Deborah Melkin has been working as a database professional with SQL Server for over 25 years. She spends her days helping programmers with all aspects of database design, queries, performance, and deployment. In 2016, she began her blog, Deb the DBA. Soon after that, she began speaking at SQL Saturdays and user groups.

Deborah was an IDERA ACE Class of 2020, "One To Watch" as part of a #Redgate100 in 2022, and as well as the winner of Speaker Idol at PASS Summit in 2019. She is a former board member of the New England SQL Server User group (NESQL) and a former member of the Azure Data Community Advisory Council.

Deborah is a co-founder of WITspiration and a co-leader of the Data Platform WIT (Women in Tech) user group. She is also a Redgate Community Ambassador and she has been a Microsoft MVP for the Data Platform since November 2020.

In her spare time, Deborah can usually be found doing something musical or something geeky with her husband, Andy, and their dog, Sebastian.

Deborah Melkin has been working as a database professional with SQL Server for over 25 years. She spends her days helping programmers with all aspects of database design, queries, performance, and deployment. In 2016, she began her blog, Deb the DBA.... Show more

David Campbell is the former Head of AI Security Research at Scale AI, where he architected and lead some of the most advanced AI red teaming and resilience programs in the world. A two-decade veteran of Silicon Valley, David built his career at the intersection of infrastructure, security, and developer experience before becoming one of the industry’s most trusted voices on AI risk.

He pioneered Discovery, one of the first and largest large-scale AI Red Teaming platforms deployed across governments and Fortune 100 companies. His work has shaped how organizations probe, stress-test, and harden generative models against real adversaries, operational failures, and emergent behavior.

David’s expertise is sought globally. He has briefed the U.S. Congress, the White House, U.K. Parliament, NATO, Korea AISI, UK AISI, Qatar NCSA, and senior public-sector leaders on AI risk, misuse, and national resilience. He is a founding member of OWASP AIVSS and a core member of AIUC-1, the industry consortium defining how enterprises evaluate, insure, and underwrite AI systems. He also contributes to collaborative defense efforts such as CISA’s JCDC.AI series on AI-driven cyber threats.

Before Scale, David shaped platform security and engineering culture at Uber, DoorDash, and Nest Labs, where he built systems and practices that scaled to thousands of engineers. Across his career, he has been recognized for turning fragmented engineering environments into resilient, high-trust, high-standards organizations.

Today, David helps companies bridge the gap between rapid AI innovation and enterprise-grade safety. His mission is simple: align technology with the future of the business, and ensure that AI systems are deployed responsibly, securely, and with confidence.

David Campbell is the former Head of AI Security Research at Scale AI, where he architected and lead some of the most advanced AI red teaming and resilience programs in the world. A two-decade veteran of Silicon Valley, David built his career at the ... Show more

Pamela Paterson, MS, CBAP, PMP, is a speaker, best-selling author, and senior tech consultant specializing in business systems analysis and project management. With a strong background in systems engineering and experience working with over 100 organizations, Pamela has delivered workshops, webinars, and presentations worldwide and authored 10 books, including two international best-sellers. Pamela has also taught project management for over ten years in Toronto, Canada. In 2023, 2024, and 2025 she stands out as one of the most active speakers on Sessionize. For more details, visit her LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelapaterson/, or contact her at pamelatheba@gmail.com.

Pamela Paterson, MS, CBAP, PMP, is a speaker, best-selling author, and senior tech consultant specializing in business systems analysis and project management. With a strong background in systems engineering and experience working with over 100 organ... Show more

Sonja Wagenbichler is a recognized expert in Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Agents, and Prompt Engineering. As Head of AI / Change & Adoption at Power Manufaktur GmbH, she leads transformative projects that enable the intelligent use of generative AI in the workplace. Her goal is to help organizations not only implement Copilot technologies on a technical level but also anchor them effectively and sustainably in everyday business operations.

A key focus of her work is the development of well-designed prompts and adaptable Copilot Agents that deliver measurable efficiency gains. With her deep understanding of the modern workplace and her many years of experience in change management, she ensures that new technologies are not only introduced but also actively adopted.

