Off the Ground w Apache Airflow & Ordinary People w Ability for Extraordinary

Hey LA Data Engineers and Data Enthusiasts,

Our meetup will have 2 awesome sessions. First we are honored to have Cliff Meidl. He is a two-time Olympian and motivational speaker who overcame a near-death catastrophe from a massive electrical shock that sent approximately 30,000 volts of electricity through his body causing his heart to stop. From construction accident survivor to Olympian, Cliff Meidl’s dynamic presentation shares his incredible journey of resilience and vision and how these tools and many more are vital in accomplishing our greatest challenges.

Next we'll discuss Apache Airflow with Sohil Jain and Josh Chapman. This open-source workflow (or DAG) management platform which originated from Airbnb is used by companies like Adobe, CarLabs, LA Times, PayPal, Slack, & Twitter. And since this will be our last meetup for 2019, we are raffling free Amazon gift cards.

Agenda:

1. "We are all ordinary people with the ability to accomplish the extraordinary."
   From culture to culture many people strive to be the best they can be and want to be a part of a thriving and winning organization. Cliff's presentation focuses on how breaking down barriers and entering the unknown can provide incredible opportunities, not only in life, but also in business. Many of Cliff’s concepts demonstrate how utilizing tools, innovation and the power of “The Fire Within” is a key to overcoming adversity and excelling.

2. Getting off the Ground with Apache Airflow
   If you’re like us, you relied on cron to schedule data pipelines for many years. It’s simple, it’s reliable, and it’s everywhere. But when it comes to managing non-trivial pipelines, it doesn’t do you many favors. In this talk, we’ll give an intro to the new gold standard in workflow management, Apache Airflow. We’ll also talk about the challenges of running Airflow in production, and show how a managed service like Astronomer can help.
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Josh Chapman, Data Engineering Manager @ The Honest Company: Josh is currently the Manager of Data Engineering at The Honest Company in Los Angeles. He's been building databases professionally for over 15 years and managing teams for 7. When he's not playing around with data, he's usually singing Frozen songs with his daughter, or out watching birds. (Yes, seriously.)
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Sohil Jain, Sr. Data Engineer @ VideoAmp: Sohil has worked on various data science and big data projects with petabyte scale data. Coding and sports are his passion. Sports are the fun style of staying fit.
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Cliff Meidl: When American kayaker Cliff Meidl led Team USA into the stadium at the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Sydney, nearly two billion television viewers were watching globally. Millions of Americans learned of the amazing comeback he made from a tragic near-death construction accident when he was 20 years old. Meidl had jackhammered into 3 buried power lines. His heart stopped due to the severe electrical shock but was revived by the fast acting firefighters. Cliff sustained serious electrical burns and over 15 percent of his body with major damage to both knees.

Nearly 10 years after his horrific accident and his commitment to battle through adversity, Cliff realized his dream when he marched into the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games as a member of the USA Olympic Kayaking Team.

Much thanks to PlayQ for sponsoring their office location and food. PlayQ is a rapidly growing global entertainment and technology company delivering high-quality mobile titles and innovative game development solutions to a worldwide audience. Our games have been downloaded more than 60 million times across the globe, with millions of users playing every day!