Machine Learning using Python

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of the decisive expertise with applications across various industry domains. Machine learning (ML), a subset of AI, is an important set of algorithms used for solving several business and social problems. The objective of this book is to discuss machine learning model development using Python. AI and ML are important skills that every graduate in engineering and management discipline will require to advance in their career. Companies across different industry sectors such as retail, finance, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare are planning to build and offer AI-based solutions to stay competitive in the market. Companies across different domains will need a large pool of experts in these fields to build products and solutions for them. An estimate by IDC (International Data Corporation) states that spending by organizations on AI and ML will grow from $12B in 2017 to $57.6B in 2021 (Columbus, 2018)1. Almost 61% of organizations have reported that Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will be among their top data initiatives in 2019. Machine Learning is going to be most in-demand AI skill for data scientists (Zafarino, 2018)2. An article published in The Economic Times in 2018 states that India’s demand for data scientist grew by 400%, but in contrast the supply has only increased by 19% (Pramanik, 2018)3. Python is the leading programming language used by several organizations for creating end-to-end solutions using ML. Several universities and institutions have started undergraduate and post-graduate programs in business analytics, and one of the core offerings is skill development in machine learning. But there is a shortage of quality teaching material that provides insights into application of machine learning using real-world examples. This book is an attempt to create hands-on content for structured learning. This is a practitioner’s book that both students and industry professionals can use to understand and master skills in machine learning using Python. We have been teaching Business Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, for MBA students and several other leading corporates in India for many years. This book is a result of learnings on how to make the students understand machine learning in an efficient manner. For better understanding, we have reproduced many concepts and examples in this book from the book titled Business Analytics – The Science of Data-Driven Decision, by U Dinesh Kumar published by Wiley in 2017. We recommend the readers to read this book along with the book by U Dinesh Kumar (co-author of this book). We have acknowledged the sources of data used for developing ML models using Python in respective chapters. We are thankful to the original creators of the dataset.