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AGENDA 18.00 – 18:20 Meet & Greet

Sponsored and Hosted by iO Associates (Tech & Digital recruitment specialists), we bring you an evening of Data and AI.

18:20 - 19:10 Unlocking the Potential of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with Advanced Patterns by Tori Tompkins

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is revolutionizing the capabilities of Generative AI by addressing critical limitations such as knowledge cut-offs, hallucinations, and lack of domain specificity. By integrating external knowledge sources with LLMs, RAG ensures outputs are more accurate, dynamic, and contextually relevant than ever before.

In this session, we’ll begin with why RAG is essential for building scalable, trustworthy AI systems and before diving into advanced patterns like Modular RAG for adaptable designs, Graph RAG for structured data handling, and Voice RAG for audio-driven retrieval. Additionally, we’ll explore Corrective RAG, Branched RAG, and RAG-Fusion to tackle complex, multi-modal challenges. Whether you’re new to RAG or looking to refine your approach, this session will equip you with the tools and strategies to harness the full power of RAG workflows.

19:10 - 19:40 Pizza, Drinks and Networking - thanks iO!

19:40 - 20:30 Turning RAG into something production worthy by Chris Durow

In this session, we will explore how to seamlessly integrate Azure OpenAI, AI Search, and Cosmos DB into a single, efficient Azure Function. Azure OpenAI provides cutting-edge language models that can be utilized for a wide range of AI-driven tasks. AI Search enhances search capabilities with AI-powered indexing and querying. Cosmos DB offers a globally distributed, highly scalable database service. By wrapping these powerful Azure services into an Azure Function, we can create a robust, serverless solution that leverages the strengths of each component.

Attendees will gain insights into the architectural design and implementation strategies necessary for integrating these services. We will delve into practical examples and use cases, showcasing how to build and deploy an Azure Function that harnesses the combined power of Azure OpenAI, AI Search, and Cosmos DB. This session aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how to create scalable, efficient, and intelligent applications using Azure's advanced cloud services.

20:30 on - networking/pub

-------------- About iO Associates - https://www.ioassociates.co.uk/ As Tech & Digital recruitment specialists, it has always been a key part of the ethos at iO Associates to give back to the communities in which we serve. iO Associates are therefore keen supporters and organisers of meetup groups right across the UK, providing opportunities for knowledge sharing and building connections. ---- 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.

Details

Welcome to the Databricks Scotland Meetup in Glasgow! Whether you're a seasoned Databricks user, just dipping your toes, or simply intrigued about what the platform can offer, this meetup promises to deliver insights, best practices, and opportunities for networking with like-minded individuals. We hope to see you there!

Come join us for the Scotland Databricks meetup at BJSS, Sept 12th at 5.30pm for an evening of Databricks!

17:30 - 18:00 Welcome & Networking 18:00 - 19:00 Tori Tompkins - Evaluating LLMs in Databricks with RAGAS and MLFlow 19:00 - 19:30 Networking, Food and Drinks

Tori Tompkins - Evaluating LLMs in Databricks with RAGAS and MLFlow

Evaluating LLMs is essential for ensuring they perform accurately and align with safety standards. This talk explores two frameworks for LLM Evaluation: RAGAS and MLFlow. We’ll explore practical applications of these frameworks, including a live demo that walks through setting up an evaluation pipeline, monitoring results, and refining metrics.

About Us If you need to contact us for any reason you can email us at: [email protected] We are sponsored by:

• Databricks
• Advancing Analytics
• BJSS

This is a place for online attendees. Check out the other one for an in-person meeting in Chilworth.

Link to the Teams Meeting: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZTMzMGFlNDAtY2RiNi00OTk0LWI4NGUtM2Y3ZTkzMzdlMjZk%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22ecbebdab-1287-47b8-8709-694ffe8697d1%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22a901008d-8ba1-459d-b8fa-3eccacfccadf%22%7d

Agenda

18:00: Welcome and Intros

Tori Tompkins - Beginner's Guide to Large Language Models (LLMs) pizza/networking

Raffle

Tori Tompkins - Beginner's Guide to Large Language Models (LLMs) You've probably noticed a big change in the data world lately — everybody's buzzing about Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs). This session will explore everything you need to know about LLMs and Generative AI. Starting with the basics, we will cover how they actually work and how far they have come. Delving deeper, we'll discuss the capabilities and limitations of LLMs, providing insight into what they can and cannot achieve as well as address the ethical considerations and potential risks associated with their usage. We will end with use cases, a demo and what it takes to actually productise a LLM workflow.

