talk-data.com

Venue: Riverbank House, 2 Swan Ln, London EC4R 3AD

Please note:

1. 🚨🚨🚨A valid photo ID is required by building security. 🚨🚨🚨
2. This event follows the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct. Please familiarise yourself with it before attending.

If your RSVP status says "You're going" you will be able to get in. No need to show your RSVP confirmation when signing in. If you can no longer make it, please unRSVP as soon as possible. *** Code of Conduct: This event follows the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct. Please get in touch with the organisers with any questions or concerns. *** As always, there will be free food and drinks, generously provided by our host, Man Group. ***

Main Talks

1. Using Hugging Face's smolagents framework to create a Fantasy Premier League AI Agent - Geir Freysson

How do you ground AI agents in real-world data so they don’t hallucinate? This talk shows how I built a Fantasy Premier League agent using Hugging Face’s smolagents - a minimal, \~1,000-line framework. It connects directly to structured FPL data to give accurate, context-aware answers. Even if football isn’t your thing, it’s a practical talk of how to expose real data to LLMs and build useful agents without heavy infrastructure. The agent is at fpl.withrobots.ai and the source-code for the agent template so you can build your own is at https://github.com/geirfreysson/smolagents-template

2. No More Boilerplate: Data-Driven Testing Made Easy - Antonio Feregrino

Learn how to streamline that process using PyTest fixtures. We’ll look at a fixture-based approach to reading test data across multiple formats (JSON, CSV, YAML, JSONL, plain text), and how it can make your tests cleaner, more maintainable, and easier to scale. I’ll also introduce a decorator that lets you parametrise tests directly from data files, enabling true data-driven testing without the clutter.

⚡ Lightning Talks

1. Mise and easy: managing environments the fun way - Connor Adams
2. USearch: The Engine Behind Most New Search & RAG Pipelines - Ash Vardanian

Logistics Doors open at 6.30 pm (get there early as you'll need to sign in with building security). Talks start at 7:00 pm, with drinks afterwards from 9:00 pm at The Banker (EC4).

We have reduced capacity for this event, but there will be plenty of people to discuss data science questions with!

Please unRSVP in good time if you realise you can't make it. We're limited by building security on the number of attendees, so please free up your place for your fellow community members!

We have another special event in the summer. We're joining forces, again, with our friend from C++ London to put on a crossover event. We'll have talks on C++ and Rust, with an eye to what each community can learn from the other.

Pizzas are provided by Realm

As usual, we'll kick off at 19:00 and run to about 21:00.

18:30 Doors open

19:00 "Intro and news" - Phil Nash & Ernest Kissiedu

19:10 "Async C++/Rust Interoperability" - Aida Getoeva Bringing asynchronous C++ code to the safe grounds of Rust can be scary. Segmentation faults and memory leaks can make their way across the bridge and hide under the safe wrapper-covers. So let us delve into the inner workings of asynchronous interaction and ensure safe C++/Rust interoperability using the CXX library.

19:55 break

20:15 "Writing "Less Slow" C++" - Ash Vardanian This talk focuses on identifying and addressing common inefficiencies in C++ code, with practical examples from the less_slow—cpp microbenchmarks. Learn which STL components to replace first for better performance and which design patterns—like dynamic polymorphism or specific uses of C++20 coroutines—are best avoided.

21:00 Finish, then reconvene somewhere nearby to continue...

--- About the speakers: Ash is the founder of Unum, an advanced computing company developing primarily open-source infrastructure that is used by many modern database companies, as well as frontier AI labs and governments around the globe. With a background in Astrophysics, his current work focuses on the intersection of Theoretical Computer Science, High-Performance Computing, and AI Systems Design, with a special interest in large-scale Open Science projects.

Aida, formerly at Meta, started with a purely C/C++ background, but was fortunate enough to be part of the team that built the first large Rust project at Meta and a state-of-the-art source control server. She has encountered "impossible" runtime issues and debugged segfaults caused by implementing async C++/Rust FFI, and even written old-school futures. Despite all this, she still loves Rust! When not coding, Aida likes to relieve stress by practising longsword fencing and hiking.

Details

Join us in London for an exclusive networking meetup on January 22nd. Meet Lightning AI, the creators of PyTorch Lightning, and connect with the AI community. Enjoy an evening of exciting talks, great conversations, and meaningful connections with industry leaders and developers from the AI and machine learning community.

Why Attend?

