Machine learning once a dying field is back and it’s taking over everything. What can be achieved is truly astounding, and I’m very excited about what the future holds. If you like me would rather get in and play than watch on the sidelines, follow me as I challenge my self to learn machine learning in 4 weeks!.

In this post, I lay out my goal, the study plan and what I intend to do with my knowledge.

The Goal

Scope Scope Scope. Machine learning is a vast field and only so much can be gained in such little time. So I have chosen to focus only on what is required to begin applying current machine learning technology to real-world problems.

After looking at a number of online courses, it seems Google’s Introduction to Machine Learning is the course that best serves this goal.

The study plan

The course is about 15 hours in total. I’d be willing to commit at least seven and a half hours a week, or one and a half hours every weekday.

This means I can ideally commit 30 hours, but even if I miss a day or two I’ll at least have a buffer of 15 hours to make it up.

I say Ideally because as I write this, I am transitioning jobs and location. I’ll be moving to the Netherlands from Nairobi in about a month.

I plan to split up my study into two sections each day.

  • The first is following along with the course and completing the included review questions and exercises.
  • The second is attempting the exercises and questions again, but this time at least 8 hours later.

What do I intend to do with my new found AI superpower?

I would like to bring machine learning into the products I help build every day.

And like any good hacker, use machine learning to create fun side projects and demos.

So there it is folks my ambitious challenge to myself and my game plan to achieve it. If you have advice, questions or comments you can reach me on twitter @benjaminkagia.

I’ll try to post at least twice a week on my progress and learnings.

Grow happiness!