2015-2026 The Data Science Conference

What 2015-2026 The Data Science Conference does

The Data Science Conference® (TDSC), organized by NeoNorm, LLC, is a privately held, in-person conference series serving data science, machine learning, and AI practitioners. Founded in 2015 by Dr. Michael Tsiappoutas after he attended an analytics conference where roughly 65% of presentations were vendor promotions, TDSC is built around a strict vendor-free, sponsor-free, and recruiter-free model. The flagship event is a two-day practitioner-only conference held at Gleacher Center (University of Chicago Booth School of Business) in downtown Chicago, with the next two events scheduled for May 28-29, 2026 and May 27-28, 2027. The company has no proprietary technology platform, no app, no API, and no digital product; the deliverable is a physical event with presentations, Q&A, slide decks, networking, and meals.

Revenue is generated entirely from attendee registration fees, with no sponsor, vendor, or advertising income. Tiered pricing ranges from $950 (academic, government, nonprofit) to $1,400 (single registration), with group discounts for 2+ attendees from the same company and a $150 Loyalty Discount for returning attendees. Operations are intentionally lean: the company is organized as NeoNorm, LLC (formed 2008, Farmington, CT), has 1-10 employees, and is bootstrapped with no external investors. Marketing is purely organic — LinkedIn, Twitter/X (@_tdsc_), public agenda visibility, and word-of-mouth — with no paid advertising. The conference is supported by a 17-member advisory board drawn from Google, Meta, TikTok, Microsoft, Amazon, FedEx, CVS Health, General Motors Insurance, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Discover Financial Services, Chamberlain Group, Ulta Beauty, Purdue University, University of Chicago, HEC Montreal, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Historical conferences have been held in Chicago, Seattle, and Boston, with 15+ events archived since 2015.

The target customer is the individual practitioner — data scientists, predictive modelers, machine learning engineers, and AI professionals — who is 18+ and attends in a personal, not vendor/recruiter/sponsor capacity. The company's stated competitive advantage is being the only analytics conference in the space that operates without any commercial activity, reinforced by a registered trademark, decade-long brand, and a self-described "dedicated customer base" that returns year after year. The company does not accommodate international attendees requiring visa support letters and serves a U.S.-only geographic footprint.

Name

2015-2026 The Data Science Conference

Legal name

NeoNorm, LLC

Website

https://thedatascienceconference.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

The Data Science Conference® (NeoNorm, LLC) organizes in-person, vendor-free, sponsor-free, and recruiter-free data science conferences for practicing data scientists, ML engineers, and AI professionals. Founded in 2015, it operates leanly (1-10 employees) and funds itself entirely through attendee registration fees at events held at Gleacher Center in Chicago.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Professional Industry Conferences

NAICS

Convention and Trade Show Organizers (56192), Convention and Trade Show Organizers (561920)

akta.pro primary industry

Academic & Scientific Conferences (MPAGAGAD)

akta.pro secondary industry

Academic & Education Conference Organizers (THAHACAE)

Keywords

• Data science conferences
• Practitioner-only events
• AI machine learning conferences
• Analytics industry conferences
• Vendor-free professional events

Headquarters

HQ city

Farmington

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Conference Registration Fees: Revenue is generated entirely from attendee registration fees. There are no sponsors, vendors, or third-party advertisers. Single registration is priced at $1,400 per person; double registration at $1,200 per person; triple or more at $1,100 per person; and academic/government/nonprofit registration at $950 per person. Additional discounts include a $150 Loyalty Discount for previous attendees and group discounts for 2+ attendees from the same company.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

The Data Science Conference® is an in-person, two-day annual conference for data science practitioners (data scientists, predictive modelers, machine learning and AI professionals) featuring practitioner-only presentations with no vendor pitches, no sponsors, and no recruiters. Tickets are sold per attendee through tiered registration passes that include full access to presentations, Q&A, slide decks, networking, meals, and refreshments; revenue is generated entirely from these registration fees.

Product overview

The Data Science Conference® is a single, unified in-person event offering rather than a software platform. The core product is a two-day practitioner-only conference (May 28-29, 2026 at Gleacher Center, Chicago) featuring data science presentations with no vendor, sponsor, or recruiter involvement. Registration tickets are the primary offering: Single Registration ($1,400/person), Double Registration ($1,200/person), Triple+ Registration ($1,100/person), and Academic/Government/Nonprofit Registration ($950/person). All tickets provide identical full access to presentations, Q&A sessions, slide decks, networking events, meals, and refreshments. The conference serves analytics professionals including data scientists, predictive modelers, machine learning practitioners, and AI professionals.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• The Data Science Conference® — In-Person Conference Sessions (May 2026) Two-day, in-person, practitioner-only data science conference featuring unedited, unscripted presentations from data scientists, machine learning engineers, and AI professionals covering topics in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and related fields. All registration tiers include full access to presentations, Q&A sessions, slide decks from consenting presenters, networking, breakfast, lunch, snack breaks, and network drinks. No sales pitches, vendor promotions, or recruiting activities are permitted. Per-attendee registration pricing tiers: Single $1,400, Double $1,200 per person (2+ from same company), Triple+ $1,100 per person (3+ from same company), Academic/Government/Nonprofit $950 per person, plus a $150 Loyalty Discount for returning attendees and half-price one-day passes via coupon. Targeted at 18+ analytics professionals including data scientists, predictive modelers, data miners, machine learners, AI practitioners, and computer scientists.

Named customers14 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves12 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• ODSC (Open Data Science Conference): ODSC organizes data science and AI training conferences with paid talks, sponsor tracks, and corporate partnerships. It targets the same data science practitioner audience as The Data Science Conference but operates with vendor/sponsor monetization, making it the closest direct competitor contrasting models.
• KDD (ACM SIGKDD Conference): Premier academic data mining and knowledge discovery conference featuring peer-reviewed practitioner and research presentations. Overlaps strongly with the data science practitioner audience and similar in its vendor-light academic orientation.
• NeurIPS: Premier machine learning research conference attracting many of the same ML and AI practitioners targeted by The Data Science Conference. Highly relevant adjacent venue for the audience even if more research-focused.
• PyData: Community-organized conferences for data science practitioners using Python and open source tools. Highly comparable grassroots, practitioner-led model with overlapping audience and similar content focus.
• JupyterCon: Conference for Jupyter and open data science practitioners, organized with significant community and sponsor involvement. Competes for the same data scientist attention and event budget.
• MLConf: Single-track machine learning practitioner conference explicitly positioned as vendor-free with curated applied ML talks. Most directly comparable in anti-vendor philosophy and attendee persona.

Broad incumbents

• Data + AI Summit (Databricks): Databricks' flagship annual conference draws thousands of data scientists and ML practitioners with deep enterprise sponsorship. It competes for the same attendee persona but is owned and funded by a major data platform vendor.
• Strata Data Conference (O'Reilly Media): Long-running O'Reilly/Cloudera conference focused on big data and data science practitioner content. Serves the same data professional audience but at larger scale and with vendor sponsorship.
• SAS Global Forum: Long-running analytics conference with a heavy vendor presence, serving data scientists and statisticians across industries. Comparable audience but vendor-driven model contrasts with The Data Science Conference's positioning.
• IBM Think: Enterprise-scale data, AI, and cloud conference with substantial vendor sponsorship. Targets overlapping enterprise data leaders and ML practitioners but at vastly greater scale and corporate funding.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xtwitter.com/_tdsc_
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/the-data-science-conference

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about 2015-2026 The Data Science Conference