WASHINGTON, Feb. 11, 2019 – Jon Tupitza, CTO solution architect and predictive analytics practice manager at Buchanan & Edwards Inc., an award-winning and fast-growing technology leader creating transformative solutions for government customers, facilitated an Data Science Workshop for the Northern Virginia SQL Server User Group on Monday, Feb. 11 at the Microsoft offices in Reston, Virginia. During this experiential session, Tupitza covered statistical data analysis and hypothesis testing fundamentals, and assisted students with experiments applying concepts to common data science tasks. 

“I was honored to serve as an instructor and guide for evolving professionals within the data management and analytics communities,” said Tupitza. “Applying basic concepts to hands-on work with the software is not only the most effective way to master the necessary skills, but it also creates a solid foundation for students who will continue their education in data science. Due to the rapidly advancing technology in our industry, this session served as a great opportunity for data experts and newcomers to expand their skills.”

Throughout the three-hour workshop, Tupitza helped students understand the basics of hypothesis testing and inferential statistics, as the concepts apply to performing predictive data analytic methods including classification, regression and clustering. He also led Python experiments in Azure Jupyter Notebooks to perform tasks such as feature engineering and principal component analysis. Tupitza concluded the workshop with lessons about “deep learning” with Microsoft’s Cognitive Toolkit and how machine learning models can be operationalized using SQL Server Machine Learning Services.

The Microsoft SQL Server community started the Northern Virginia SQL Server Users Group in 2005 to share experiences and disseminate knowledge to other members in the Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Central Maryland areas. With more than 1,000 active members, the organization hosts annual conferences and local networking events, publishes the latest Microsoft SQL Server news and provides career development resources. NOVASQL is a chapter of the Professional Association of SQL Server, an international Microsoft SQL Server training and advocacy organization.

Tupitza has been providing data platform, business intelligence and data science solutions to public sector customers for over 20 years. Prior to joining Buchanan & Edwards, he served as a senior business intelligence and SQL server consultant for Microsoft’s U.S. Public-Sector Consulting Services, where he supported civilian, DoD, and intelligence community agencies.

Tupitza earned a Master of Science in Data Analytics from Western Governors University and Master’s-level Certificates in Data Science from Harvard and Columbia. He has also been recognized with industry certifications in data science, artificial intelligence, big data, business intelligence, database development and administration, software engineering and infrastructure engineering.