I realized that it has been 1,5 months since I wrote my last post here. During this timeframe, I have been busy with different things, so I wanted to share a quick status update on myself, and plans for the rest of the year. This post will be different than others, since it is more of a personal context than informative context.
Since the beginning of September, I have been travelling across Asia, and exploring new cities, getting to meet new people and building connections. I started my journey in Bangkok, then Tokyo (photo: Senso-ji Temple), Singapore, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh, Phuket, Jakarta (again), Ho Chi Minh (again) respectively. I am currently in Bangkok and plan to stay here until end of the month, and maybe next month. I strongly recommend anyone to visit this part of the world to appreciate the diversity of the culture, food, nature, and people. As a person who lived vast majority of his life in Europe and briefly in the US, it has been an eye-opening trip so far for me. Beyond all, the region is so dynamic, exciting and moving fast, which creates a lot of economic opportunities for individuals and companies.
During this trip, I had also chance to read a lot on different subjects, primarily my focus areas like retail media, digital marketing, measurement, but also the changes, and trends in the overall tech ecosystem. I met new people, as well as old friends, and bounced some ideas off. I am still in the process of deciding what I plan to do next in my career in the short term, but all of these learnings, and meetings with different people already helped shape my plans.
In December, given most people were off on holidays, I had some time for myself to focus on something new. I decided to take online classes on ML/AI. Yes, I jumped on the hype train 🙂 I am usually sceptical on going deep on topics that become too popular too quickly but I truly believe that ML/AI is different than all other overhyped trends. While I am excited about the topic, I also observe that basically all companies talk about it, but I doubt most of them has a complete understanding of it. Mentioning ML/AI in earnings calls, strategic plans became a norm, and the ones that do not mention them are seen to be behind the curve, and losing the trend. I somewhat agree that companies who do not truly understand the potential implications and opportunities of AI will significantly fall behind in the medium/long term but today, most are simply using them as buzz words.
As a non-technical person with business degree, I always preferred to learn a topic as deep as I can before I can grasp the exact limitations and potential of it. This was the case when I had learned how to code in ASP.NET, and the same when I built a simple game on iOS with Swift. Therefore, I took my first course on Codeacademy on ML/AI fundamentals which taught me Python 101, as well as refreshed my knowledge on data analysis, databases, statistical models, probability, linear algebra etc. I know that I have a long way to go but I believe I now have a good starting point to go deeper.
So, coming into 2024, my plan is to start my own business and test my entrepreneurial skills this year. I have not made my final decision yet, but made progress on which direction overall I am willing to take. Oh, and I will be based in Berlin in the second half of the year.
Last but not least, I am partnering with one of the leading adtech companies in Europe to host a webinar about Retail Media. I will keep you posted.