Melting Technical Debt: How Apache Iceberg Refactors Data Lakes for a Debt-Free Future

Technical debt in data systems can sink innovation faster than an iceberg—rigid schemas, unreliable updates, and sprawling data estates, unmanageable data lakes that hinder developers from building efficiently. In this session, we'll explore Apache Iceberg, an open-source table format that's empowering data engineers to create a culture shift: turning passive data storage into proactive, maintainable assets.Designed for beginners with real depth, we'll demystify Iceberg without jargon, explaining how it tackles common debt pitfalls like inconsistent data versions and slow analytics. Through live demos, you'll see auto-refactoring in action—seamless schema evolution, time-travel queries for auditing past states, and scalable analysis that makes updating petabyte-scale datasets as easy as editing a document. We'll cover why it's being adopted en masse by teams at Netflix, Adobe, and beyond, not just for performance gains, but for fostering a developer culture where impacting debt becomes routine.Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to re-invigorate their own codebases, including integration tips with tools like Spark and Hive, and a roadmap for starting small to drive big changes. Join us to learn how Iceberg isn't just a format—it's a catalyst for debt reduction and future-proof innovation.

Defending The AI Age: Between Apocalypse and Utopia

In "Defending The AI Age: Between Apocalypse and Utopia," this keynote delves into the transformative power of artificial intelligence, navigating the spectrum from dystopian fears of job loss, ethical dilemmas, and existential threats to utopian visions of enhanced human potential, global problem-solving, and boundless innovation. Drawing on real-world examples, historical parallels, and forward-thinking strategies, the talk advocates for a proactive defense: robust governance, ethical frameworks, and human-AI collaboration to harness AI's benefits while mitigating its risks. Attendees will leave with actionable insights on shaping a resilient future in the AI era.

Vectors Unleashed: 20 Tips for Next-Level SQL

Unlock the full potential of your database with vectors! In this engaging and practical session, we’ll dive into 20 tips and tricks for leveraging vectors in your database to solve real-world problems, boost performance, and enable cutting-edge applications. Whether you’re a DBA, developer, or data scientist, you’ll discover how vectors can revolutionize your SQL workflows. From similarity searches and machine learning integrations to optimizing complex queries, this talk will equip you with actionable techniques to take your database skills to the next level. Expect demos, practical examples, and insights you can apply immediately—no matter your experience level!

Panel: Standing out in the age of AI

In this Panel discussion, we will talk about how to standout in a field with buzzwords, AI agents and Vibe coding. Questions are encouraged.

Kenote: Beyond the Hype: Harnessing AI for a Human-Centered Future

Artificial Intelligence is often heralded as the ultimate game-changer, yet its true potential lies not in futuristic promises but in its ability to empower humans today. In this keynote, [Speaker Name], a renowned AI innovator and thought leader, will cut through the noise to reveal how AI is already transforming industries, reshaping work, and addressing global challenges. From ethical frameworks to practical applications, this talk will explore how we can design AI systems that amplify human creativity, foster trust, and drive meaningful progress. Join us to discover a roadmap for a human-centered AI future that balances innovation with responsibility.

The Collision of Real-Time Analytics and Observability

OpenTelemetry (OTEL) is turning the observability industry on its head. While there are still the dominant end-to-end solution vendors in the space, users are increasingly adopting disaggregated observability stacks, mixing and matching different best-of-breed agents, data aggregation methods, storage, analytics, visualization, alerting and response systems.

One key driver of this revolution is the need for real-time insights from observability data — spotting trends as well as anomalies without delay to take prompt action and automate response. Discover why and how real-time analytical databases such as Apache Pinot are being employed at scale in disaggregated observability stacks across industries, from consumer applications to fintech use cases. Learn how companies are monitoring their infrastructure, their API gateways, and mobile applications to ensure high up times and lowest latencies.

Building Data Platforms for the Impatient Tech Landscape

In today's fast-paced world, technology evolves at an incredible speed, and businesses need data solutions that can keep up. This talk explores the challenge of building data platforms that not only scale efficiently but also provide fresh, real-time data to meet the needs of an impatient tech landscape. We’ll discuss how to create systems that handle high volumes of data instantly and maintain performance under pressure, so your business can stay ahead in a world that doesn’t wait.

