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Alright Bristol, we’re finally here.

We’re buzzing to launch the Databricks Bristol Meetup and get the Bristol Databricks community together. Huge thanks to iO Associates for being our host and cheerleader in Bristol, and to Advancing Analytics and Databricks for backing the group and helping us build something that’s genuinely useful for practitioners.

Expect a relaxed evening of good people, practical Databricks chat, and proper networking (the kind where you actually meet people, not just collect LinkedIn connections you’ll never speak to again). Whether you’re deep in Spark, living your best Lakehouse life, or just Databricks-curious, you’re very welcome.

What to expect

• A friendly, community-first meetup (no sales, no nonsense)
• A quick Databricks “what’s new” segment to kick things off
• A keynote from Databricks
• Drinks, pizza, and plenty of time to chat with other data folks

Agenda 5.30pm – Arrival + networking drinks 6.00pm – Introduction from Simon Whiteley, followed by What’s new in Databricks 6.30pm – Keynote from Holly Smith (Databricks Staff Developer Advocate) 7.00pm – Drinks + pizza + networking

Venue Hosted at iO Associates, Bristol. (St Bartholomew's House, Bristol BS1 2NH) Spaces will be limited, so please RSVP. If you can’t make it, do update your RSVP so someone else can grab your spot.

Who should come?

• Data engineers, analysts, scientists, platform folks, architects
• People building on Databricks (or evaluating it)
• Anyone into modern data + AI and learning from others doing it for real

We’re excited to be back at Big Data LDN this year—huge thanks to the organisers for hosting Databricks London once more!

Join us for an evening of insights, networking, and community with the Databricks Team and Advancing Analytics!

🎤 Agenda:

6:00 PM – 6:10 PM | Kickoff & Warm Welcome

Grab a drink, say hi, and get the lowdown on what’s coming up. We’ll set the scene for an evening of learning and laughs.

6:10 PM – 6:50 PM | The Metadata Marathon: How three projects are racing forward – Holly Smith (Staff Developer Advocate, Databricks)

With the enormous amount of discussion about open storage formats between nerds and even not-nerds, it can be hard to keep track of who’s doing what and how this actually makes any impact on day to day data projects.

Holly will take a closer look at the three big projects in this space; Delta, Hudi and Iceberg. They’re all trying to solve for similar data problems and have tackled the various challenges in different ways. Her talk will start with the very basics of how we got here, what the history is before diving deep into the underlying tech, their roadmaps, and their impacts on the data landscape as a whole.

6:50 PM – 7:10 PM | What’s New in Databricks & Databricks AI – Simon Whiteley & Gavi Regunath

Hot off the press! Simon and Gavi will walk you through the latest and greatest from Databricks, including shiny new AI features and platform updates you’ll want to try ASAP.

7:10 PM onwards | Q&A Panel + Networking

Your chance to ask the experts anything—then stick around for drinks, snacks, and some good old-fashioned data geekery.

Each year at Summit, Women in Data and AI have a half day for in-person discussions on empowering Women in Data and AI Breakfast, and networking with like-minded professionals and trailblazers. For this virtual discussion, hear from Kate Ostbye (Pfizer), Lisa Cohen (Anthropic), Pallavi Koppol and Holly Smith (Databricks) about navigating challenges, celebrating successes, and inspire one another as we champion diversity and innovation in data together. And how to get involved year-round.

Hello everyone! As always a big thank you to all who attended our first Data & AI London meet up of the year in March.. Of course a big thank you to Katia Gil Guzman of OpenAI too for taking the time to join us and kick off the year of meet ups perfectly!

Now its time to keep things rolling and announce our next event for May! For this event we welcome back one of the fan favourites Holly Smith from Databricks who gave an awesome talk last year and Tom Stuart founding engineer of PortiaAI, an open source framework that allows developers to spin up AI agents.

Tom Stuart \| Founding Engineer @ PortiaAI Architecting multi agent systems for reliability 2025 is purportedly the year of Agents, autonomous systems able to accomplish a vast swathe of tasks which were previously unheard of for AI. At the same time, many naysayers are citing difficulties in running agents in production due to reliability concerns. In this talk, we'll look at some of the difficulties in creating these systems, and what the trends are in the industry that address them, as well as our own experience building these systems at Portia AI.

