Presented By O’Reilly and Cloudera
Make Data Work
March 5–6, 2018: Training
March 6–8, 2018: Tutorials & Conference
San Jose, CA

Using ML to improve UX and literacy for young poets

Ann Nguyen (Whole Whale)
1:30pm–2:00pm Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Media, entertainment, and advertising, Visualization and user experience
 Location: LL20 A
Download slides (PDF)

Power Poetry is the largest online platform for young poets, with over 350K users. In 2017, the organization began building the Poetry Genome, a series of ML tools built with Google’s Prediction API that analyze and break down similarity scores of the poems added to the site. The most recent is a rap-poetry similarity tool that matches young poets’ work to rap artists and then shows them the education value of that connection. The Poetry Genome has increased usage and engagement by 30% for that section of the site. Ann Nguyen explains how Power Poetry is extending the learning potential with machine learning and covers the technical elements of the Poetry Genome, including Google Analytics, the Google Prediction API, Drupal, and user game dynamics.

Machine learning has so many use cases in the business world, but the nonprofit sector has yet to start adopting this powerful tech for impact. Moving forward, Power Poetry is looking to use other major datasets to create automated educational tools for the young poets on the site.

Photo of Ann Nguyen

Ann Nguyen

Whole Whale

Ann Nguyen evangelizes design for impact at Whole Whale, where she leads the tech and design team in building meaningful digital products for nonprofits. She has designed and managed the execution of multiple websites for organizations including the LAMP, Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, and Breakthrough. Ann is always challenging designs with A/B testing. She bets $1 on every experiment that she runs and to date has accumulated a decent sum. Previously, Ann worked with a wide range of organizations from the Ford Foundation to Bitly. She is Google Analytics and Optimizely Platform certified. Ann is a regular speaker on nonprofit design and strategy and recently presented at the DMA Nonprofit Conference. She has also taught at Sarah Lawrence College. Outside of work, Ann enjoys multisensory art, comedy shows, fitness, and making cocktails, ideally all together.