Spark Sessions 005

Spark Sessions 005

The Spark Sessions are a recurring event of the Data Science Initiative at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science. They are designed to facilitate the exchange of ideas and inspiration. The event consists of several snappy (5-7 min) presentations, followed by a casual gathering with refreshments:

1. A new and improved traffic model for Slovenia - leveraging mobile positioning data by Leon Hvastja (Data scientist, Medius)

Are we able to replace classic survey-based traffic models using mobile data? Mobile telecommunication logs generate vast datasets on user positions, offering a powerful resource for modeling daily movement patterns. However, effectively harnessing this data presents significant challenges, including complex noise reduction, the absence of a ground truth for validation, and the need for computationally efficient algorithms to handle the sheer volume of data.

2. Lessons from Real-World Automated Grading and Simulation Systems by Frenk Dragar (Founder, Trivial Group)

In this talk, we’ll explore practical lessons from deploying automated grading and simulation systems in real-world educational settings. How do grader bias, incomplete data, and student feedback shape our system development? How to make automated feedback not only accurate and scalable, but also constructive and fair? We’ll share insights from production-ready interactive learning experiences.

3. AI Real-Time Feedback in Sports by Maja Kolar (Data scientist, Valira AI)

Traditional gym training lacks immediate, objective feedback on exercise technique and performance. We developed a real-time computer vision system that tracks multiple athletes simultaneously, automatically recognizes exercises, counts repetitions, and provides instant technique corrections during workouts. In this talk, we will present the core challenges of building the end-to-end pipeline while maintaining real-time performance on live video streams.

4. In-house Tooling by Luka Androjna (Head of Data Science, Aurion11)

A quick primer on what in-house tooling is, with a focus on:
- Why it's good to have in-house developed tooling.
- When and how to decide to invest in it.
- How to develop it and maintain it.
- How to get buy-in from others and spread its use.

5. Emotional intelligence vs gender and academic success by Stefan Popov (Senior Data Scientist, Sportradar)

Is one gender more emotionally intelligent that the other?
Does higher emotional intelligence lead to better (or worse) grades?
In this talk, we present a research effort that examines the relationship between emotional intelligence, gender, and average grade. We sent out a survey to 45 students, and analysed the results. We present the motivation for our research, the methodology, results, and conclusions.

6. Snacks and drinks and discussions

Partnering with Forum podatkovne analitike.

Nearby parking options