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Meet the Team: Patrick and Manasa

We want to give a warm welcome to a few fresh faces at Positium. The first blog post in this series features our new Data Wizards, Patrick and Manasa, who joined our team in late spring. We had a chat with them to find out more about what they do at Positium and where their passions lie.

You’ll spot Patrick easily - he’s the tallest member of our team. Originally from Viljandi, he moved to Tartu to continue his studies. His background is in geography where he mainly focused on geoinformatics and geospatial analytics. As a Data Specialist, he works closely with different spatial data, fixes geometries, makes maps, creates different visual layers and matrices. “I had seen many different animations and papers published by Positium and I wanted to learn how to get that good in GIS myself. I thought this would be the perfect place to improve my current skills and develop new ones,” says Patrick, on why he decided to apply for a job at Positium. The hands-on work experience has already taught him quite a few new things: “So far I have learned a lot of PostgreSQL and PostGIS, and all the stuff you would need to actually solve problems, without having a cheat sheet like you do at university.” In his spare time, he enjoys camping and sports, creating maps and new map vector designs, and the occasional computer game or two. In addition, Patrick is passionate about Estonian folk dancing.

Our new Data Scientist hails from the Silicon Valley of India - Bangalore. Manasa analyses mobile phone data to develop robust statistical models and also builds frameworks for quality analysis and processing of large-scale tourism data. She holds an MSc in Computer Science and specialised in databases. Manasa says there were many reasons why she chose to apply to work at Positium: “It’s a small group of motivated people aiming to solve problems at the international scale with the use of cutting-edge technologies and machine learning techniques. I figured that Positium would give me the opportunity to apply statistical techniques in the domain of mobility and GIS. I like the friendly work environment and openness to ideas. It’s definitely an exciting experience.” Positium offers many ways for professional and personal growth, and just like Patrick, Manasa learned a lot during her first few months. “I aim to apply my knowledge of statistical learning to build robust automated models and provide valuable business insights. I also want to publish novel work at leading conferences and push the frontiers of data science in mobility,” she eagerly says, a visible glimmer of excitement in her eyes. On her days off, Manasa enjoys sports and fun outdoor activities with her friends. She occasionally attends classes on understanding traditional Indian texts and the meaning they impart. 

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