Hi,
I am a current manager of StanKorea, a Stan user group in South Korea as introduced in Stan this month Issue 1. I would like to summarize what we, members of StanKorea, have done and our future plans.
2018
The biggest event was StanKorea 1st meetup. We hosted an introductory meetup in Seoul, on 28th of November. The meetup was the first of its kind in Korea in that it was recognized by and benefited from some support from the Stan community. We were able to introduce Stan and reach out to potential users. Below is the brief summary:
Event Overview
I. Registration (30min)
II. Greeting (30min)
- “StanKorea Introduction and Aims of the Community” by StanKorea administers
III. Seminar 1 (30min)
- “Bayesian Data Analysis” by Gwangmin Lee
IV. Seminar 2 (30min)
- “Stan and Time Series Forecasting” by Hyunji Moon
V. Networking & Meal (60min)
Participants
Numbering more than 30 people in total, our participants were of various academic backgrounds ranging from undergraduates to professors and whose majors were mostly in the engineering and statistics fields but also included management, archaeology, psychology, and literature as well.
Reflections
Given this meetup was our first organizational experience as a group, we are fairly content with what we have produced: an event with casual and youthful atmosphere but some serious academic content. The preparation of the meetup entailed support from our kind professors, institutions of the university, and Stan community (@syclik and @breckbaldwin).
2019
During winter, we mainly focused on running two study groups. One of the purposes was to make Bayesian and Stan resources with group members. We were able to gather members from the first meetup participants and through facebook announcement.
@betanalpha’s advice on Bayesian roadmap in the previous post was very helpful for deciding which and how much to cover in each study group. As for the materials, we used Bayesian Data Analysis (group1) and Richard McElreath’s lecture video on Statistical Rethinking (group2). Both were great materials and participants were all satisfied. Especially, the latter was an appropriate level for Bayesian stats intro (thanks for the recommendation @Bob_Carpenter). During the study, we enjoyed reading the textbook together and are looking forward to Ch.16 and 17 of the second edition @richard_mcelreath. Thanks a lot.
Plans
We have wrapped up both study groups, last week, and working on developing Bayesian and Stan resources in Korean. The resulting resources would be introduced in the second meetup, which hopefully will take place no later than the end of 2019.
Currently, our top priority is to diversify beyond the initial university group. It would be great if Stan users in Korea could contact me via replies or messages!