Episode 12 — Favio Vázquez

Favio Vazquez is the Principal Data Scientist at OXXO: Mexico’s largest convenience store chain with over 17,500 locations.

In addition to his work at OXXO, Favio brings new meaning to the term “polymath” by simultaneously holding 5 other related positions at AI companies in Mexico:

Senior Data Scientist @ Raken Data Group
Chief Data Scientist @ Iron AI
Creator of the Ciencias y Datos Online Course
Data Science Lecturer @ Afi Escuela de Finanzas
Collaborator @ CosmoSIS

With such a wide-ranging background, we covered a lot in this conversation, including:

Favio’s experience growing up in Venezuela, the childhood influencers that played a core part in shaping him into who he is today
Tricks like “frontloading” and “batching” that Favio uses to juggle many projects at once
How individuals looking to get hired as a company’s first data scientist should explain the value that data science can provide, what language to use and terminology to avoid
His approach for determining which questions would yield the most valuable return in applying data science to OXXO’s business
The greatest similarities and differences between how data science is practiced in Mexico versus the United States
When and how beginners should invest in learning advanced topics like big data processing (e.g. Apache Spark) and deep learning (e.g. neural networks)

Enjoy the show!

Show Notes: https://ajgoldsteindotcom.wordpress.com/podcast/ep12/

Favio’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faviovazquez/

AJ’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajgoldstein393/