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Register: https://luma.com/p7w9uqtz?tk=XlH6v1

Vector Space Day is bringing together engineers, researchers, and AI builders to explore the cutting edge of retrieval, vector search infrastructure, and agentic AI.

We’re excited that Martin O'Hanlon from Neo4j will be speaking!

His session, Hands On with GraphRAG, is a practical exploration of how graphs strengthen RAG. Attendees will learn how to: -Build a Knowledge Graph from unstructured data -Use GraphRAG to provide grounding and context for generative AI -Improve vector retrieval with graph structures -Integrate GraphRAG tools into a LangChain agent

Join us in Berlin for a hands-on look at how Knowledge Graphs + RAG create more reliable and context-aware AI applications:

Welcome to the PyData Berlin March 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!

*** Important!! *** Please keep in mind that there is a BVG strike on this day, affecting U-Bahn, trams, and buses. S-Bahn and regional trains will work.

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: Bonial is excited to welcome you to this month's version of PyData. ************************************************************************** The Lineup for the evening

Talk 1: Extract structured product & deal information from PDFs on scale via LLM Abstract: Bonial shows hundreds of thousands of offers from local brick-and-mortar retailers on its platform, a subset of this content is retrieved from PDF files. In this talk I’ll explain how we leverage LLM to parse unstructured PDF files to create content on our platform.

Speaker: Philipp Johannis has been part of Bonial for 12 years. He established and leads the Data Department, which consists of multiple Analytics, Engineering & Data Science teams, and is currently serving as Head of Data. He focuses on improving the data platform and enabling and supporting the development of various data driven products such as personalisation and traffic management.

Talk 2: Airweave, an Open-Source Tool To Turn Any App Into Accessible Agent Knowledge Abstract: The talk will be an introduction to Airweave, which is an open-source Python tool that helps agent developers turn app data into accessible knowledge for AI agents. It connects to any app, database, URL, or API and structures the data for retrieval. Airweave automates authentication, ingestion, enrichment, mapping, and syncing to vector stores and graph databases of choice. It has a search layer for agents out-of-the-box and allows extension of the platform with minimal code. Developers can use Airweave via our web UI, REST API, or SDKs.

Speakers: Lennert Jansen and Rauf Akdemir are the creators of Airweave AI. Lennert is an AI Engineer & Researcher with a background in Applied Statistics and Deep Learning for NLP. Before Airweave, he worked on AI & Bayesian Statistics at Amazon, IBM, and the University of Amsterdam. Rauf is a CS graduate from Technical University of Delft, with strong engineering experience in productionising ML & data infrastructure in both start-ups and enterprise.

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 ***

External registration required at nyhackr.org.

Note the 7 PM start time.

This month's meetup is about interactive maps in Python with a JavaScript foundation, brought to us by Kyle Barron.

Thank you to NYU for hosting us.

Everybody attending must RSVP through the registration form at nyhackr.org. There is a charge for in-person and virtual tickets are free. Space is extremely limited and in-person registration closes at 3 PM the day of the talk.

About the Talk: Lonboard is a new Python library for geospatial vector data visualization that can be 50x faster than existing alternatives like ipyleaflet or pydeck. Under the hood are separate APIs for fast geospatial visualization from JavaScript. This talk will explain why this library is so fast, how it integrates into existing workflows, and planned future improvements.

About Kyle: Kyle is a software engineer at Development Seed where he builds open source tools and infrastructure that process and visualize geospatial data. He has expertise in cloud-native geospatial vector data formats, speeding up Python and JavaScript applications from Rust, spatial indexes, and efficient data pipelines. Kyle holds a B.A. in Economics, minoring in Mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles which he earned in 2017.

Kyle previously worked as a software engineer at Unfolded and then Foursquare, building browser-based geospatial data visualizations on the web for vector and raster data.

The venue doors open at 6:30 PM America/New_York where we will continue enjoying pizza together (we encourage the virtual audience to have pizza as well). The talk, and livestream, begins at 7:00 PM America/New_York.

Remember, register at nyhackr.org.

The next meetup features 2 GenAI talks: (1) fine-tuning image generation models like Stable Diffusion, (2) the transformative impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) on customer service.

Agenda: 18:00 - 18:30: Doors open 18:30 - 18:40: Welcome 18:40 - 19:10: Fine-Tune Your Own Stable Diffusion Model - Tips and Tricks Included 19:10 - 19:40: Pizza & Beers 19:40 - 20:10: AI Tools in Action: Enhancing Customer Experience with LLMs at Polestar 20:10 - 21:00: Networking

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Fine-Tune Your Own Stable Diffusion Model - Tips and Tricks Included Daniel Pleus - Data Scientist, Schibsted

Recently, models and tools like Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and Dalle-3 have made significant strides in generating high-quality, hyper-realistic images. The innovation doesn't stop with their out-of-the-box capabilities, though. Recent advancements have enabled the fine-tuning of these models on commodity hardware, unlocking new potential for personalized image generation.

In this talk, we'll embark on the practical journey of fine-tuning the Stable Diffusion model with an unexpected protagonist: Otto, Schibsted's plush octopus mascot. Using Stable Diffusion, we send him to faraway countries, place him in historical settings, or change his appearance. You'll discover how Stable Diffusion operates, learn how to fine-tune it with techniques like textual inversion and LoRA, and receive many tips about the optimal settings. We will deep dive into prompts, guidance factors, denoising steps, and random seeds. By the end of this talk, you should feel comfortable conducting your own experiments.

