article, I focus on how one can get essentially the most out of attending technical occasions as a knowledge scientist, ML engineer, or different comparable roles. Attending occasions may be difficult, as there are quite a few methods to spend your time. I’ll thus focus on methods to prioritize your time between speaking to consultants, attending shows and panels, and visiting firm cubicles. There are additionally different methods to enhance your expertise, similar 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 a knowledge 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 method comparable occasions to get essentially the most out of them.
You can even learn my article on OpenAI Whisper for transcriptions.
Disclaimer: I’m not sponsored by NVIDIA in any method, and they didn’t affect the contents of this text.
I’ll cut up this text into 4 essential 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 focus on the thought course of I went by means 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 methods to greatest 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 sensible folks, and hopefully be taught quite a bit. I imagine going to such occasions may be an immense studying expertise, however to get essentially the most out of the occasions, you must put together and strictly prioritize the way you spend your time.
My purpose for the article is to share my expertise on the occasion, and inform you how one can get essentially 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 means of all of the classes on their web page, and chosen as much as the highest three classes I wished to attend per timeslot. Generally, lower than three had 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 may see within the picture beneath. As you may see, I packed my calendar to be as full as attainable. I imagine it is a good start line, and in case you discover out throughout an occasion that you simply need to do one thing else, you may in fact 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 a lot of the planning I did for the occasion. Apart from this, I principally took issues on the fly throughout 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: Classes all the day
Tuesday June 10
On my first day on the occasion, I attended the workshop on including new information to LLMs. This was an fascinating workshop going by means of subjects similar to:
- Information cleansing/curation
- Analysis (LLM as a choose, and many others)
- Data injection (fine-tuning)
- LLM compression (distillation)
This was an insightful workshop, and I might advocate attending comparable workshops if they’re related to you and your work. I additionally met some fascinating folks on the workshop, with whom I obtained to have insightful technical discussions.
Nonetheless, I imagine the simplest 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 sensible folks working at NVIDIA, who might provide you with insights into completely different AI subjects. If I had been to attend a workshop like this once more, I might spend extra time prematurely getting ready inquiries to ask throughout the workshop.
Wednesday/Thursday, June 11/12
There are a variety of issues you may spend your time on throughout as of late. Most notably:
- Attending shows/panel discussions
- Going to the corporate cubicles
- Attending the join with consultants classes
Join with knowledgeable classes are occasions the place you sit round a small desk, amongst just a few different attendees, and also you get to ask inquiries to an NVIDIA worker. The occasions usually had a set matter; nevertheless, you possibly can, in idea, ask any query.
Join with knowledgeable classes had been by far essentially the most helpful classes I attended throughout my time at GTC Paris.
The principle causes for this are:
- The NVIDIA staff current on the occasion had been tremendous clever and will, usually, 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 subjects.
To elaborate on the final bullet level: In reference to knowledgeable classes, you are supposed to ask a query. This might be as common as:
How do I exploit LLMs for classification?
Nonetheless, 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 unravel this downside, you may present them with an instance (or, in lots of instances, the NVIDIA staff will ask for a particular instance). You possibly can then present them an instance of a particular downside you might be engaged on at your enterprise, and obtain a really particular response, which in lots of instances will probably be way more helpful.
For instance, I might add to my query
In Norway we’ve a classification commonplace 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 which you could, in lots of instances, join with NVIDIA staff 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 had been insightful. Nonetheless, I additionally skilled that lots of classes solely coated subjects at a really excessive degree, or solely coated NVIDIA-specific instruments, and didn’t actually present helpful insights for me in my work. That is why I made a decision to spend extra time on the join with consultants classes.
Reflecting after the occasion
After the occasion, I mirrored on every thing 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 typically, by being in an atmosphere with lots of sensible folks, engaged on comparable stuff to what I’m engaged on.
On my method house from the occasion, I subsequently
- Went by means of all my notes. I made positive to take notes from each session I attended.
- Went by means of the fabric I acquired throughout the occasion. Principally 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 imagine that when attending such occasions, one of the best concepts could typically come from your individual 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 essential in at present’s panorama. Listening to this made me take into consideration once I was engaged on fine-tuning Qwen 2.5 VL, and that I may need missed part of the LoRA fine-tuning that made mannequin efficiency quite a bit worse than it might have been. I attempt to sum this idea up in a single quote beneath:
When attending occasions, essentially the most helpful insights usually come up from your individual ideas impressed by conversations—not simply from what somebody straight says.
After some reflections, I’ll now additionally present some constructive and adverse sides with attending the occasion
Upsides of the occasion
- You get to fulfill lots of sensible folks engaged on comparable issues to you
- You get a condensed set of helpful data (lots of what you be taught on the occasion can be discovered on-line); nevertheless, there’s additionally lots of noise on the net. On the occasion, a lot of the data is of top quality
Downsides of the occasion
- It could actually typically really feel like looking for gold in Klondike when talking to folks. You may need to talk to lots of people earlier than you discover somebody with the appropriate experience and curiosity that can assist you in your precise downside
- It takes lots of time. I spent three full days on the occasion, which naturally might be utilized in lots of alternative ways
Conclusion
On this article, I mentioned methods to successfully attend technical occasions, drawing on my expertise attending NVIDIA GTC Paris 2025. I defined how you need to plan the occasion forward of time and decide which classes you need to attend, and I highlighted how I personally discovered most from talking to completely different consultants (significantly NVIDIA staff), moderately than attending shows and panel discussions. Reflecting on the occasion afterwards can be necessary, going by means of all of your notes and the fabric you bought from the occasion. Attending technical occasions, similar to NVIDIA GTC, may be immensely useful for gathering new concepts, connecting with fascinating folks, and hopefully, enhancing your engineering abilities.
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