History of Data Guild
The idea of a guild for data science students was planted into the minds of the new freshmen already during the orientation week of the first batch of data science students in 2018. An older student talked as if it was certain that we would eventually start our own guild. The idea grew from there during the fall.
The community of the new data science program was small and tight-knit, and the data scientist identity started separating from the general computer science student identity quickly. The data science students got to decide on a different color sleeve to separate themselves from the computer science students. After some debate and voting, silver was settled on as the desired sleeve color, which would later become the main color of the Data Guild overalls. Since the sleeves did not arrive in time for fuksi cruise, the data science students decided to duct tape their sleeves silver to show their identities. During the fall the DS students had their own ChristMa(th)s party and the first Nuuksio bonfire, which was branded as the first ever “data science guild” event.
When spring came around, the work towards creating the guild continued, led by Alena Shchevyeva and Emmi Kotilainen. On Wednesday 27th of February the guild was officially founded as an association under Finnish association law. The name of the association was Data Guild, as it was easier to say than the longer version “data science guild”. Many older TiK members joined the meeting to watch the new guild be born, popping in and out of the Kovalevyn läpilaulanta event they had next door. Somewhat surprisingly to the founders, the first board was as big as 10 members.