Data-Driven Leadership: Harnessing Analytics for Business Impact

In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, data is the cornerstone of strategic decision-making and business growth. This keynote, "Data-Driven Leadership: Harnessing Analytics for Business Impact," will explore how forward-thinking leaders can leverage Big Data and Analytics to drive organizational success.

Discover how to turn data into actionable insights that empower decision-making, foster innovation, and unlock new growth opportunities. From refining your business strategies to improving operational efficiencies, this keynote will cover the practical ways data-driven leadership is reshaping industries across the globe.

Delivered by a seasoned expert in the field, this session will provide you with:

Proven frameworks for incorporating analytics into your business strategy
Real-world case studies of companies that have successfully leveraged Big Data for impact
Key leadership insights on fostering a data-first culture within your organization
Whether you're an executive looking to implement data-driven initiatives or a manager seeking to enhance your team’s analytical capabilities, this keynote will equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to transform data into measurable business impact.

The AI Dilemma: Tech Industry's Best Friend or Worst Enemy?

In "The AI Dilemma: Tech Industry's Best Friend or Worst Enemy?", we embark on a thought-provoking journey to unravel the complex relationship between AI and the tech industry. As we delve into the heart of AI's revolutionary impact, we uncover its dual nature: a catalyst for innovation and a source of unprecedented challenges. This presentation will illuminate the remarkable achievements enabled by AI, showcasing its potential to redefine the technological landscape. Yet, we will not shy away from the darker facets, examining the ethical quandaries and societal tremors it can trigger. Through a balanced lens, we explore strategies to harness AI's potential responsibly, ensuring it serves as a benevolent force within the tech industry. Join us to navigate the intricate dance of embracing AI's power while safeguarding against its perils, steering towards a future where technology remains a steadfast ally in our quest for progress.

Mastering the Tech Presentation: Crafting Compelling Narratives in a Digital World

In the fast-paced world of technology, the ability to deliver engaging and impactful presentations is a crucial skill. Whether you're pitching a new product, sharing research findings, or delivering a technical talk, your ability to communicate effectively can make or break your message.

This one-hour session will dive deep into the art and science of creating compelling tech presentations. We will explore the importance of topic selection, discussing how to choose topics that resonate with your audience and align with your goals. You will learn strategies for engaging your audience, keeping them captivated from start to finish.

Presentation style and flow are also critical components of a successful tech presentation. We will discuss how to structure your presentation for maximum impact, including tips for creating compelling visuals and incorporating storytelling techniques.

Effective communication goes beyond words. We will also cover speaker cadence and posture, discussing how your delivery can enhance or detract from your message. Additionally, we will explore technical details such as lighting, audio, and other production elements that can elevate your presentation.

Whether you're a seasoned presenter looking to refine your skills or a newcomer looking to make a splash, this session will provide you with the tools and techniques you need to deliver compelling tech presentations that leave a lasting impression.

Apache Pinot Real-Time Analytics Workshop

Apache Pinot is a database optimized to serve analytical queries at extremely high levels of concurrency, at latencies measured in the tens of milliseconds, on data ingested from the streaming pipeline that underlies your system. It's an OLAP database, but one engineered from the ground up to power user-facing features, not manager-facing dashboards. In this workshop, we'll look briefly at how it's built, then work together to stand up a local Pinot cluster and put it to use. We'll begin by ingesting some static data and querying it. Then we'll stand up a local Kafka cluster and inject some streaming data into it, so we can ingest that real-time stream into Pinot. Finally, we'll join those data sources in Pinot and look at how to expose our newly-minted real-time analytics to an application front-end. Data Lakes aren't going anywhere, but the really interesting future of analytics is here! Come join us for a practical and hands-on introduction.

Indexing 101: How to find your data in monoliths, documents, lakes and more.

Do you remember your Intro to Database class?
Learning about indexes? Well, times have changed since my DB 101 class!
In this session, we will take a deeper dive into the way indexes have evolved over time and look at Indexes in a new light. Whether you are a beginner or vetran, this session will help you gain insights into the world of big data, new paradigms in indexing and examples of what works where.

