Falling in Love with Data Science and How I Got a Job Offer as Data Scientist at Insight

Murilo Gustineli from Brazil completed several Omdena challenges ranging from detecting Mars anomalies to detecting pathologies through AI in ultrasound. Upon these projects, he became an Omdena Top Talent to work on paid gigs with companies and got a job offer. Now, he shares his learning on how to develop yourself and never give up.

Murilo, what is your background?

I’m from Brazil, but I’ve been living in the US for ten years. My career path has not been the most straightforward. I was offered an opportunity to swim in college. That’s how I moved to the United States. At the time, swimming was my priority, and my professional career was just a distant thought in the back of my head. Hence, I never truly stopped to think about what career I wanted to pursue.

After I finished my bachelor’s degree in business, I got myself contemplating life and knew what I wanted to do with it. I found myself a very curious and logical person who likes to solve problems and approaches day-to-day tasks with a logical view. So, I decided to do my master’s in Information Systems. 

Throughout my journey in higher education, I fell in love with data science for those same reasons. I have found it very interesting and exciting to understand and analyze actual phenomena by using scientific methods, processes, and algorithms to extract knowledge and insights from data.

One of my favorite classes during my master’s was business intelligence. In that class, we were assigned to read the book “Hands-On Predictive Analytics with Python” by Alvaro Fuentes, and it really opened my eyes. I loved learning about predictive analytics and using various statistical and quantitative methods to make use of data in order to make predictions.

 I’m currently doing another master’s in Computer Science specializing in Machine Learning.

How did you join Omdena? 

I saw a job post on LinkedIn and immediately got interested in the opportunity. I joined Omdena at the beginning of 2021, and I was a part of this community for half a year.

Some of the projects Murilo took part in:

• Mars  Anomaly Detection on Mars Using Deep Learning

Thirty-eight Omdena collaborators built an anomaly detection model for identifying past or present extraterrestrial technology on the surface of Mars. A U-Net model yielded the best scores with precise measures for all anomalies.

• Using Computer Vision to Detect Ethnicity in News and Videos and Improve Ethnicity Awareness
• Helping People with Visual Impairment to Easily Use Buses through Computer Vision

What was your biggest challenge? 

I had very little experience with deep learning when I took part in the project, Detecting Pathologies through AI in Ultrasound. I ended up not contributing as much to the final result as more experienced engineers did. To overcome my lack of experience, I chose something small that I felt I could contribute and focused on that. But it was an amazing experience to participate. Working alongside senior ML engineers gave me the motivation to keep learning and developing myself.

What kind of skills did you gain? 

Omdena gave me an excellent opportunity to work on my first computer vision application during the project, Detecting Pathologies through AI in Ultrasound. I got to work with other engineers that were very knowledgeable in computer vision, object detection, and image segmentation AI applications. It was awesome to learn from them and be able to deliver an AI solution for Envisionit Deep AI to help doctors in South Africa identify malignant tumors on ultrasound images. The experience also improved my resume and helped me get my current job as a data scientist at Insight, a Fortune 500 solutions integrator.

How did Omdena change your worldview? 

It really opened my eyes to how powerful AI and machine learning can be, and how much positive impact it can have on so many people.

I hope someday I’ll be able to make meaningful contributions to the ML field and expand the body of knowledge by doing research and publishing papers. In addition, I will be able to use ML to help people in a positive way, just like Omdena does.

Would you like to add something more?

Machine learning is a vast but very rewarding field. It can be overwhelming trying to learn everything about ML at once. Start small, choose something that interests you, and focus on learning that. My college professor said something that I will never forget, “Life is short, but it’s long enough if you make it count“. 

Work as hard and as much as you want on the things you like to do the best. Be consistent and learn something every day. You may be surprised how far you will reach…