By Mehar Pratap Singh, CEO and Founder – ProCogia

R consortium fulfills a unique need in the growing data science space.  Also, R language resources are critical tools in the data-driven economy. The R ecosystem productizes openly developed technology into commercial products and solutions. Businesses sustain the virtual cycle by reinvesting profits into the project and technical community.

R consortium sits under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation. R consortium is here to support the R community to promote, develop and extend the reach of R. The R Consortium’s open-source governance and foundation model has been uniquely positioned to benefit the worldwide community of users, maintainers, and software developers. You will be able to find out about the who, the what and the why around R-consortium

You will also learn about:

• How R Consortium connects the dots within the R community & promotes collaboration
• R Consortium mission and vision
• R Consortium Membership
• The impact of R Consortium
• Projects with sustainable ecosystems matter
• R Consortium Funded Activities and Projects
• Working Groups drive industry engagement
• How can you get involved?

Bottom line is, R Consortium welcomes members from all types of organizations!

From the useR! 2021 conference

Also, I wanted to share my experience at the recent useR! 2021 conference. The keynote presentations from July 5- 9 conference were very interesting. Below are some my key takeaways:

1. R Spatial analysis

R Spatial is a lively community of people using R for analyzing spatial data. Things took off from 2005 on when packages like sp, rgdal, rgeos and raster provided shareable infrastructure for spatial vector and raster data. R Spatial has constantly relied on the OSGEO libraries GDAL, PROJ and GEOS for I/O, coordinate transformations, and geometrical operations. Upcoming changes for R Spatial include switching to spherical geometry, handling of data cubes, and time-dependent coordinate reference systems that cope with plate tectonics.

Speaker: Professor Edzer Pebesma  at the Institute for Geoinformatics of the University of Münster.

2. Tools and technologies for supporting algorithm fairness and inclusion

Graphic representations created by R are easily understood by people with no background in statistics, which makes it a great tool for advancing public policy and the Sustainable Development Goals.

“Inyathi ibuzwa kwabaphambili” is a Xhosa proverb, which means wisdom is learned or sought from the elders, or those ahead in the journey. In this multi-contribution keynote, we will hear from those ahead in the journey – Dorothy Gordon, Achim Zeileis, Kristian Lum and Jonathan Godfrey.

Dorothy Gordon, chair of the UNESCO Information For All Program, talked about making technology accessible particularly to women and Africans, and how utilizing tools such as R can help advance public policy. Achim Zeileis, Professor of Statistics, University of Innsbruck, Austria, will discuss making the color schemes in data visualizations accessible for as many users as possible.

Speakers: Achim Zeileis; Dorothy Gordon; Kristian Lum; Jonat Godfrey

3. Can we do this in R? – Answering questions about air quality one code at a time

Every time we encounter a large dataset, a new modelling approach, a new statistical technique, a new visualization challenge, we ask ourselves: “Can we do this in R?” and for the past four years (since we started this work), the answer has been a resounding “yes.”

Speaker: Meenakshi Kushwaha, Co-Founder and Director of Research, ILK Labs, Bangalore

4. Teaching how to teach without leaving anyone behind

Metadocencia was born in March 2020 when the pandemic forced us to change the way we teach and learn. We began by running a workshop with evidence-based educational methods that could be applied in a simple way. We also provided open resources to encourage effective teaching practices and invited people to share their experiences and form a community. A year later, we opened 3 new workshops and reached more than 1500 people in 30 countries.

Speakers: Paola Corrales; Elio Campitelli; Ivan Poggio

5. Expanding the Vocabulary of R Graphics

R Graphics system defines a graphics vocabulary for R – a set of possible graphics operations like drawing a line, coloring in a polygon or setting a clipping region. This talk will describe work on the graphics engine that expands its vocabulary to include gradient fills, pattern fills, clipping paths, and masks.

Speaker: Paul Murrell, Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland

6. Research software engineers and academia

Nearly all research relies on research software, yet we are still lacking adequate acknowledgment and career paths for RSEs. I want to discuss the status quo and future of software in research, the role of the R community, and what it has to do with my personal path.

Speaker: Heidi Seibold, Group lead of the Open AI in Health group at Helmholtz AI

7. The R-universe project

R-universe is a new platform by rOpenSci under which we experiment with various ideas for improving publication and discovery of research software in R. The system automatically tracks upstream git package repositories, builds binary packages for Windows and Mac, renders vignettes, and makes data available.

Speaker:  Jeroen Ooms, Staff research engineer at UC Berkeley

8. Communication – elevating data analysis to make a real impact

Data analysis is key to identify patterns, understand processes and guide effective policy-making to solve real world problems. Data journalist Catherine Gicheru and atmospheric scientist Katherine Hayhoe will share their work and experience communicating key data results to the general public and stakeholders.

Speakers:  Catherine Gicheru; Katherine Hayhoe

Please connect with us using any of the below methods

Web – www.r-consortium.org

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/r-consortium/mycompany/

Twitter – @RConsortium

The post R Consortium and You – How to get involved appeared first on R Consortium.