Open Source Europe Tour - London, United Kingdom

Registrations: 5:30 PM - 6:15 PM (food & drinks are taken care of)
Presentations: From 6:15 PM onwards

AI is everywhere - but what does it actually mean in practice?
Join Will Martin, AI Evangelist, for a clear, practical walkthrough of modern AI - based on his upcoming book AI for Dummies (and actually) - and how it fits into your data stack and lakehouse.
🚀 In this session:
What Agentic AI really is (and how it differs from LLMs)
How LLMs work under the hood (tokens, embeddings, context)
When to use fine-tuning, RAG, or prompt engineering
How MCP connects AI to your data, APIs, and lakehouse
Key benefits, risks, and real-world considerations
Cut through the hype and understand how AI actually works - and how to use it.

Next up: Alex Stuart ("Mr Motion")
Working in Data Engineering at Confluent, Alex will break down how Iceberg, Kafka, Flink, and Tableflow come together—and what that means in the world of AI.
Expect a practical look at building real-time, modern data architectures that power AI use cases.
About Alex:
Covers EMEA & APAC for the SME team at Confluent, helping customers solve complex, real-time data challenges and optimize lakehouse, warehouse, and analytics architectures.

And last but not least: Alex Merced
Head of DevRel and author at O’Reilly, Alex will walk you through key ideas from his latest book on Agentic Analytics- and how to build data platforms that actually work for AI.
🔍 What to expect:
Why data silos break AI agents
How the lakehouse, federation, and semantic layer fit together
The role of Apache Iceberg, open catalogs, and modern architectures
Why agents need context, not just data
A practical roadmap toward autonomous, AI-driven analytics
Expect a sharp, architecture-focused session connecting modern data platforms with the future of AI.