About Me

Hi, I’m Ines.

I’m a software developer working on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing technologies, and the co-founder and CEO of Explosion. We’re the makers of spaCy, one of the leading open-source libraries for Natural Language Processing in Python, and Prodigy, a modern annotation tool for creating training data for machine learning models.

I believe in programming until four in the morning in my pyjamas instead of getting up early to attend conferences about productivity. I believe in making the best possible products instead of launching just for the sake of it because some startup advice blog told me so. I believe in rational planning, logical consequences and bullshit-free hard work instead of “following my dreams”. In short, I believe in doing things.

I grew up on the internet and started coding and designing websites at 11. After completing my degree in Communication Science, Media Studies and Linguistics, I spent four years working in media and sales, before founding Explosion. I live in Berlin and I occasionally speak at conferences and make videos. In 2020, I became a Fellow of the Python Software Foundation.

I’ve been featured in…

IEEE Spectrum · Berliner Zeitung · GitHub Newsletter · TalkPython #351, #300, #297, #202 · Python Bytes #191, #139 · Learning From Machine Learning · The Python Show · Teaching Python · KDnuggets 2021, 2020, 2019 · Rasa Chats · Snorkel ScienceTalks · Gradient Dissent · DevJourney · Practical AI Podcast · ZenML Pipeline Conversations · Console DevTools Podcast · Byte Into IT · SourceSort · Python-Podcast.de · Bayerischer Rundfunk · kulturnews · Zündfunk (Bayern 2) · Techtiefen Podcast · Mouse vs. Python · DataHack Radio · TWiML & AI · ARD-alpha · NLP Highlights Podcast · Spiegel Online · The Exponential View · O’Reilly Newsletter

© Eugene Hyland
© Ema Discordant
© Eugene Hyland

Blog & Updates

Selected Talks

2024-11-04
Keynote
TBA
PyData Tel Aviv · Tel Aviv (Israel)
2024-05-24
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
PyCon Italia · Florence (Italy)
2024-04-24
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
PyCon DE & PyData Berlin · Berlin (Germany)
2024-04-09
Connecting the Dots: Applying Generative AI
QCon · London (United Kingdom)
2024-04-08
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
QCon · London (United Kingdom)
2024-04-05
Keynote
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
PyCon Lithuania · Vilnius (Lithuania)
2023-11-29
Incorporating LLMs into practical NLP workflows
PyBerlin · Berlin (Germany)
2023-11-01
Tutorial: Half hour of labeling power: Can we beat GPT?
PyData NYC · New York (United States)
2023-09-21
Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production
Big PyData BBQ · Heidelberg (Germany)
2023-09-16
Tutorial: There are no bad labels, only happy accidents
PyData Amsterdam · Amsterdam (Netherlands)
2023-07-19
Keynote
Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production
EuroPython · Prague (Czech Republic)
2023-06-03
Keynote
Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production
PyData London · London (United Kingdom)
2023-05-24
Welchen Einfluss hat generative KI auf die politische Meinungsbildung?
FZI Spot On: ChatGPT & Co. · Berlin (Germany)
2023-04-17
Incorporating LLMs into practical NLP workflows
PyCon DE & PyData Berlin · Berlin (Germany)
2022-12-08
How the Guardian uses AI to analyse articles
JournalismAI Festival · digital
2022-05-12
Keynote
Solutions for Advanced NLP for Diverse Languages
New Languages for NLP · Princeton (United States)
2021-06-17
Applied NLP Thinking
L3-AI · digital
2021-06-10
Keynote
What does “real-world NLP” look like and how can students get ready for it?
Teaching NLP, NAACL 2021 · digital
2020-10-22
Keynote
spaCy v3.0: Bringing State-of-the-art NLP from Prototype to Production
Global AI Live · digital
2020-06-18
Designing Practical NLP Solutions
L3-AI · digital
2020-02-08
Keynote
The Future of NLP in Python
PyCon Colombia · Medellín (Colombia)
2019-11-09
Künstliche Intelligenz beyond the hype
Zündfunk Netzkongress · Munich (Germany)
2019-10-13
Keynote
Let Them Write Code
PyCon India · Chennai (India)
2019-10-09
spaCy and the future of multi-lingual NLP
META Forum Award Ceremony · Brussels (Belgium)
2019-07-06
spaCy and Explosion: past, present and future
spaCy IRL · Berlin (Germany)
2019-05-09
Practical NLP transfer learning with spaCy and Prodigy
InfoShare · Gdańsk (Poland)
2019-01-28
Practical transfer learning for NLP with spaCy and Prodigy
Applied Machine Learning Days · Lausanne (Switzerland)
2018-11-22
The AI Revolution will not be Monopolized
Hack Talks · Helsinki (Finland)
2018-07-26
Keynote
How to Ignore Most Startup Advice and Build a Decent Software Business
EuroPython · Edinburgh (Scotland)
2018-05-05
Teaching AI about Human Knowledge
PyDays · Vienna (Austria)
2018-04-14
Increasing Data Science Productivity: spaCy & Prodigy
San Francisco (United States)
2018-04-12
Rapid NLP Annotation Through Binary Decisions, Pattern Bootstrapping and Active Learning
TomTom Founders Festival · Charlottesville (United States)