Snowflake and Build First, Scale Later: Uthutho Public Transport

Accso is in Suite 302 in the Clock Tower building. Nearest parking is in the Clock Tower parking.

This event is 17:30 for 18:00. The session content will start promptly at 18:05 PM. Attendees are welcome to arrive earlier for networking and snacks!

Welcome to the second meetup this month!

Agenda
18:00 - Community Intro and Welcoming

18:05 - Snowflake in a Microsoft-first environment

For organizations invested in the Microsoft data ecosystem, services like SQL Server, Azure Synapse, and Power BI are powerful and familiar. But what if you could enhance your existing environment with a platform built for simplicity, elasticity, and secure data collaboration?

This 60-minute session introduces Snowflake's unique architecture and demonstrates how it complements, rather than replaces, your Microsoft investments. We will explore:

• A Foundation for Flexibility: Discover how Snowflake's separation of storage and compute enables independent scaling, predictable performance, and flexible cost management.
• Simplified Data Workflows: See practical features in action, including Zero Copy Cloning for instant environment creation, Time Travel for rapid data recovery, and versatile scaling patterns for any workload.
• Secure, Cross-Cloud Collaboration: Learn how Snowgrid facilitates secure data sharing across regions and clouds, extending the reach of your existing Microsoft-first environment.
• Unified Security and Governance: Understand Snowflake’s robust, role-based access control (RBAC) model and how it provides consistent governance across your data landscape, drawing parallels to familiar Azure concepts.

Throughout the session, we will connect Snowflake's capabilities to the Microsoft tools you already know. You will leave with a clear understanding of Snowflake's core concepts and a practical vision for how it can integrate with and enhance your modern data platform.

Speaker: De Wet Conradie

19:00 - Build First, Scale Later: A Founder’s Playbook

Too many ideas never make it past planning. Shaqeel and Makhi share how they focused on building first—using free platforms, AI tools, and practical execution—to get Uthutho (an app that brings real time data and community networks together to digitise public transport information) live on the Play Store. Learn how early technical decisions can set you up to scale seamlessly into platforms like Microsoft Azure.

Speaker: Shaqeel Less and Makhi Mangxola

20:30 - Closing and SWAGS exchange