• ​Hear from industry experts sharing real-world applications of AI.
• ​Network with ML engineers, researchers, developers, and industry leaders.
• ​Enjoy great food, drinks, and meaningful discussions.

Speakers

We’re thrilled to host two great speakers: 1. Evgeniia Grigoreva

• Topic: Deep Learning Models in Financial Time Series Prediction
• Evgeniia will discuss the deep learning models she developed during Jane Street’s financial time series prediction competition on Kaggle.
• LinkedIn Profile

2. Ash Vardanian * Topic: Matrix Multiplication Assembly Instructions: Performance and Applicability Across Intel, AMD, Apple, and Nvidia Architectures * Ash will explore matrix multiplication at the assembly level, comparing performance across CPU, GPU, and APU chips from Intel, AMD, Apple, and Nvidia. He’ll discuss real-world applications and insights into maximizing efficiency on different architectures. * LinkedIn Profile

⏰ Schedule

• ​6:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Registration
• ​7:00 PM - 7:45 PM: Opening Remarks and Key Presentation
• ​7:45 PM - 9:00 PM: Networking with Food & Drinks

📍 Location 9 Appold Street, London EC2A 2AP, UK (Please check in with security upon arrival.) ​ 👥 Who Should Attend? This event is perfect for AI practitioners, ML engineers, data scientists, developers, and team leaders looking to deepen their knowledge and connect with like-minded professionals. ​

​ If you have any questions, please reach out to our Senior Events Manager, Surya Moreira, at [email protected]. ​ ​We look forward to seeing you there! ⚡️

Due to an ongoing maintenance issue in our regular venue, we are moving just two stops south to Borough. Please double-check the location in the event details before you travel!

Wednesday 15th January we're back with our 20th OpenUK London community meetup! We've had the hype, now let's get real with how AI is working for us, of course the open source kind! (Open AI in the title is not to be confused with OpenAI because that is not open.)

6:30 pm: Arrive on time, grab a bev, a slice and a chat. Scope out our swag table (bring pieces to contribute or trade!) Add to our whiteboarding brainstorm

6:45 pm: Welcome, reminder of code of conduct, and discussion of whiteboard 7:00 pm: State of AI Openness 2024 explained with Amanda Brock, OpenUK CEO 7:20pm: Speech to Speech translation with a cascade of open source models, presented by AI developer Nikita Krasnytskyi 7:40 pm: Unum Cloud, advanced AI computing company for scaling intelligence, presented by founder Ash Vardanian 8:00 pm: Zeval: Open Source Testing Library for LLMs, presented by Matt Carey 8:45 pm: Clean up and leave. Bring tupperware so we don't waste pizza! We will give one ticket away to someone online and to someone in person to this year's State of Open Con!

Thank you to our sponsors Avanade for providing this great space and yummy pizza!

The link for the online version of this event will be added about a week before, so please check back.

By attending this or any OpenUK event, you are adhering to our Code of Respect and OpenUK's Competition Policy. Please read ahead.

If you would like to hear more about OpenUK's other events, you can join our Newsletter. After attending, look out for an email with an invite to our burgeoning Slack community as a way to keep in touch and support each other between activities.

Mark your calendars for Wednesday 6th November for our 3rd OpenUK Apprentice meetup hosted by Thomas Meadows and Nelson Batsford.

SAVE THE DATE!

6:00 pm: Arrive, grab a bev, a slice and a chat. Scope out our swag table (bring pieces to contribute or trade!) 7:00 pm: Meet Ash Vardanian from Unum 8:30 pm: Cleanup and see-ya-next-time.

Please remember to bring your I.D. if you are attending in person, as it is required to access the venue. Note the venue does not permit e-scooters or bicycles within the building.

Thank you to our sponsors Red Badger for providing this great space and yummy pizza!

By attending this or any OpenUK event, you are adhering to our Code of Respect and OpenUK's Competition Policy. Please read ahead.

If you would like to hear more about OpenUK's other events, you can join our Newsletter. After attending, look out for an email with an invite to our burgeoning Slack community as a way to keep in touch and support each other between activities.

At Databricks, we see organizations looking to leverage the power of AI, not only to deliver intelligent solutions, but to also have intelligent user interfaces. Join us as we delve into how lakehouse architecture forms the backbone of intelligent data platforms, integrating AI to enhance user interaction and self-management. Discover how this evolution is democratizing data and AI access for all data workers in modern organizations, paving the way for the next generation of data and AI enabled solutions.

