDIA workers by asking questions after their presentation/panel dialogue. You are able to do this by:
- Asking a query in entrance of everybody on the microphone
- Discovering the speaker(s) after the classes and asking questions
- Connecting with them on LinkedIn and asking your query there.
Additionally, I did attend some shows on June 10. and 11. that have been insightful. Nevertheless, I additionally skilled that lots of classes solely lined matters at a really excessive degree, or solely lined NVIDIA-specific instruments, and didn’t actually present helpful insights for me in my work. For this reason I made a decision to spend extra time on the join with specialists classes.
Reflecting after the occasion
After the occasion, I mirrored on every part I discovered all through the three-day attendance. I had lots of impressions after these days, from assembly so many new folks, selecting up lots of new information, and usually, by being in an setting with lots of good folks, engaged on related stuff to what I’m engaged on.
On my manner dwelling from the occasion, I due to this fact
- Went by way of all my notes. I made positive to take notes from each session I attended.
- Went by way of the fabric I obtained in the course of the occasion. Largely Jupyter Notebooks and shows
- Related with folks I met on LinkedIn
In a while, I additionally watched some replays from the occasion, which you’ll watch on demand.
I additionally consider that when attending such occasions, one of the best concepts could generally come from your personal thoughts. So it’s not essentially what somebody says to you, however
For instance, I talked with an NVIDIA knowledgeable about fine-tuning LLMs, and he talked about how teacher-student fashions are crucial in at this time’s panorama. Listening to this made me take into consideration once I was engaged on fine-tuning Qwen 2.5 VL, and that I might need missed part of the LoRA fine-tuning that made mannequin efficiency loads worse than it may have been. I attempt to sum this idea up in a single quote beneath:
When attending occasions, probably the most worthwhile insights usually come up from your personal ideas impressed by conversations—not simply from what somebody immediately says.
After some reflections, I’ll now additionally present some optimistic and detrimental sides with attending the occasion
Upsides of the occasion
- You get to fulfill lots of good folks engaged on related issues to you
- You get a condensed set of helpful data (lots of what you be taught on the occasion may also be discovered on-line); nonetheless, there may be additionally lots of noise on the internet. On the occasion, many of the data is of top of the range
Downsides of the occasion
- It could actually generally really feel like looking for gold in Klondike when talking to folks. You might need to talk to lots of people earlier than you discover somebody with the correct experience and curiosity that can assist you in your precise drawback
- It takes lots of time. I spent three full days on the occasion, which naturally may very well be utilized in lots of alternative ways
Conclusion
On this article, I mentioned find out how to successfully attend technical occasions, drawing on my expertise attending NVIDIA GTC Paris 2025. I defined how you must plan the occasion forward of time and decide which classes you wish to attend, and I highlighted how I personally discovered most from talking to completely different specialists (notably NVIDIA workers), reasonably than attending shows and panel discussions. Reflecting on the occasion afterwards can be essential, going by way of all of your notes and the fabric you bought from the occasion. Attending technical occasions, akin to NVIDIA GTC, could be immensely useful for gathering new concepts, connecting with attention-grabbing folks, and hopefully, enhancing your engineering abilities.
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