Speakers Bio: Daniel Pleus is a key member of Schibsted's AI Enablement Program as a Data Scientist Lead, where he assists over 60 Schibsted brands in discovering AI use cases and developing prototypes. His recent focus has been on Generative AI, including fine-tuning and deploying models. Before joining Schibsted, Daniel worked in various data and analytics roles and has an academic background in Economics.

Title: AI Tools in Action: Enhancing Customer Experience with LLMs at Polestar Olga Larina - AI & Data Scientist @ Polestar Customer Experience Department

Join me for a presentation where I'll delve into the innovative toolkit that our team has employed to revolutionize customer service. This year, we’ve rolled out our first solution based on a Large Language Model (LLM), and let me tell you—it’s changing the game.

Starting with summarization and information extraction in February 2023, we’ve now set our sights on enhancing our Care Advisors' capabilities with AI that generates responses to customer cases with the precision and expertise of a seasoned professional. Our advisors were excited about our prototype reveal last year. It was clear they were all in, finding the AI support not just cool but also a true timesaver.

In my talk, I will reveal how tools like Langchain’s sophisticated models and chains, and LlamaIndex’s robust vector stores, empower LLMs to excel. Consider this a brief but insightful tour into the technology that’s making our customer service smarter, faster, and way more fun.

I am thrilled to guide you through the varied applications of AI tools that are proving to be incredibly relevant in today's tech landscape. The journey is just beginning, and the pace of development is nothing short of breathtaking. Every day brings new surprises and possibilities. Come and join my talk!

Speakers Bio: At CX, our mission is to mine diverse data types to enhance customer experience, inform business strategy, and streamline operations. Our objectives span traditional data science, including tabular data analysis and natural language processing (NLP). This year, we're delving into the transformative realm of large language models, exploring their vast potential. Previously, I contributed as a Data Scientist at Nexer working on different types of projects including NLP, and CV (Computer Vision), and I have a background in software development, where I engaged in automation testing, analysis, and product ownership. My academic journey began with mathematics at a university in Russia. –

About the event

Date: March 19th, 18:00 - 20:30 Location: Shibsted’s Social Kitchen (Kungsbrohuset, Kungsbron 13, 111 22 Stockholm) Directions: Right next to the central station. Tickets: Sign up required. Anyone who is not on the list will not get in. The event is free of charge. Capacity: Space is limited to 100 participants. If you are signed up but unable to attend, please change your RSVP by February 21st. Food and drinks: Food and drinks will be provided. Questions: Please contact the meetup organizers.

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Code of Conduct The NumFOCUS Code of Conduct applies to this event; please familiarize yourself with it before attending. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the Code of Conduct, please contact the organizers.

This is a joint event with our event partners from Neo4j. For more information check out their homepage here. ------

ABOUT THE TALKS

Winter is Coming... or is it? How to avoid the next AI winter by Emily Gorcenski

The history of AI is full of boom and bust cycles, the most famous of them being the long AI winter that started in the 1970s following several high-profile failures to deliver. This talk will be a look at historical events in AI development, ranging from the DARPA Speech Understanding Research project to the Lighthill Report and the failure of Japan's 5th Generation Computer System. We'll explore what drives AI hype and how mismanaged expectations lead to systemic failures in project management, product management, and technical delivery. But we'll also look at what does work, and how we can avoid stepping on the same traps that have caught previous generations of AI research: by identifying clear product value, by developing continuous delivery for AI, and by tuning out the noise

Superpower your LLM-RAG Applications with a Knowledge Graph Platform like Neo4j by Michael Hunger

As you might experienced yourself, LLMs like ChatGPT are powerful but not always trustworthy assistants. Being stochastic models that don't have access to the relevant data they can fabricate answers that are not grounded in truth. With a combination of a knowledge graph that can store real world information at high fidelity and vector search, you can provide the LLM with the correct, relevant context information it needs to answer your users questions. This is a combination of implementations of a pattern known as retrieval augmented generation (RAG) but with a twist.

In this talk we'll explain and demonstrate the building blocks of such an approach and show an example in code and in live action. Of course nothing is perfect, that's why it's important to walk through challenges with building such GenAI apps and how to address them. And if there is interest, we can dive into some more advanced patterns. Learn more at https://neo4j.com/generativea

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Emily Gorcenski I am a Principal Data Scientist and Head of Data for Thoughtworks Germany. I have a background in research engineering and computational and applied mathematics. I work as a data and software engineer, developing and architecting data driven applications. I am a strong advocate for data journalism and have contributed research, materials, and expertise to multiple award-winning projects.

Michael Hunger has been passionate about software development for more than 35 years. For the last 14 years, he has been working on the open source Neo4j graph database filling many roles, most recently leading Product Innovation and Developer Strategy. He especially loves to work with graph-related projects, users, and contributors, his current focus is generative AI, cloud integrations and developer experience. As a developer Michael enjoys many aspects of programming languages, learning new things every day, participating in exciting and ambitious open source projects and contributing and writing software related books and articles. Michael spoke at numerous conferences and helped organize several of them. His efforts got him accepted to the JavaChampions program. Michael helps kids to learn to program by running weekly girls-only coding classes at local schools. ------

ON THE AGENDA

18:30 Welcome & Snacks 19:00 Stage Time & Q&A 20:15 Networking 21:30 See you next time!

------ 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.