Sonja brings extensive experience in building knowledge platforms and has a keen ability to tailor complex content to specific audiences. Her background in teaching has given her a strong sense of how to communicate knowledge in a way that is both accessible and sustainable. With a solid foundation in IT and in-depth expertise in Microsoft technologies, she is a trusted partner for organizations looking to successfully navigate the shift toward an AI-powered work environment.

Sonja Wagenbichler is a recognized expert in Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Agents, and Prompt Engineering. As Head of AI / Change & Adoption at Power Manufaktur GmbH, she leads transformative projects that enable the intelligent use of generative AI... Show more

I hold a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of L'Aquila. My passion lies in research, particularly in Machine Learning and Evolutionary Computation.
I work as a Machine Learning Engineer in the IT sector, focusing on security and defense.
Driven by curiosity and a love for continuous learning, I have ventured into the world of Dev Talks, where I enjoy sharing knowledge and connecting with the tech community.

My goal is to inspire and engage others with the same enthusiasm that fuels my work, fostering discussions that push the boundaries of technology and innovation.

See my personal blog here: https://www.lucadivita.it/

I hold a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of L'Aquila. My passion lies in research, particularly in Machine Learning and Evolutionary Computation. I work as a Machine Learning Engineer in the IT sector, focusing on security and def... Show more

Pradeep is as old as the internet but he didn’t have reliable access to the electricity or the internet until he entered IIT Roorkee where he studied electronics and programming. His interest in programming grew more after his work as a Computer Science Researcher at L3S Research Center (Germany) and Sabanci University (Istanbul). His newfound passion and early successes propelled him into a career as a developer.

Throughout his 14+ years of career, Pradeep developed applications in diverse domains such as dev productivity, privacy, neural search, authentication, NLP, cryptography, data engineering, etc.

Pradeep founded two startups, authored a book, and published #OpenSourceDiscovery newsletter. For 8 years, Pradeep developed and maintained his key project - Developer Diary, a cross-platform productivity tool for developers. This long-term commitment provided him with deep insights into the evolution of various engineering and community functions. Leveraging these insights, he guided various Open Source organizations to create category-leading developer tools and foster thriving, engaged developer communities.

As a late bloomer in tech from a small town, he witnessed how the internet empowered developers from remote areas to transform their lives. This inspired him to found Invide, an invitation-only community for developers from underserved regions. Drawing from his own journey, the initiative helped over 15000 experienced developers with resources he once lacked.

Pradeep is as old as the internet but he didn’t have reliable access to the electricity or the internet until he entered IIT Roorkee where he studied electronics and programming. His interest in programming grew more after his work as a Computer Scie... Show more

Chris Ayers is a Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft, where he builds AI-driven tooling to analyze outages and incidents across Azure. His work focuses on improving the way engineers understand failures, uncover risks, and strengthen reliability at cloud scale.

With a background spanning DevOps, cloud architecture, and modern application design, Chris brings both engineering depth and practical experience to the challenge of making large systems more resilient. He’s also a frequent international speaker who loves sharing real-world lessons about developer productivity, reliability, containers, and automation.

Outside of work, Chris is a proud dad, lifelong gamer, avid reader, and unapologetic nerd.

Chris Ayers is a Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft, where he builds AI-driven tooling to analyze outages and incidents across Azure. His work focuses on improving the way engineers understand failures, uncover risks, and strengthen reliability... Show more

Balkrishna works as an engineering lead at ING Bank. He is a frequent speaker at renowned tech conferences. He has passion for continuous learning and genuine desire to sharing knowledge. Although he has been working with Java for many years, he finds latest developments in Java quite exciting. He is also an Oracle ACE Associate for Java.