About me Tom is the founding engineer at Portia AI, helping to build a multi-agent SDK with a strong focus on reliability and authentication. Before founding Portia, he served as CTO at a fintech startup and has held a range of roles across the software industry — including working on the Security team at Monzo. His experience spans infrastructure, product, and leadership, all with a deep emphasis on building secure, scalable systems.

Holly Smith \| Staff Developer Advocate @ Databricks The Metadata Marathon: How Three Storage Projects are Racing Forward With the enormous amount of discussion about open storage formats between nerds and even not-nerds, it can be hard to keep track of who’s doing what and how this actually makes any impact on day to day data projects. I want us to take a closer look at the three big projects in this space; Delta, Hudi and Iceberg. They’re all trying to solve for similar data problems and have tackled the various challenges in different ways. This talk with start with the very basics of how we got here, what the history is before diving deep into the underlying tech, their roadmaps and their impacts on the data landscape as a whole.

About me Holly Smith is a multi award winning Data and AI expert who has over a decade of experience working with Data and AI teams in a variety of capacities from individual contributors all the way up to leadership. In her role at Databricks she has worked with many multi national companies as they embark on their journey to the cutting edge of data. She is a renowned public speaker, teacher and minority in tech advocate.

Please aim to arrive at 6pm. The talks will start around 6.30pm (give or take a few mins) and there will be pizza and refreshments as always on arrival :)

Look forward to seeing you all soon!

📢 Leeds Power BI, Data & Analytics User Group – April Event! 🚀

Livestream link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=418vtDael-M

Join us for another incredible evening of learning, networking, and inspiration at the Leeds Power BI, Data & Analytics User Group! This month, we’re bringing you two top-tier speakers, plenty of real-world insights, and, of course, pizza & drinks to keep you fuelled. 🍕🥤

🔹 This Month’s Lineup

🎤 Holly Smith – "How Databricks Does Analytics, Data Warehousing, and a Whole Lot More!"

• Ever wondered how Databricks handles analytics? Holly, a London-based expert, will walk us through how Databricks is revolutionising analytics and data warehousing.

🎤 Sean Best – "Best Power BI Report Ever!"

• Sean, a local Leeds-based Consultant, will showcase what he believes is the best Power BI report ever—packed with design tips, usability tricks, and real-world impact!

🔥 Thursday 17th April \| 5:30 PM Onwards 📍 Gravitas Recruitment Group, Park Row, Leeds 🎥 Live-streamed on YouTube for remote attendees!

🔹 Who Should Attend?

🚀 Power BI users of all levels, from beginners to pros. 📊 Data professionals working with analytics, visualization, and data engineering. 🤝 Anyone who loves learning, sharing, and networking with like-minded people!

🔹 How to Find Us?

📍 Gravitas Recruitment Group, Park Row, Leeds – A fantastic central venue!

🛜 If you can’t join in person, catch the event live on YouTube! 💡 Seats are limited, so RSVP now! If you can’t make it, please update your RSVP so others can attend.

Please note this is a free to attend event and no fees are taken for attendance or RSVP. Let’s make this another fantastic event! 🎉 See you there! 🚀

AGENDA 18.00 – 18:20 Meet & Greet

18:20 - 19:10: I read the Databricks website and I still don't know what you do - by Holly Smith

Databricks is a Data Intelligence Platform, and if you don't know what that means this talk is for you. We'll go through common data problems seen in every industry, take a buzzword free look at what Databricks does, what it's truly capable of and how it can benefit you in your day jobs.

BIO

Holly Smith is a multi award winning Data & AI expert who has over a decade of experience working with Data & AI teams in a variety of capacities from individual contributors all the way up to leadership. In her role as Staff Developer Advocate at Databricks she has worked with many multi national companies as they embark on their journey to the cutting edge of data. She is a renowned public speaker, teacher and minority in tech advocate and works with non profits through Datakind UK.

19:10 - 19:40 Pizza and Networking

19:40 - 20:30 Ensuring Code Quality with Unit Testing, Linting, and Automation with Databricks by Alex Cole

• In the fast-paced world of software development, maintaining high code quality is crucial. This session will delve into the essential practices of unit testing, linting, and automation, and how they can transform your development workflow. We’ll cover: • Unit Testing: Understanding the importance of unit tests, how to write effective tests, and best practices for maintaining them. • Linting: How linting tools can help you catch errors early, enforce coding standards, and improve code readability. • Automation: Integrating unit testing and linting into your CI/CD pipeline to ensure continuous quality and reduce manual effort. By the end of this session, you’ll have a solid grasp of how these practices can enhance your code quality, streamline your development process, and ultimately lead to more robust and maintainable software.

