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Welcome to the PyData Berlin May meetup!

We would like to welcome you all starting from 18:45. There will be food and drinks. The talks begin around 19.30 and the doors will close at 19:30. Make sure to arrive on time!

Please provide your first and last name for the registration because this is required for the venue's entry policy. If you cannot attend, please cancel your spot so others are able to join as the space is limited.

Host: Ecosia is excited to welcome you to this month's version of PyData.

Entrance is in Hof 4 - there will be signs - then up to the 3rd floor of the building.

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The Lineup for the evening

Talk 1: Specializing Small Language Models With Less Data Abstract: I will present a practical, end-to-end solution for training SLMs using synthetic data, covering key aspects from data curation through training to model evaluation. You will leave with concrete strategies for building efficient, domain-specific language models for production environments. Most AI teams are exploring the possibilities of LLMs rather than being focused on margins, but soon, efficiency will become important. Small, specialized language models (SLMs) offer a promising alternative, but training them requires extensive manually-labeled datasets - a significant engineering bottleneck. In this talk, I will discuss how large language models can be used to help generate and curate the data needed for SLM training. Using extractive question answering as a case study, We'll examine how this approach can dramatically reduce data collection time while maintaining model performance.

Speaker: Jacek Golebiowski Bio: Jacek is the CTO of distil labs, building specialised AI agents that can be deployed on-device/on-prem with minimal data. Before that, he was a machine learning team lead at AWS, focused on Automated ML and natural language processing. He holds a PhD in Machine Learning for Quantum Mechanics from Imperial College London.

--- Talk 2: Exploring fairlearn and practical strategies for assessing and mitigating harm in AI systems Abstract: As AI becomes a more significant part of our everyday lives, ensuring these systems are fair is more important than ever. In this session, we’ll discuss how to define fairness and the potential harms our algorithms can have on people and society. We'll introduce fairlearn, a community-driven, open-source project that offers practical tools for assessing and mitigating harm in AI systems. We’ll also explore how to discuss bias, different types of harm, the idea of group fairness and how they all relate to fairlearn's toolkit. To make it all concrete, we’ll walk through a real-world example of assessing fairness and share some hands-on strategies you can use to mitigate harm in your own ML projects.

Speaker: Tamara Atanasoska Bio: Tamara is a software engineer, OSS contributor and maintainer and NLP researcher.

--- Lightning talks There will be slots for 2-3 Lightning Talks (3-5 Minutes for each). Kindly let us know if you would like to present something at the start of the meetup :)

*** NumFOCUS Code of Conduct

THE SHORT VERSION Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down others. Behave professionally. Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for NumFOCUS. All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. NumFOCUS is dedicated to providing a harassment-free community for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of community members in any form. Thank you for helping make this a welcoming, friendly community for all.

If you haven't yet, please read the detailed version here: https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct ***

** Important**: Due to building security and capacity, It's REQUIRED to register on the event website for admission. )

Welcome to the GenAI and LLMs meetup in Berlin, in collaboration with Thoughtworks. Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and machine learning, networking with speakers and fellow developers.

Agenda: * 6:00pm\~7:00pm: Checkin and networking * 7:00pm\~9:00pm: Tech talks and Q&A * 9:00pm: Open discussion and Mixer

Tech Talk: Specializing Small Language Models With Less Data Speaker: Jacek Golebiowski (Distil Labs) Abstract: The latency of LLMs is a crucial factor when building multi-agent systems. Implementing small, specialized language models is an option, but it is not often leveraged because it requires gathering high volumes of human-labeled training data. To alleviate this problem, I will discuss how large language models can generate synthetic data to help tune small models on domain-specific tasks.

Tech Talk: Evaluation principles for NLP engines Speaker: Oren Matar Abstract: As NLP models become increasingly prevalent in modern applications, the industry faces a critical challenge: how can we effectively evaluate the limitations of black-box NLP systems? This session introduces a model-agnostic evaluation paradigm that automatically generates test datasets enriched with labeled linguistic challenges for each example. These labels enable precise analysis of failure cases, uncovering critical flaws and actionable insights. We will also present the development of a performance dashboard that visualizes engine capabilities, fostering better collaboration between data science and product teams.

