Transcript
Lusk: Congratulations on being our Transformation of the Week! I want to tell the people out there a little bit more about your background.
Katerina: Okay, so I have a Phd in economics. So I have been creating forecasting models for over 10 years. And specifically, AI and machine learning for about 8 years. My background is creating models from DSGE models, econometric models, machine learning, LLM models and neural networks. To sum it up, yeah.
Lusk: That’s a great overview. So what put you on this path to Gen AI?
Katerina: So it’s a hot topic everyone has been talking about. And I was wondering if I can tweak it and use it for my forecasting models, whether I can use it to improve the accuracy of the prediction outcomes.
Lusk: And so far has it worked? Have you been able to do the things that you’ve set out to do?
Katerina: Yes, I use generative AI to create a sentiment analysis which improves my prediction models, and not only that. But with these models I can create a real time forecasting which I can deploy on HuggingFace and people can use without me having to store it somewhere. So it has helped me big time!
Lusk: You were in our AI Engineering Bootcamp Cohort 3, which just graduated a month or two ago. Have you been able to put any of the things that you learned into practice where you’re at now?
Katerina: Yes, I have. I’ve created a model for my company, TransUrban, for sentiment analysis on any given task concerning transportation.We are using it to scrape data from Reddit and Google search and can ask, for example, how is the I-495 performing and what is the overall sentiment.
Lusk: That’s really impressive. So you have been building, shipping, and sharing since graduation! Any words of wisdom that you have for the people that are out there listening to this, who may have the same background as you, or who were in the same position as you.
Katerina: Yes, so regardless of your background it’s totally worth it. It seems so hard in the beginning and it might seem kind of blurry on how you are going to use it, but it definitely gets easier over time. So just don’t give up!
Lusk: Thank you so much, Katerina. Where can people follow your awesome story?
Katerina: Oh, thank you as well. Yeah, you can connect with me on Linkedin and find me on Github or HuggingFace.