It went well, but people didn’t seem ready to jump into coding, and some didn’t bring laptops. On the brighter side, one group (of about 5 or 6 people) signed up for the Data Science Bowl. And a few people were really excited about the meetup and plan to come every week. 15 out of 40 who RSVP’d showed up.
My plan from here is to host a recurring Kaggle meetup instead of a general deep learning meetup. This should orient the meetup toward coding. I’ll write on the event page, “All are welcome. If you’re new, we’ll help you get started with Kaggle. If you’re competing, we can trade ideas.”
I’m hosting a second deep learning meetup (not Kaggle) on the 29: #2: Deep Learning Meetup in San Francisco, Jan 29
I’d switch it to Kaggle but people already signed up for it.