So, you've seen a lot of buzz around hackathons and datathons. Machine learning and data science are all the rage, and the photos of the events on twitter just look amazing. Not to mention free coffee and pastries, if you're lucky. Getting to grips with one of these events can be stressful, particularly when you slam into the reality of trying to get something done in practise.

This talk provides a basic set of techniques to make sure you're set up ahead of time so you don't lose precious hours downloading packages over an overloaded and shaky WiFi connection, and gets you straight into the fastest way to start working with whatever unwashed dataset the sponsors have decided to throw your way.

Topics include: setting up your tools, loading large data, working with data subsets, convenience functions for data processing and making pretty pictures