Call for Speakers
Data & AI Community Day Durban: Season of AI - AI @ Ignite++
22 Mar 2025
Coastlands Musgrave Hotel, 315 - 319 Pater Makaba Ridge, Musgrave, Durban Durban, South Africa
Microsoft Ignite, an annual conference for developers, IT professionals, and partners, was held in Chicago on November 18 - 22, 2024. This year, it was "choc a bloc" with AI topics and announcements of new products. Season of AI is a Microsoft Community Pilot where Microsoft provides free content (slide decks, videos, etc.) for anyone to use at community events. Each quarter, there is a differently themed Season of AI, and given the coverage of AI at Ignite, this quarter's theme is Season of AI - Best of AI @ Ignite.
We, Azure, AI/ML & Data Community Durban, want to continue our uber-successful Season of AI events, so we are proud to announce that Season of AI - Best of AI @ Ignite is landing in Durban on March 22, 2025 (tentatively), in the guise of Data & AI Community Day Durban: Season of AI — AI @ Ignite++. The ++ indicates that the event will have much more than just AI at Ignite. As with our other events, this will be a full-day, in-person deep dive into the most exciting innovations in AI, data, and cloud technologies. We hope to host it again (thanks to UNISA) at Coastlands Umhlanga Hotel and Convention Centre in Umhlanga.
Even though Season of AI is a Microsoft initiative, we expect topics covering non-Microsoft tech. The event will feature a mix of 60-minute and 20-minute sessions, with speakers from a diverse panel of experts, architects, and Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) who are all at the forefront of their fields.
The Azure, AI/ML & Data Community Durban group is a user group for the community, by the community. It is a learning experience where we share, learn, and encourage the community to do more with Azure, AI/ML, and Data to solve problems. Our mission statement as this group is to become and create heroes of society through Azure, AI/ML, and Data. We Do Positive Things through innovation and passion.
Call for Speakers
21 Feb 2025
14 Mar 2025
Suppose you are interested in Data and/or AI/ML. In that case, this is your chance to inspire and educate fellow data enthusiasts, professionals, and learners as we explore the latest trends and breakthroughs in the world of Data and AI/ML in Durban.
🔥 Why Should You Speak?
- Share your expertise and insights with a passionate audience. The last event had 200+ attendees!
- Expand your network by connecting with fellow industry leaders.
- Contribute to the growth of the local Data and AI/ML community.
- Elevate your personal brand and thought leadership.
🎯 Topics of Interest:
The event's theme is Season of AI - AI @ Ignite++, but that doesn't mean you must present about AI. Azure, AI/ML & Data Community Durban wouldn't organise the event if we didn’t expect a mix of other cool topics. So, we're looking for engaging talks in areas such as:
- Ai at Ignite
- Generative AI
- AI Agents & LLMs
- Database Development
- Streaming Data & Real-Time Analytics
- Real-world AI & Data Use Cases
- Power Platform & Power Apps
If you have a passion for any of these areas (or anything else related to AI/ML and Data) and want to share your knowledge, we want to hear from you!
If you need inspiration, you can browse the Season of AI—Best of AI @ Ignite GitHub repo and look at (and download/clone) proposed topics.
We encourage "new" speakers to submit submit proposals. We give you a "safe" environment to get into speaking at conferences!
So, once again, if you are passionate about any of the areas above, please submit!