Getting Started with Apache Pinot

Apache Pinot is being used by companies like LinkedIn, Uber, Stripe and more to provide analytics to millions of users at near real time. In this Hands On Workshop, we will deploy Apache Pinot on your computer. We will learn how to run the essential components, Create Tables and ingest data. We will also explore the Pinot UI and look at some query performance numbers.

Realtime Analytics Unleashed: Unlocking the Potential of Data at Scale

In this talk, we will explore the exciting possibilities
of modern analytics solutions – going beyond traditional
business dashboards, and diving into how to provide
OLAP at OLTP speeds to a larger audience. Learn about realtime analytics, and how scale can be achieved in this rapidly evolving field.

Real Time Problem-Solving with Anomaly Detection

Anomaly Detection can be an incredibly powerful tool to uncover actionable information quickly and easily. By using ThirdEye and Apache Pinot, businesses can find anomalies in real time, perform root cause analytics, and make decisions with confidence.

This session will provide users with the knowledge they need to start taking advantage of this platform today. We will explore how Anomaly Detection works, how to perform root cause analysis, and how to implement it in a practical way for any organization.

What is ThirdEye? It is an Anomaly Detection platform build on top of Real Time DBs such as Apache Pinot.
Who Uses it? Walmart, LinkedIn, Confluence, TakeAway.com, JustEat.
What's the catch? None! Originally built at Linkedin as part of Apache Pinot project, the ThridEye Community Edition is free to try and highly pluggable platform that anyone can download and start using today!

ThirdEye is an add on to real time DBS such as Apache Pinot.

Creating a Personal Brand for Career Success

Branding is a mix of how you present yourself and how others see you. It is important to be aware of how you are viewed.

In this session, we will discuss how to create and leverage your personal brand to elevate your career and achieve your goals. Utilize this knowledge through Social Media to define and influence how others see you. You are your brand so protect it. Live it.

Real-Time Query Magic: Leveraging Vector Indexing for Lightnig quick Analytics

K nearest what?

Vector indexes have been used find unstructured data such as images for a while now. In this session, learn how vector embedding techinques can be applied to text data to find accurate data at speed.

Learn what an vector embedding is, how it evolved as an accurate and fast method for retrieving search data and how it can be used to index text data and create lightining fast results for Real-time Analytics usecases.

This session will introduce the audience to Vector Search and display it's use in Real-time Analytics.

Revolutionize Ride Sharing with Real Time Analytics and Anomaly Detection

This talk highlights the use of New York Taxi Data set to explore the power of Apache Pinot for fast ingestion, Analytics as well as showcases real time Anomaly Detection using StarTree ThirdEye.

This talk is demo heavy, and walks the user through ingestion, analytics, dash boards and anomaly detection.

"Iceberg Ahead: Navigating the Future of Data Lakes Without Sinking"

Join us for an beginner-friendly deep dive into Apache Iceberg, the game-changing open table format that's transforming how we handle massive datasets in data lakes. We'll start from the basics: Iceberg is essentially a smart blueprint for organizing and managing huge amounts of data, making it easier to store, query, and update information reliably—think of it as a sturdy foundation that prevents common data pitfalls like inconsistencies or slow performance.In this talk, we'll break down exactly what Iceberg does, step by step. You'll learn how it enables features like seamless updates (without rewriting entire files), time-travel queries to view data as it was in the past, and flexible schema changes that let your data evolve as your needs grow—all explained in plain English, with real-world examples from everyday data scenarios.But why is everyone jumping on board? Iceberg is being adopted at lightning speed by companies big and small because it brings database-like reliability to flexible data lakes, boosts query speeds for analytics, integrates smoothly with popular tools like Spark and Hive, and scales effortlessly for petabyte-sized data without the headaches of traditional formats. Whether you're a data enthusiast, engineer, or just curious about the buzz, this session will equip you with the knowledge to understand—and even start using—Iceberg, no prior expertise required. By the end, you'll see why it's not just a trend, but a must-have for modern data management!