BIO

• Alex Cole is a Senior Architect specializing in data projects. A Databricks Solution Architect Champion and a leader in the Databricks Community of Practice at Cognizant, he holds multiple Azure certifications in solutions architecture, data engineering, data science, and AI engineering, along with the Advanced Databricks Data Engineering certification. Alex has made contributions to the Apache Commons project with his Java code and has actively participated in open-source projects, including Databricks Labs and the Open Source Unity Catalog Project. Beyond his professional work, he volunteers as a CIO for a local non-profit organisation. Alex blogs at www.alexcole.net

Hosted and Sponsored by BJSS - www.bjss.com - a leading technology and engineering consultancy for business.

Pizzas and Drinks during the event - thanks BJSS!

-------------- About BJSS - https://www.bjss.com/ BJSS is a leading technology and engineering consultancy for business. Trusted by our clients, we collaborate with some of the world’s leading organisations to deliver complex, innovative technology, engineering, and industry solutions that millions of people use every day. ---- Photos We ask that you do NOT take photos at this meetup. We will invite people to be included in a group photo/s during the event. Speakers will let you know if it's okay to photograph their presentation (excluding other attendees). You may see organisers taking photos during the talks. These will be of speakers, if they have agreed to this, and will not include faces of attendees.

Hello hello everyone! Thanks to all who attended the last meet up on Data & AI - The product Perspective. It was a full house and hope you all enjoyed the slightly different panel discussion style. This time we are back to the norm... 2 fantastic speakers from more of an engineering focus. 25-30 minute talks followed by an open Q&A. Drinks, networking and of course tons of pizza.. Look forward to seeing you all then!

Holly Smith \| Staff Developer Advocate @ Databricks Data Engineers AI Survival Guide I have a hypothesis, that 90% of people doing Gen AI today weren’t doing it two years ago. The landscape is full of people stumbling their way through it, from the AI academics learning that code for papers is not software development ready, all the way to data experts suddenly needing to learn a new skill. In this talk, we'll go through what data engineers need to know to help get those AI projects off the ground. Starting with picking the right projects, execution plans, through to toolsets and skills that will make you shine.

About me Holly Smith is a multi award winning Data and AI expert who has over a decade of experience working with Data and AI teams in a variety of capacities from individual contributors all the way up to leadership. In her role at Databricks she has worked with many multi national companies as they embark on their journey to the cutting edge of data. She is a renowned public speaker, teacher and minority in tech advocate.

Zack Akil \| Senior ML Engineer & Developer Advocate @ Google The "IVO" design pattern for pragmatic GenAI Come learn about the "IVO" design pattern with live demos and cautionary tales. This pragmatic pattern serves as a foundation for building effective tools with generative AI. Whether you're a developer or simply a user, IVO will guide you in crafting the right questions and tasks to get the most out of generative AI.

About me Zack Akil (@ZackAkil) is a senior machine learning engineer & developer advocate at Google specialising in practical AI/ML with a background in full stack application development and data science. He spends most of his time building end-to-end ML applications (often inspired by his many random hobbies) that help to inspire developers on how they can solve problems with ML.

Please aim to arrive at 6pm. The talks will start around 6.30pm (give or take a few mins) and there will be pizza and refreshments as always on arrival :)

Look forward to seeing you all soon!

Welcome to the Inaugural London Databricks Meetup! Join us for an exciting evening of insights, expert sessions, and networking. Event Schedule:

18:00 - 18:15: Arrival & Networking Mingle with fellow data enthusiasts and professionals.

18:15 - 18:30: Opening Remarks & Introductions Get to know your fellow attendees and the organizers.

18:30 - 19:00: Exploring Key Updates on the Databricks Platform Discover the latest advancements in the Databricks technology -- Simon Whiteley

19:00 - 19:30: Photon for dummies -- Holly Smith

19:30 onwards: Pizza, Drinks & Networking Enjoy some delicious pizza and beverages while networking with peers.

Date and Location: Date: 7th December Venue: IDEALondon

Join us for a fantastic evening of learning and networking at the launch of the London Databricks meetup!