Alex Dean
Growth Hacker at Unit8: Helping customers grow through unleashing the power of their data
Zürich, Switzerland
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Alex Dean is a results-driven Data Analytics and AI leader with decades of experience driving data-driven transformations for organizations worldwide. Known for building high-performing data teams and bridging the gap between business and IT, Alex has a proven track record of enabling companies to leverage data and AI for sustainable growth.
With a focus on leadership, strategy, and technology, Alex has successfully scaled data divisions, established AI practices, and achieved triple-digit growth through innovation, passion, and grit. His expertise spans building data platforms, cloud migrations, and AI applications, all underpinned by an MBA and a holistic approach to business challenges.
A regular speaker at industry events, Alex is passionate about sharing his insights on topics like AI, data mesh architectures, and modern data platforms. Fluent in English and German, he holds dual citizenship in the UK and Australia and is currently based in Switzerland.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Duck Tape Devops - A Fabric Journey
In this session we present the ups and downs, challenges and workarounds as well as timely learnings of our biggest Fabric Migration project to date.
Our customer, the Thommen Group was struggling to maintain a legacy BI & DWH solution built on SQL and Cognos. We were already helping them get the most out of Power BI and were engaged to design a cloud migration strategy for their complete BI stack. After spending weeks designing a modern Lakehouse architecture based on Synapse Analytics and Power BI, Microsoft decided to launch Fabric... Of course we saw the immense potential that Fabric would have in this situation and the customer was brave enough to make the switch and allow us to build the new data platform completely on Fabric.
Let me be blunt: The journey was no walk in the park... Fabric was still very much in a preview state when we started in August 2023, but thanks to the flexibility of the customer and some innovative workarounds we managed to get their new data platform up and running in record time.
In this session you will be presented with following real world examples on:
1) How to implement a Meta Data Driven Orchestration in Fabric
2) How to plan for, test and implement capacities
3) How to design a robust Devops process in Fabric
4) Workspace Design Principles (Security, Governance, Devops)
This sesission will be valuable to both the Fabric Architect confronted with making design decisions as well as business stakeholder to understand the complexities and benefits that a fabric project brings with it.
Analytics on Azure - mit dem Cloud Adoption Framework
Das Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) von Microsoft beschäftigt sich mit sehr vielen tief technischen Themen die einem Kunden und/oder Partner helfen sollen eine robuste Cloud Strategie auf die beine zu stellen.
Für viele ist das CAF ein Buch mit sieben Siegeln. Hunderte von Seiten, Ellen lang, Mumbo Jumbo Jargon und am Schluss Strategien die auf den ersten Blick nur für riesige Enterprise Kunden Sinn machen.
Microsoft hat auch einen sehr rigorosen Audit Prozess für Partner, die sich auf Azure Spezialisieren wollen. So rigoros, dass viele Partner davor abschrecken.
In diesem Vortrag zeige ich auf, wie anhand vom Audit Prozess ihr kurzen Prozess vom CAF machen könnt. Wie man einen Fokus setzen kann, der nicht nur hilft einen Audit zu bestehen, sondern auch gleichzeitig eure Prozesse auf Vordermann bringt.
Prozesse, die eben nicht nur Audit relevant sind, sondern euch helfen werden Azure basierte Projekte besser, effizienter, kontrollierter und professioneller umzusetzen.
Fighting Foodwaste with Fabric and AI
As part of the global fabric AI Hackathon we built an end-2-end solution to help combat foodwaste in your kitchen.
The solution allows users to scan products that go into the fridge, send that information to a fabric notebook that then uses AI to estimate the expiry date and store the product in a virtual fridge. A semantic model then forms the basis for a reflex that triggers when food is about to go off and in turn triggers a power automate flow that uses AI to invent tasty recipe ideas with the food that needs to be uses up pronto, plus other ingredients that are in the virtual fridge.
In this presentation we will walk viewers through the architecture involving Power Apps, AI Builder, Power Automate, Azure Open AI, Fabric Lakehouse, Notebooks, Semantic Models and Reflex. We finish off the session with a demo of the fine tuning capabilities of open ai to create your own custom master chef.
Best of all? Attendees will receive a link to a github repo and video tutorial to rebuild the solution in their own time!
Data-driven decisions thanks to Fabric and AI
AI and algorithms have become an important component of any organization intending to become a data-driven enterprise. Thanks to automated pattern recognition in AI, companies can now manage their flood of data and fully exploit it. In this presentation, we will demonstrate how Microsoft Fabric can be used to handle ever-increasing volumes of data and activate AI algorithms on the data. Thanks to the complete integration between data, analytics, and AI, professionals can now generate new insights from the data and steer the company more precisely.
Specifically, we will show:
• Big Data on Fabric Data Lakehouse
• AI Analytics with Fabric Notebooks
• Insights thanks to integrated Power BI
• Integration of AI in live data streams (Fabric KustoDB)
At the end, there will be a Q&A session in which specific questions about data and AI can be asked.
Data Conference Switzerland 2024
Hosted the Panel Session at the inaugural Data Conference Switzerland, talking about the impact of AI on the Data space and Employability within Data Professions.
Microsoft Learn Zero to Hero Community User group Sessionize Event
Data Toboggan - Cool Runnings 2024 Sessionize Event
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