Balkrishna works as an engineering lead at ING Bank. He is a frequent speaker at renowned tech conferences. He has passion for continuous learning and genuine desire to sharing knowledge. Although he has been working with Java for many years, he find... Show more

Heini is a math teacher turned Azure expert. With her background in mathematics and teaching, she has a great passion for problem solving, simplifying complex things and a unique approach to architectures.
She is a Co-founder at Bruvo and a Data Platform MVP, specializing in Azure infrastructure and the data platform. She has been working with customers large and small for the past several years to help them sort out their path to the cloud and make sense of their architecture - both hybrid and cloud. She has worked extensively with both Azure infrastructure and analytics solutions, and makes the most of this skillset in her projects, as well as while speaking. On her free time Heini spends time in the nature, either snowboarding or mountain biking, depending on the season.

Heini is a math teacher turned Azure expert. With her background in mathematics and teaching, she has a great passion for problem solving, simplifying complex things and a unique approach to architectures. She is a Co-founder at Bruvo and a Data Pla... Show more

Manpreet leads the Modern Workplace AI Solutions Team at Cognizant, where he designs and scales transformative Microsoft-based solutions for global enterprises. Partnering with leadership across diverse verticals—from Media and Entertainment to Financial Services and Healthcare—Manpreet orchestrates Agentic AI strategies that move beyond simple automation to create truly autonomous, intelligent ecosystems. His mission is to redefine the "Agentic Experience," ensuring that AI doesn't just respond to prompts but proactively solves business friction for global customers. As a Microsoft MVP in M365 and AI, he bridges the gap between complex architectural innovation and real-world business impact.

Beyond his leadership at Cognizant, Manpreet is a titan in the technical community. A revered MVP, his insights have reached a staggering 10 million+ readers through his extensive library of articles and blogs. He is the driving force behind numerous annual boot camps, hackathons, and fundraisers, all aimed at nurturing the next generation of tech talent. Whether he is architecting a unified AI Command Center for a Fortune 500 firm or mentoring the next generation of developers, Manpreet is driven by a relentless "human-first" philosophy. Amidst the rapid evolution of the AI landscape, he remains easily recognizable by his warm smile—a reflection of his genuine passion for empowering organizations to achieve more through the power of Agentic AI.

Manpreet leads the Modern Workplace AI Solutions Team at Cognizant, where he designs and scales transformative Microsoft-based solutions for global enterprises. Partnering with leadership across diverse verticals—from Media and Entertainment to Finan... Show more

David vonThenen is an AI/ML Engineer where he focuses on production AI systems, enterprise AI data retrieval strategy, and architectures for explainable, governable, and reliable AI. His work spans agentic solutions, various RAG architectures, AI memory systems, multi-agent solutions, OpenSearch, data lineage, provenance, and AI governance.

David has more than 20 years of experience building production software across AI/ML, speech and NLP, Kubernetes, cloud-native platforms, storage, virtualization, and backup/recovery. He combines hands-on engineering with technical strategy, open-source leadership, developer advocacy, and customer integrations.

He has spoken at NVIDIA GTC, Devoxx (France, Poland, Greece, UK, Morocco), Open Data Science Conference (ODSC), WeAreDevelopers, and SCaLE on topics including explainable AI, agentic systems, model quantization, multimodal ML, and small language model training. His mission is to help teams move beyond AI prototypes and build systems that are observable, reproducible, trustworthy, and ready for production.

David vonThenen is an AI/ML Engineer where he focuses on production AI systems, enterprise AI data retrieval strategy, and architectures for explainable, governable, and reliable AI. His work spans agentic solutions, various RAG architectures, AI mem... Show more

James Eastham is a Serverless Developer Advocate at Datadog, AWS Community Builder and a Microsoft MVP. He answered phones in front-line support, administered databases and developed modern application backends with a range of technologies. He worked AWS working with some of the biggest companies on the planet, migrating workloads from data centers into the cloud and modernizing in the process.

James produces content on YouTube focused on architecting and building applications with serverless technologies using .NET and Rust. He also has a strong interest in and expertise in event-driven architecture and building more loosely coupled systems.

