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The Data Matters Series by MDEC is a series of courses conducted quarterly to address different ideas and concepts about data in the Malaysian market. MDEC sponsors the workshops by collaborating with industry leaders to educate the public on the latest in technology and data in the region. This time around the series looks at R language titled ‘Big Data Analytics with R”. It is conducted and presented by MyRUG the Malaysia R User Group.

MyRUG is a volunteer group set up to address the needs of the R community in Malaysia. Dr Poo, Senior Manager, Data Science, Nielsen and also founder of MyRUG says that he saw a need for a group in Malaysia as similar groups already exist in other countries.

The community consists of a diverse group of individuals who have come together to discuss anything related to the R programming language, provide help to anyone ranging from beginners to R professionals and experts share and learn all about R programming and share new ideas or knowledge.

Speaking as keynote at the workshop, Dr Poo says later, “I find there is a need for an R community in Malaysia especially since we are moving forward in the digital era as a nation. As most other nations already have such support groups, it makes sense that we also should have such a community”, he added.

MyRUG first started up spinning off from a Coursera course on R that happened last year he said. They are the first R language community in Malaysia and he hopes to help others around other regions across the country to begin their own communities.

“The pace of R learning worldwide is growing tremendously since it is an open source technology. This group helps individuals who want to learn about R language, we provide training and mentoring for anyone interested. You can approach us and join us at our online site, www.meetup.com”.

They are also contactable through Facebook at rusergroupmalaysia.

MyRUG has so far run 3 workshops, the first two being at Malaysian Multimedia University and at Microsoft with very good response.

The workshop this time was attended by a wide variety of industries and individuals in terms of knowledge, from those very experienced in using R and other programming languages, as well as to those who are attending a workshop on Big Data and interested in understanding about programming for the first time.

Speakers for the workshop included Peter E. Stek from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, Prof. Nicolas Spyratos, University Paris-Sud, France, Dr Peter Ho, Data Science Institute, Malaysia Multimedia Uiversity and Loo Keen Ngin, MapiT MSC.

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