COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1: Foundations & Classical Machine Learning
Day 1: Introduction to AI and Machine Learning
- The AI Landscape: Distinguishing between Narrow AI, General AI, and the role of Machine Learning within the ecosystem.
- Learning Paradigms: Comparative study of Supervised, Unsupervised, and Reinforcement Learning.
- Python Environment Architecture: Configuring Virtual Environments, Jupyter Notebooks, and essential AI libraries.
- Data Handling Basics: Introduction to data structures and loading external datasets (CSV, JSON, SQL).
Day 2: Data Science Essentials with Python
- Numerical & Tabular Processing: Mastering NumPy for vectorization and Pandas for data frame manipulation.
- The Preprocessing Pipeline: Handling missing values, encoding categorical variables, and feature scaling.
- Feature Engineering: Deriving new insights through transformation and selection techniques.
- Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA): Visualizing data distributions and correlations using Matplotlib and Seaborn.
Day 3: Supervised Learning & Evaluation
- Regression Analysis: Implementing Linear and Polynomial models to predict continuous outcomes.
- Classification Strategies: Deep dive into Logistic Regression, Decision Trees, and Random Forests.
- The Metrics of Success: Understanding Confusion Matrices, Accuracy, Precision-Recall, and F1-Score.
- Hands-on Labs: Developing a predictive model to solve a binary classification business challenge.
Day 4: Unsupervised Learning & Complexity Reduction
- Clustering Techniques: Grouping data with K-Means and Hierarchical clustering.
- Dimensionality Reduction: Using PCA (Principal Component Analysis) to simplify datasets without losing variance.
- Association Rule Learning: Discovering relationships in large-scale transactional data.
- Practical Exercises: Segmenting customer data into actionable behavioral groups.
Week 2: Deep Learning & Production Integration
Day 5: Deep Learning Fundamentals
- Biological to Artificial: The structure of a Neural Network and the role of the Perceptron.
- Activation Functions: Implementing ReLU, Sigmoid, and Tanh to introduce non-linearity.
- Backpropagation & Optimization: How models learn through Gradient Descent and error correction.
- TensorFlow & Keras Intro: Building your first "Sequential" model in a high-level API environment.
Day 6: Advanced Neural Architectures
- Computer Vision with CNNs: Convolutional layers, pooling, and spatial hierarchy for image recognition.
- Sequence Modeling with RNNs: Understanding "Memory" in models using LSTMs and GRUs for time-series or text.
- Transfer Learning: Utilizing pre-trained models (VGG, ResNet) to accelerate specialized development.
- Model Optimization: Preventing overfitting with Dropout, Regularization, and Early Stopping.
Day 7: AI Project Development & Pipelines
- End-to-End ML Pipelines: Orchestrating the flow from raw data ingestion to prediction.
- Model Deployment Concepts: Introduction to Model Serving, APIs (FastAPI/Flask), and Containerization (Docker).
- Performance Tuning: Hyperparameter optimization and cross-validation for maximum reliability.
- Practical Implementation: Building a robust validation strategy for production-grade AI.
Day 8: Capstone Project & Evaluation
- AI Solution Implementation: Final development time for a self-selected or assigned technical problem.
- Project Presentations: Demonstrating the technical architecture and results to peers.
- Assessments & Feedback: Comprehensive review of the course objectives and individual performance evaluations.
- Roadmap Ahead: Certification paths and emerging trends in Deep Learning.