James Eastham is a Serverless Developer Advocate at Datadog, AWS Community Builder and a Microsoft MVP. He answered phones in front-line support, administered databases and developed modern application backends with a range of technologies. He worked... Show more

Øystein Hagen Blixhavn is passionate about getting stuff done, in basically all senses of the words. If it reduces wasteful effort and time, fantastic. If it improves the developer experience and increases their flow, amazing! This aspiration has led him to roles as system- and platform architect and platform developer, because these roles are directly concerned with increasing rate of stuff getting done.

Learning stuff and gaining cool insights is another thing that drives him, and his talks always seek to stimulate curiosity and induce this feeling in the audience.

Øystein Hagen Blixhavn is passionate about getting stuff done, in basically all senses of the words. If it reduces wasteful effort and time, fantastic. If it improves the developer experience and increases their flow, amazing! This aspiration has ... Show more

Tanya Janca, known online as SheHacksPurple, is the best-selling author of Alice and Bob Learn Secure Coding and Alice and Bob Learn Application Security. She is the CEO of She Hacks Purple Consulting, where she delivers high-impact, live, secure-coding training for engineering teams. She is also the host of DevSec Station Podcast.
Over 29 years in the industry Tanya has received numerous awards, spoken at events worldwide, and built a reputation as one of the most approachable and influential voices in application security. She has trained thousands of developers and security practitioners through her academies and live programs. Her experience includes counter-terrorism work, leading security for the 42nd Canadian federal election, as well as building and securing a vast range of applications. Today, she is recognized internationally as a leading authority on the security of software.

Tanya Janca, known online as SheHacksPurple, is the best-selling author of Alice and Bob Learn Secure Coding and Alice and Bob Learn Application Security. She is the CEO of She Hacks Purple Consulting, where she delivers high-impact, live, secure-cod... Show more

Tori is a Principal AI Consultant at Advancing Analytics. Specialising in MLOps and LLMOps, Tori has worked on many ML and data science projects with Azure and Databricks at all stages of the ML Lifecycle. She is a co-presenter of the Data & AI podcast, Totally Skewed, founder of Girls Code Too UK and Trustee of Girls in Data.

Tori is a Principal AI Consultant at Advancing Analytics. Specialising in MLOps and LLMOps, Tori has worked on many ML and data science projects with Azure and Databricks at all stages of the ML Lifecycle. She is a co-presenter of the Data & AI podca... Show more

Daniel Sogl is Director of AI Engineering at SHI GmbH. With a background in FinTech and IT consulting, he helps internal teams and enterprise clients put AI to work in two areas: AI-assisted software engineering and Generative AI. He speaks regularly at international conferences and workshops on turning AI tools into measurable gains in developer productivity and code quality.

Daniel Sogl is Director of AI Engineering at SHI GmbH. With a background in FinTech and IT consulting, he helps internal teams and enterprise clients put AI to work in two areas: AI-assisted software engineering and Generative AI. He speaks regularly... Show more

John is a Principal Consultant at ControlPlane, where he helps some of the world's most security-conscious organizations build and assure mission-critical platforms. He is a member of the in-toto Steering Committee and a maintainer of its Witness and Archivista sub-projects. He also serves as a co-chair of the CNCF's TAG Security. Within the OpenSSF, John is a member of the inaugural Ambassador cohort and contributes to several initiatives, including the SBOMit project.

John is a Principal Consultant at ControlPlane, where he helps some of the world's most security-conscious organizations build and assure mission-critical platforms. He is a member of the in-toto Steering Committee and a maintainer of its Witness and... Show more

Bas founded Kimura and is an experienced Data Solution Architect with over 12 years as a consultant in various technologies, currently focusing on Microsoft Fabric.

He speaks, creates YouTube videos, and blogs about these experiences to share his knowledge with the community.

He holds a Microsoft Dataplatform MVP award and is a Microsoft Certified Trainer.

In his spare time he likes to practice sports (Brazilian jiu-jitsu, running, weight lifting) and also to travel with his wife, son, and their dachshund Chester.