When December 7, 2023 – 10:00 AM Pacific

Register for the Zoom: https://voxel51.com/computer-vision-events/december-2023-ai-machine-learning-data-science-meetup/

Agenda

* Building Yourself a Private Search System with Retrieval Augmentation with Haystack – Tuana Çelik at deepset * Rise of the Intelligent Data Platform – Franco Patano at Databricks * Scaling Similarity Search with USearch - Ash Vardanian at Unum Cloud

Building Yourself a Private Search System with Retrieval Augmentation with Haystack

In this talk we will have a look at Haystack, an open source LLM framework, and how we can use it to create custom, private search systems on our own data. We will look at how we can build retrieval augmented generative pipelines for our Notion pages, and how Haystack can help you create custom tooling for larger NLP applications.

Speaker: Tuana Çelik is a Lead Developer Advocate at deepset.ai, where she focuses on the open-source NLP community. With a background in engineering, her main focus is to help the Haystack developer community.

Rise of the Intelligent Data Platform

At Databricks, we see organizations looking to leverage the power of AI, not only to deliver intelligent solutions, but to also have intelligent user interfaces. Join us as we delve into how lakehouse architecture forms the backbone of intelligent data platforms, integrating AI to enhance user interaction and self-management. Discover how this evolution is democratizing data and AI access for all data workers in modern organizations, paving the way for the next generation of data and AI enabled solutions.

Speaker: Franco Patano is a Strategic Data and AI Advisor at Databricks, where he collaborates with customers to understand their business needs, challenges, and goals, and help them leverage the power of Databricks to deliver data products that drive value, innovation, and growth.

Scaling Similarity Search with USearch

Vector and similarity search is increasingly critical in 2023, but most libraries struggle to fully utilize modern hardware due to issues rooted in their code architecture. Many rely on object-oriented programming, which reduces memory-efficiency and data-locality. Additionally, dependence on compilers for low-level optimizations fails to properly emit key AVX-512 and SVE Assembly instructions for x86 and Arm. My talk will dissect these and other pitfalls, and demonstrate how USearch innovates in areas like architecture and SIMD utilization to overcome them.

Speaker: Ash Vardanian, Founder of Unum Cloud. With background across astrophysics, high performance computing, and systems design, Ash focuses on bridging theory and real-world AI applications.

When December 7, 2023 – 10:00 AM Pacific

Register for the Zoom: https://voxel51.com/computer-vision-events/december-2023-ai-machine-learning-data-science-meetup/

Agenda

* Building Yourself a Private Search System with Retrieval Augmentation with Haystack – Tuana Çelik at deepset * Rise of the Intelligent Data Platform – Franco Patano at Databricks * Scaling Similarity Search with USearch - Ash Vardanian at Unum Cloud

Building Yourself a Private Search System with Retrieval Augmentation with Haystack

In this talk we will have a look at Haystack, an open source LLM framework, and how we can use it to create custom, private search systems on our own data. We will look at how we can build retrieval augmented generative pipelines for our Notion pages, and how Haystack can help you create custom tooling for larger NLP applications.

Speaker: Tuana Çelik is a Lead Developer Advocate at deepset.ai, where she focuses on the open-source NLP community. With a background in engineering, her main focus is to help the Haystack developer community.

Rise of the Intelligent Data Platform

At Databricks, we see organizations looking to leverage the power of AI, not only to deliver intelligent solutions, but to also have intelligent user interfaces. Join us as we delve into how lakehouse architecture forms the backbone of intelligent data platforms, integrating AI to enhance user interaction and self-management. Discover how this evolution is democratizing data and AI access for all data workers in modern organizations, paving the way for the next generation of data and AI enabled solutions.

Speaker: Franco Patano is a Strategic Data and AI Advisor at Databricks, where he collaborates with customers to understand their business needs, challenges, and goals, and help them leverage the power of Databricks to deliver data products that drive value, innovation, and growth.

Scaling Similarity Search with USearch

Vector and similarity search is increasingly critical in 2023, but most libraries struggle to fully utilize modern hardware due to issues rooted in their code architecture. Many rely on object-oriented programming, which reduces memory-efficiency and data-locality. Additionally, dependence on compilers for low-level optimizations fails to properly emit key AVX-512 and SVE Assembly instructions for x86 and Arm. My talk will dissect these and other pitfalls, and demonstrate how USearch innovates in areas like architecture and SIMD utilization to overcome them.

Speaker: Ash Vardanian, Founder of Unum Cloud. With background across astrophysics, high performance computing, and systems design, Ash focuses on bridging theory and real-world AI applications.