ND Internship Sao Paulo – Pt.2 | SIBC International Internships

The past five weeks have been filled with activity both in and out of the office.

My overall project is on Market Basket Analysis which is a type of machine learning for giving recommendations. Similar to spam filters in our mail, the focus of the project is to filter through product recommendations, ultimately suggesting the best one for every product based on past data. I had to familiarize myself with the “Scikit-learn” feature in Python that applies the Apriori Algorithm and Baye’s Probability Theorem which are essential for Market Basket Analysis. The new algorithm created utilizes as a basis a list of all the product substitutes in a certain range of orders (which an algorithm that was created by the end of my second week provides) and associates them to each other. Utilizing association rule mining, inputting a certain product will output the product item with the highest association probability. Thereby the program is not simply recommending the most sold products, but rather personalizing the recommendations that it gives. Given that Gaveteiro is shifting to e-commerce, this code has great potential to increase their sales. The code still needs to be checked for correctness followed by uploading it to the website but a major part of the project has finally been reached.

Even on the weekends, we have not been able to rest. We were able to unite with the Notre Dame club in Brazil and meet the upcoming freshman that will be joining us on campus soon. We have strolled through Parque Ibirapuera, the best and most-known park in Sao Paulo, and tried authentic Brazilian gastronomy in the Municipal Market . We were also able to test our soccer skills by going to the Soccer Museum and learning in extent the evolution and rules of the sport with very interactive displays of major goals, narrators, and players over the years. We were mesmerized in Beco do Batman as graffiti covered every inch of an alley and we danced to sertanejo music in a traditional Festa Junina.

We are excited in planning some weekend trips outside of Sao Paulo to continue our mission of exploring Brazil.

Maria Veronica Marquez