Another path: start doing Kaggle. Pick whatever competition looks interesting to you and just join in. In worst case you will learn a lot, and there will be peo

Another path: start doing Kaggle. Pick whatever competition looks interesting to you and just join in. In worst case you will learn a lot, and there will be people working on the same problems as you will. EDIT: but some initial level of knowledge is advisable so you know how to pick a competition.