Please share your background and your involvement in the RUGS group or in the R Community.

Currently, I hold the position of Data Scientist at Pixartprinting, a Cimpress company. I’m experienced in using data science tools like R, Python, and SQL to build data solutions. I have also participated in automation projects of ETL flows using Amazon Web Services. I’m delighted to be part of an international company that allows me to expand my work on an international scale and get larger responsibilities abroad. I graduated from the Higher School of Statistics and Information Analysis. On the associative side, I am a Co-Founder of PyLadies Tunis and Tunis R User group and the goal is to organize events on data science-related themes.

I first became involved in the R community by attending meetings and workshops organized by other R groups and R-Ladies.

Over time, I became more involved in the R community by volunteering at events, and organizing meetups, like my participation in the Incubator program at useR2021. The program was focused on expanding the R community in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and I was excited to be a part of it. Through the program, I connected with other R users from the region, shared my knowledge and expertise, and learned from others.

In terms of my involvement with the RUGS group specifically, I am a co-founder and active member of Tunis R user. Our group meets regularly to talk about R programming, data science, and statistics and to exchange helpful tips and tricks for working with R. 

We have also organized several events for the group, such as guest speaker presentations, and workshops: for example, we have invited Anna Skrzydlo who is a Senior Project Manager to animate a workshop about shiny and many others. You can find recordings of our past events on our YouTube channel.

Overall, my involvement in the R community has been a very rewarding experience for me, and I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to contribute to the growth and development of the R ecosystem.

What’s your level of experience with the R language?

I have used R a lot in the past, and I am a big fan of the language. I have worked on a variety of data-related tasks, such as data cleaning, exploratory data analysis, and visualization. 

Although I have been using Python more frequently lately, I still rely on R for certain tasks, particularly for data visualization using the ggplot2 package. I have also found Plotline to be a useful tool for bringing some of the strengths of R’s visualization capabilities into my work with Python.

Please share about a project you are currently working on or have worked on in the past using the R language. What was the goal of this project?

I used Robyn which is an ML-powered and semi-automated Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) open-source package, to define the impact of different marketing channels and allocate an appropriate budget for each of them. And it helps us a lot to do that. 

For my personal project, I used R to create my blog using hugo template and R Markdown. 

What industry are you currently in? How do you use R in your work?

Currently, I am working in the marketing department of a company, specifically in the CRM team. As a Data Scientist in this role, I use R to help analyze customer data and develop strategies for optimizing customer engagement and retention.

Why do industry professionals come to your user group? What is the benefit of attending?

Our R User Group attracts a diverse range of industry professionals who are interested in learning more about the R language and its applications in various fields. 

One of the key benefits of attending our user group is the opportunity to learn from and connect with other professionals in the R community. Our meetings often feature presentations and workshops on a range of topics related to data analysis and data visualization.

What trends do you currently see in R language and your industry? Any trends you see developing in the near future?

In recent years, there has been a growing trend in R for data analysis and modeling across various industries, including marketing, finance, healthcare, and more. One of the key reasons for this is the flexibility and power of the R language, which allows for efficient and effective analysis of complex datasets.

Additionally, there has also been a growing trend towards the use of R packages and libraries, such as Tidyverse and Shiny, which provide users with powerful tools for data cleaning, visualization, and interactive data analysis.

I believe that the future of the R language is very bright, as it continues to gain popularity in the data science and statistical analysis communities. I also see a strong future for the R community, as it continues to grow and evolve to meet the changing needs of its users.