Technical Keynote - Azure Databricks

The keynote will cover the highlights from the Data and AI Summit, as seen through the eyes of four different personas — data engineer, data steward, data scientist, and data analyst—showcased via a compelling end-to-end technical demo.

Silviu, the trigger-happy data engineer, will make data ingestion and transformation easier through a simple live demo of automated jobs and serverless compute - demystifying orchestration and requiring little help from any additional cloud platform teams
Marius, the slightly paranoid data steward, will show the audience how to ensure adequate data governance controls are in place, without slowing down the other team members, via Attribute Based Access Controls(ABAC) in Unity Catalog
Athulya, the Gen AI enthusiast, will demonstrate how to integrate this enterprise data into the AI lifecycle using Mosaic AI, in a secure and cost-effective manner.
Liping, the newbie data analyst, will demonstrate a generative BI experience in Databricks using Genie and how to utilize AI functions in SQL.

After this keynote, the audience should have a better understanding of what the recently announced Databricks functionality means and how it could impact the day-to-day work of people within their organization.

Cost control and cross charge on Databricks using Power BI template

Prior to the introduction of system tables, the cost management and cross charge of Databricks platform can be complicated. This session will cover the structure and content of different system tables and how they can used to make cost management efficient and provide audience with an example visualization of Databricks cost management and cross charging in the form of a Power BI template.

The session is aimed at Databricks admins and budget holders. This is a beginner to intermediate session with no prerequisite. Audience will walk away with a good understanding of the data model of Databricks system tables and a Power BI template to visualize cost and cross charge of Databricks spending with ease.

The hitchhiker's Power BI guide to cross-charge and cost control on Databricks

Prior to the introduction of system tables, the cost management and cross-charge of Databricks platform can be complicated. This session will cover the structure and content of different system tables and how they can be used to make cost management efficient and provide the audience with an example visualization of Databricks cost management and cross-charging in the form of a Power BI template.

The session is aimed at Databricks admins and budget holders. This is a beginner to intermediate session with no prerequisite. The audience will walk away with a good understanding of the data model of Databricks system tables and a Power BI template to visualize the cost and cross-charge of Databricks spending with ease.

Presented at
Data Scotland 2024, Glasgow, September 2024
Databricks London Meetup, London, November 2024

Nose-Dive Narratives: Slide Karaoke 2024

Get ready to wrap up a serious day of learning with a dash of humor, spontaneity, and friendly competition! SQLBits presents "Slide Karaoke" where SQLBits speakers reveal their hidden talents while vying for bragging rights. This session promises to be a one-of-a-kind experience that will leave you in stitches and awe, and the speakers scrambling for their non-existent notes!

A intrepid group of SQLBits speakers will have just 5 minutes to deliver a presentation on an informative data-related topic of their choice. The catch? They'll be presented with random slides they've never seen before, and they must seamlessly incorporate these mystery slides into their talk. Our panel of judges will evaluate each performance based on a set of agreed-upon criteria, including audience voting!

You'll witness Data & Analytics experts demonstrating their wit, grace under pressure, and uncanny ability to turn the unexpected into pure entertainment. Expect a delightful fusion of knowledge and hilarity, as our speakers go head-to-head in this high-spirited showdown.

Presented at SQL Bits 2024, Farnborough, March 2024

Use new Gen AI Features in Databricks to Boost your Productivity

Discover how to get your very own Co-Pilot like assistant in Databricks. With the Lakehouse Assistant, simply chat with it in English and watch as it effortlessly crafts SQL queries and scripts, demystifies complex code, and even patches up errors.

We will also show how Databricks has embedded Gen AI capabilities in the platform to allow business user (non-technical) to ask questions in natural language of data residing in Databricks using Lakehouse IQ.

This session will include demos on how to use the assistant and Lakehouse IQ, and is aimed at all users of the platform, from the inexperienced to the gurus and ninjas.

The session's objective is highlighting the different ways in which Gen AI capabilities in Databricks will make users more productive, while continuing to use the tools and interfaces they are already familiar with. This is an introductory session with no prerequisite.