Bas founded Kimura and is an experienced Data Solution Architect with over 12 years as a consultant in various technologies, currently focusing on Microsoft Fabric. He speaks, creates YouTube videos, and blogs about these experiences to share his... Show more

Yishai Beeri likes to solve problems, and that’s why he was so fascinated with programming when first encountered Logo back in the 80s, where the possibilities seemed endless.

He has made it a focus of his career to solve complex programming problems, as a consultant and entrepreneur. Between 2013 and 2020, Yishai worked in the CTO office of a fast moving cloud security startup, and after its acquisition in the Cloud Security unit of a networking giant. In 2020 Yishai joined LinearB to focus on Developer Productivity and Experience. As CTO he engages with hundreds of engineering leaders and helps build products that answer the industry's core questions about AI & Productivity for software engineering.

Yishai Beeri likes to solve problems, and that’s why he was so fascinated with programming when first encountered Logo back in the 80s, where the possibilities seemed endless. He has made it a focus of his career to solve complex programming probl... Show more

Mauricio Salatino, also known as salaboy, works for Dash0 as an Ecosystem Engineer. He is a Java Champion, Cloud Native Ambassador, published book author and international Keynote speaker. Before working at Dash0, Mauricio spent the last 15 years building tools for Cloud-Native developers at companies such as Red Hat and VMware. When he is not writing tools for developers or contributing to open source projects in the Cloud Native space, he teaches about Kubernetes, Cloud-Native and agentic engineering on his blog salaboy.com

Mauricio Salatino, also known as salaboy, works for Dash0 as an Ecosystem Engineer. He is a Java Champion, Cloud Native Ambassador, published book author and international Keynote speaker. Before working at Dash0, Mauricio spent the last 15 years bui... Show more

After more than 25 years managing information systems, mainly in Microsoft environments, with special focus on Business Intelligence systems and data management, I am now more focused on the management of teams and sales. Always looking for new challenges to help our customers optimize their investments in their data platform. Right now focused on Big data, Smart data and IA technologies in order to define new lines of business

After more than 25 years managing information systems, mainly in Microsoft environments, with special focus on Business Intelligence systems and data management, I am now more focused on the management of teams and sales. Always looking for new chall... Show more

I believe in collaborative software design where 'every voice shapes the software'. Leveraging a domain-driven design approach with Team Topologies, I facilitate clearer communication between stakeholders and software creators by collaborative modelling and deep democracy, decoding complexities, resolving conflicts and ensuring software remains agile to business demands.

As Software Architect Enabler at DHL eCommerce and independent trainer and facilitator specialising in technical leadership, software architecture, and sociotechnical system design, I work with organisations and teams to design sustainable and resilient software architecture. I also co-authored Collaborative Software Design: How to Facilitate Domain Modeling Decisions and organise the Virtual Domain-Driven Design community to share these ideas more widely.

I believe in collaborative software design where 'every voice shapes the software'. Leveraging a domain-driven design approach with Team Topologies, I facilitate clearer communication between stakeholders and software creators by collaborative modell... Show more

Rowdy Rabouw is a Google Developer Expert in Web Technologies with 30 years of experience in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Currently, he works as a Front-End-Focused Senior Software Engineer on Vue, Node, and NestJS projects, with a focus on usability and accessibility. Rowdy loves his electronic drum kit and dabbles in creating music on his laptop.

Rowdy Rabouw is a Google Developer Expert in Web Technologies with 30 years of experience in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Currently, he works as a Front-End-Focused Senior Software Engineer on Vue, Node, and NestJS projects, with a focus on usability an... Show more

Chris DeMars is a Senior Developer Advocate with over 20 years of technical experience. He speaks all over the world on web accessibility, feature flags, A/B testing, and CSS. For his community contributions, he holds awards as a Progress Champion and former Microsoft MVP, Google Developer Expert, Cloudinary Media Developer Expert, and Auth0 Ambassador. When he is not working on making the web great and accessible you can find him fishing, on the paintball field, rating Detroit Style pizza, and looking for UFO's.