Tori Tompkins Senior Data Science Consultant at Advancing Analytics Tori is a Senior Data Science Consultant at Advancing Analytics who has worked on a variety of machine learning and data science projects but mostly with Azure technologies, Databricks, MLFlow, Scikit-learn, PyTorch and NetworkX. She is a regular presenter of YouTube series Data Science Moments and founder of Girls Code Too UK.

*** A massive thanks to our sponsor Spectrum IT. Without them, we could not host this event for free. Spectrum IT kindly provided funding for the room, pizza and a £20 Amazon Voucher for in-person attendees. ***

This is a place for an in-person meeting in Chilworth. Check out the other one for a virtual meetup on MS Teams.

!!!!! ATTENTION Since September, we've been having meetups at Spectrum IT's office - Gamma House, Enterprise Rd, Chilworth, Southampton SO16 7NS https://maps.app.goo.gl/66tL8HfgFnoiQEh66

Agenda

18:00: Welcome and Intros Tori Tompkins - Beginner's Guide to Large Language Models (LLMs)

pizza/networking Raffle

Tori Tompkins - Beginner's Guide to Large Language Models (LLMs) You've probably noticed a big change in the data world lately — everybody's buzzing about Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs). This session will explore everything you need to know about LLMs and Generative AI. Starting with the basics, we will cover how they actually work and how far they have come. Delving deeper, we'll discuss the capabilities and limitations of LLMs, providing insight into what they can and cannot achieve as well as address the ethical considerations and potential risks associated with their usage. We will end with use cases, a demo and what it takes to actually productise a LLM workflow.

Tori Tompkins Senior Data Science Consultant at Advancing Analytics Tori is a Senior Data Science Consultant at Advancing Analytics who has worked on a variety of machine learning and data science projects but mostly with Azure technologies, Databricks, MLFlow, Scikit-learn, PyTorch and NetworkX. She is a regular presenter of YouTube series Data Science Moments and founder of Girls Code Too UK.

*** A massive thanks to our sponsor Spectrum IT. Without them, we could not host this event for free. Spectrum IT kindly provided funding for the room, pizza and a £20 Amazon Voucher for in-person attendees. ***

Sponsored by Amdaris - https://amdaris.com and Advancing Analytics - https://www.advancinganalytics.co.uk/

Amdaris is your trusted partner for high velocity extended delivery teams.

Advancing Analytics specialises in building cutting-edge Data Platforms for Data Science and Data Engineering.

Location: Amdaris, Finzels Reach, Aurora, Bristol BS1 6BX

AGENDA

18.00 – 18:30 Meet & Greet

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18:30 - 19:15 Introduction to Tuning Spark on Databricks and Fabric by Niall Langley

More and more organisations are building data platforms in the cloud, often utilising Spark with tools like Databricks, and the recently announced Fabric to build data processing pipelines. These distributed computing tools can take a while to learn, and often teams migrating older premises data warehouses to cloud solutions like the lake house concentrate on getting good data over getting the best performance.

However in the cloud, any performance improvements can have a big impact on monthly cost, making it much easier to to justify spending time getting things running faster and more efficiently. This talk aims to help point you at common pain points when working with Spark using Databricks or Fabric, showing you where to look, and what to look for, and what can be done to improve things.

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19:15 - 19:45 Pizza and Networking

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19:45 - 20:30 Want End-to-End MLOps? Look no further than Databricks! by Tori Tompkins

Arguably the largest challenge in ML today is effectively deploying reliable and efficient models into production, with experts quoting that as many as 90% of model created never make it to production. MLOps streamlines the process of taking machine learning models to production, and then maintaining and monitoring them. With new MLOps micro-venders popping up every day, is there a tool that does everything?

In this session, we will consider Databricks as an end-to-end MLOps tool, exploring collaborative workspaces, feature stores, model registries and model serving. We will also touch upon other critical MLOps practices such as model fairness, explainability and monitoring.

Including practical demos of Databricks Feature Store, MLFlow and real-time Model Serving, this session is suitable for Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers of all levels.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tompkinstori/

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20:30 - Pub

-------------- Notes

• Photos: We, and potentially others, take photos of our meetups which are shared (e.g. on our meetup group, print publicity; social media, etc.). Please speak to one of the organisers in advance of the meetup if you need to discuss this
• Bicycle parking: We do not have arrangements with the venue for secure storage. There are public bicycle stands by Spicer and Cole/Premier Inn (to the left of Amdaris). Bicycles are left at your own risk

-------------- About Amdaris

Of course, we’re obsessed with cutting-edge technology but it’s how much we care about people that sets us apart. Whether that’s looking after our clients, our staff or the next generation of tech talent, we know that exceptional software development is only possible with exceptional teamwork.

If you need help extending your team, building your big idea or application support, we offer a better way to do software.