Presented at Global AI bootcamp London, March 2024

Power up your Databricks lakehouse --Best practice for Power BI on Databricks

Want to supercharge the house part of your lake house? This session will cover best practices of building visualization using Power BI on top of Databricks SQL in terms of performance, security and different architecture patterns.

Presented at
Databricks London User Group, London, July 2023
Data: Scotland 2023, Edinburgh, September 2023
Power BI & Fabric Manchester User Group, Manchester, Aug 2024
Power BI & Fabric Devon User Group, Virtual, Apr 2025

Ready for the ultra long-haul - Advanced Data Engineering with Databricks on the Lakehouse

In this session, you will build upon existing knowledge of Apache Spark™, Structured Streaming and Delta Lake to unlock the full potential of the lakehouse by utilising the suite of tools provided by Databricks. This session places a heavy emphasis on designs favouring incremental data processing, enabling systems optimised to continuously ingest and analyse ever-growing data. The topics in this course helps learners to work towards the Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional exam.

Presented at SQL Bits 2024, Farnborough, March 2024

Introducing your Databricks Flight Assistant

Buckle up for a high-flying adventure! Discover how to get your very own Co-Pilot like assistant in Databricks. With the Lakehouse Assistant, simply chat with it in English, and watch as it effortlessly crafts SQL queries and scripts, demystifies complex code, and even patches up errors, all while you gently cruise above the Lakehouse.

This session will include demos on how to use the assistant in Databricks Notebooks and the SQL editor, and is aimed at all users of the platform, from the inexperienced to the gurus and ninjas.

The session's objective is highlighting the different ways in which the Lakehouse Assistant will make users more productive, while continuing to use the tools and interfaces they are already familiar with. This is an introductory session with no prerequisite.

Presented at SQL Bits 2024, Farnborough, March 2024

Air Traffic Control (Data Governance) with Databricks Unity Catalog, tips, tricks and best practices

"Organizations can use Unity Catalog to securely discover, access, monitor and collaborate on files, tables, ML models, notebooks and dashboards across any data platform or cloud, while also leveraging AI to boost productivity and unlock the full potential of the lakehouse paradigm. This session will walk throught the tips, tricks and best practices relating to Unity Catalog design and implementation with Databricks.

The session is aimed at Platform Admin and Data Governance persona. It is a beginner session with no prerequisites. Audience will walk away with understanding about the data governance requirements of people, process and technology. Also how new capabilities in Unity Catalog can further simplify your data governance and accelerated analytics and AI initiatives on the lakehouse."

Presented at SQL Bits 2024, Farnborough, March 2024

Making Data Visualisation simple with DevOps practices

This session covers the different options and considerations for Power BI DevOps

Presented at Microsoft Build 2022, Reading, May 2022

Streaming Data Analytics with Power BI and Databricks

This session is comprised of a series of end-to-end technical demos illustrating the synergy between Databricks and Power BI for streaming use cases, and considerations around when to choose which scenario:

Scenario 1: DLT + Power BI Direct Query and Auto Refresh
Scenario 2: Structured Streaming + Power BI streaming datasets
Scenario 3: DLT + Power BI composite datasets

Presented at Data + AI Summit 2023, San Francisco, June 2023

Monitoring DLT with Power BI template

This session goes beyond the default features within Delta Live Table pipeline UI, and walk through Delta Live Table logging tables and how to extract meaningful information from these using DBSQL and serving data quality check results and pipeline status using Power BI

Presented at North East Databricks Meetup, Newcastle, August 2023

Generative AI on Databricks

This session covers the latest generative AI capabilities in Databricks

Presented at Advancing Innovation Day, London, October 2023

Learn Practical Techniques for Applying Data Quality in the Lakehouse with Databricks

Data quality has been a critical and common practice employed across industries for many years. At the core, data quality encompasses six dimensions, including consistency, accuracy, validity, completeness, timeliness, and uniqueness.

However, a significant challenge remains in streamlining these processes to prevent data management issues and enhance their utility for downstream analytics, data science, and machine learning. The session will delve into the six dimensions of data quality, detailing the specific techniques and features that enhance the Databricks Platform's functionality.

Presented at Data + AI Summit 2024, San Francisco, June 2024
Presented at Databricks Scotland Meetup, Sep 2024