Open Source Europe Tour - London, United Kingdom

Registration & Networking: 5:30 PM – 6:15 PM
(Food & drinks provided)

AI, Data & the Modern Lakehouse — London Edition
Join speakers from Dremio, Confluent, and Fivetran for an evening focused on AI, modern data architectures, streaming platforms, and the future of the lakehouse.

Will Martin
Data & AI Evangelist, Dremio
AI is everywhere — but what does it actually mean in practice?
Will Martin will give a practical, hype-free walkthrough of modern AI and how it fits into today’s data stack and lakehouse architectures, based on his upcoming book AI for Dummies.
🚀 Topics include:
What Agentic AI is — and how it differs from LLMs
How LLMs work under the hood
Fine-tuning vs RAG vs prompt engineering
Connecting AI to your data, APIs, and lakehouse with MCP
Real-world benefits, risks, and implementation considerations
A clear introduction to how AI really works — and how to use it effectively.

Alex Stuart (“Mr Motion”)
Data Engineering Specialist, Confluent
Alex will break down how Iceberg, Kafka, Flink, and Tableflow come together — and what that means in the world of AI.
🔍 Topics include:
Real-time data architectures for AI workloads
Streaming data into modern lakehouse platforms
Apache Kafka, Flink, and Iceberg in practice
Scalability, reliability, and operational considerations
Expect a practical look at building modern, real-time data architectures that power AI use cases.
Alex works across EMEA & APAC at Confluent, helping customers solve complex data challenges and optimize lakehouse, warehouse, and analytics architectures.

Andrew Madson
Head of Developer Relations, Fivetran
Andrew brings a unique mix of hands-on data leadership and developer advocacy, with previous experience leading analytics and ML teams across organizations including J.P. Morgan Chase, MassMutual, and Arizona State University.
Today, as Founding Head of Developer Relations at Fivetran, he works with modern data and AI startups building next-generation data infrastructure.
🔍 Topics include:
AI-ready data architectures
Modern lakehouse and Apache Iceberg ecosystems
Developer communities & data platform adoption
Practical lessons from scaling analytics and ML platforms
Andrew is also co-author of Apache Polaris: The Definitive Guide, educator, keynote speaker, and creator with a global audience across YouTube, LinkedIn, and technical learning platforms.

Alex Merced
Head of DevRel, Dremio & O’Reilly Author
Alex will walk through key ideas from his latest work on Agentic Analytics and building data platforms that actually work for AI.
🔍 What to expect:
Why data silos break AI agents
The role of the lakehouse, federation & semantic layers
Apache Iceberg, open catalogs & modern architectures
Why AI agents need context — not just data
A roadmap toward autonomous, AI-driven analytics
Expect a sharp, architecture-focused session connecting modern data platforms with the future of AI.