Chris DeMars is a Senior Developer Advocate with over 20 years of technical experience. He speaks all over the world on web accessibility, feature flags, A/B testing, and CSS. For his community contributions, he holds awards as a Progress Champion an... Show more

Years of experience in software engineering and the team's leading roles combined with his passion for Java made Pasha know all the hidden details in this IT niche. As a Developer Advocate for @Bellsoft, he educates the public on the latest software tools built by BellSoft and helps to create and test instruments for developers. He writes in Kotlin, speaks at conferences, composes a new articles, or maintains his pet projects.

Years of experience in software engineering and the team's leading roles combined with his passion for Java made Pasha know all the hidden details in this IT niche. As a Developer Advocate for @Bellsoft, he educates the public on the latest software ... Show more

I'm a Cloud Solution Architect Modern Work and deals mainly (but not only ...) with SharePoint, a product that has been with him for 15 years and has experienced the birth and growth of all the latest versions. However, collaboration is not just SharePoint, but all Microsoft 365 applications that are helping to revolutionize the way we work. Today in my work I support customers to identify the better strategy for adopt new products and technologies. In the last period I'm focusing on Copilot, AI, Power Platform and SharePoint. As a speaker I have participated in several conferences as a speaker among which WPC Milan, Scottish Summit, CollabDays, European Collaboration Summit, European Power Platform Conference, Thrive and more.

I'm a Cloud Solution Architect Modern Work and deals mainly (but not only ...) with SharePoint, a product that has been with him for 15 years and has experienced the birth and growth of all the latest versions. However, collaboration is not just Shar... Show more

As a Microsoft MVP for AI, Thomas Tomow actively contributes to the community and is passionate about modern cloud technologies. He hosts Azure Meetups in Konstanz and Stuttgart, Germany. He is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Xebia Germany, where he leverages his expertise in Cloud Development, AI, and many other bleeding-edge technologies. Thomas practices karate to maintain balance in his free time and is always eager to share his knowledge and experience with like-minded individuals.

As a Microsoft MVP for AI, Thomas Tomow actively contributes to the community and is passionate about modern cloud technologies. He hosts Azure Meetups in Konstanz and Stuttgart, Germany. He is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Xebia Germany, whe... Show more

Microsoft AI (former M365 Development) MVP. Around 25 years of experience working with Microsoft Technologies. MS Certified Teams Application Developer, specialist in Developing Azure and SharePoint MCPD. Passionate about technology, blogger, technical writer and MS community active member.

Microsoft AI (former M365 Development) MVP. Around 25 years of experience working with Microsoft Technologies. MS Certified Teams Application Developer, specialist in Developing Azure and SharePoint MCPD. Passionate about technology, blogger, technic... Show more

Atuoha Anthony is a Senior Mobile Software Engineer with a track record of building scalable, high-performance applications across various platforms, including Android, iOS, web, and others, primarily using Flutter & Dart, alongside Kotlin and Swift, and leveraging AI.

Atuoha Anthony is a Senior Mobile Software Engineer with a track record of building scalable, high-performance applications across various platforms, including Android, iOS, web, and others, primarily using Flutter & Dart, alongside Kotlin and Swift,... Show more

Although living on a tropical island, Jochen Kirstätter is a business owner and entrepreneur in different industry sectors. Mainly operating in the development of tailor-made software solutions since more than 20 years, he is also venturing into the world of cloud computing. You can either meet him at the regular meetups of the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community or reach him on X and Mastodon: @JKirstaetter.

Jochen is a Google Developer Expert (GDE) for Google Cloud and a Microsoft Most Valuable Programmer (MVP) for Developer Technologies for several years. He founded the now largest IT community in Mauritius, and organises the annual Developers Conference. Following his interest in cross-platform technologies he is also an organiser of the Google Developer Group (GDG) Mauritius.

Although living on a tropical island, Jochen Kirstätter is a business owner and entrepreneur in different industry sectors. Mainly operating in the development of tailor-made software solutions since more than 20 years, he is also venturing into the ... Show more