Speakers/Topics: Stay tuned as we are updating speakers and schedules. If you have a keen interest in speaking to our community, we invite you to submit topics for consideration: Submit Topics

Sponsors: We are actively seeking sponsors to support AI developers community. Whether it is by offering venue spaces, providing food, or cash sponsorship. Sponsors will not only speak at the meetups, receive prominent recognition, but also gain exposure to our extensive membership base of 10,000+ AI developers in Berlin or 450K+ worldwide.

Local and Global AI Community on Discord Join us on discord for local and global AI tech community:

• Events chat: chat and connect with speakers and global and local attendees;
• Learning AI: events, learning materials, study groups;
• Startups: innovation, projects collaborations, founders/co-founders;
• Jobs and Careers: job openings, post resumes, hiring managers *

This Meetup is presented by our friends from AI Camp Berlin. For more information and to help us keep track, please register via the event page of AICamp with this Link ----------------------------- Welcome to the AI meetup in Berlin! Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and machine learning, food/drink, networking with speakers and fellow developers.

Agenda: * 6:00pm\~7:00pm: Checkin, Food/drink and Networking * 7:00pm\~9:00pm: Tech talks and Q&A * 9:00pm: Open discussion and Mixer

Tech Talk: Specializing Small Language Models With Less Data Speaker: Jacek Golebiowski (Distil Labs) Abstract: The latency of LLMs is a crucial factor when building multi-agent systems. Implementing small, specialized language models is an option, but it is not often leveraged because it requires gathering high volumes of human-labeled training data. To alleviate this problem, I will discuss how large language models can generate synthetic data to help tune small models on domain-specific tasks.

Tech Talk: Evaluation principles for NLP engines Speaker: Oren Matar Abstract: As NLP models become increasingly prevalent in modern applications, the industry faces a critical challenge: how can we effectively evaluate the limitations of black-box NLP systems? This session introduces a model-agnostic evaluation paradigm that automatically generates test datasets enriched with labeled linguistic challenges for each example. These labels enable precise analysis of failure cases, uncovering critical flaws and actionable insights. We will also present the development of a performance dashboard that visualizes engine capabilities, fostering better collaboration between data science and product teams.

PLEASE REGISTER ON THE EVENT PAGE of AI CAMP with this Link ------ Code of Conduct We adhere to the Berlin Code of Conduct to ensure a welcoming and respectful environment for all participants. The event space operates under largely compatible Thoughtworks Meetups & Events CoC.

Accessibility The Location is accessible for wheelchair users. This includes the entrance (no steps to get into the location), toilets and the stage.

We kick off 2025 with a great panel about AI and running AI in production! Join us for an expert panel, we will talk about AI, LLMs, MLOps and continuous experimentation.

Agenda: • 18:00 - Opening doors of the venue • 18:30 - Welcome to PyBerlin! // Organisers • 18:40 - Welcome from the host - Aleph Alpha

Moderator: Christian Barra

Panelists: Ceyhun Derinbogaz, Jacek Golebiowski, Matheus Veleci

Christian is a software engineer and co-founder of zerobang.dev.

Ceyhun is an engineer and a serial entrepreneur with background in data engineering. He started textcortex after reading GPT-2 paper and creating an open source fine tuning script for specific applications while working at trivago as data engineering lead. His previous startup developed machine vision applications for companies like Renault and Nokia. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ceyhunderinbogaz/

Jacek a physics PhD focusing on machine learning for most of his career. He has been a science lead in the AWS Long Term Science team, driving NLP and Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) products and research. Most recently, he is the the CTO and co-founder of distil-labs, making fine-tuning task-specific small language models (SLM) as simple as writing an LLM prompt. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacek-golebiowski/

Matheus Veleci is an engineer with experience in generative AI, NLP, and data solutions. At Lengoo, he led the development of a product centered on Machine Translation Models and LLMs, building an in-house data platform and MLOps infrastructure focused on fine-tuning models. Earlier in his career, he co-founded a startup, blending technical expertise with business insights to deliver innovative solutions. He now leads data initiatives as Head of Data at Aleph Alpha. https://www.linkedin.com/in/matheus-veleci-dos-santos/

• 21:20 - Closing session // Organisers

This event will be only in-person. Please check our Code of Conduct and official health regulation in Berlin before coming. If you feel some signs of sickness, please consider skipping this event and attending another time. We will have plenty of events in different formats in the future. Looking forward seeing you all soon!