The most valuable resource is no longer oil and gold; data reigns supreme these days

And if data is the most valuable resource, perhaps the field of data science is the most critical of them all It is so lucrative that the median entry level starting salary of a data scientist is $98,000

If you think I'm making this up, just think of the Cambridge Analytica story of how it was used in the 2016 Presidential elections in the US to influence people's voting decisions I'm not being political here; whether true or not, data was used and it, to some extent, was seen to be effective in influencing people

All that is the realm of data science

And it is not just Cambridge Analytica that uses data on a massive scale. Data is used to tell which ad suggestions show up when you are browsing on your favorite website, the kind of videos you see on YouTube for instance, the friend suggestions we see on Facebook, the stuff you see on your newsfeed, the emails that land in your spam folder, our credit rating, how much we pay for insurance, the products/movies that Amazon, Netflix and other online stores display to you and much more

For all these things to be possible, lots of data (an estimated 2.5 exabytes were being generated every single day in 2012, according to IBM) has to be collected, analyzed, interpreted and manipulated to serve a given purpose

Does all this sound like music to your ears?

Would you want to understand the inner workings of key concepts of data science, including high performance computing, big data analysis, data infrastructure issues, machine learning, data mining, deep learning and more?

This book has a comprehensive introduction to the field of data science to help you to have an above average understanding of data science to get you started.

• What data science is all about, including how it works, how it is used in everyday life and more
• The fundamentals of computer science and the place of data science in today's highly interconnected society
• Fundamentals of machine learning, including the intricacies of machine learning in data science and its application in everyday life
• Natural language processing, automation and artificial intelligence with respect to big data and data science
• The role of python programming language in modern day data science
• Data modeling, including the place of data modelers in data science
• Voice recognition as an important area of data science

• The concept of distributed systems and big data and their place in data science

• The concept of data visualization as part of data science
• The impact of smart technology on data entry processes
• And much more

The book uses beginner friendly, easy to follow, language that will ultimately help you to start seeing how to apply machine learning and big data analysis in solving everyday problems in the world

If you've ever wanted to dip your feet into the murky and interestingly mysterious world of data science, now is the time to get in