From Economics to ML: Building My First Classifier

Hi everyone! I’m a Venezuelan economics graduate currently based in Toronto, making an exciting transition from operations/business into the technical world of ML.

What brings me here is a deep desire to shift from a status-seeking mindset to becoming a true builder. There’s a story that really inspired this change: When Forrest Mars (of M&M’s fame) was starting out, he said something that stuck with me - he could always hire finance people or lawyers, but he needed to learn how to make chocolate himself. That really resonated with me about ML - in today’s world, understanding how to build ML models is like knowing how to “make the chocolate.”

Fittingly enough, I just completed my first ML model - an image classifier that identifies M&M’s from other chocolates! Started with the bird classifier from Chapter 1 and adapted it. Getting that 90% accuracy felt incredible - like writing my first “Hello World” but for AI.

I’m excited to learn alongside this community and gradually build more complex things. My background isn’t technical (spent time as a Chief of Staff at a startup), but I’m fascinated by the intersection of ML, fintech, and building useful things that create value.

Looking forward to learning from everyone here!