IN-PERSON: Data Streaming Meetup

Join us on March 17th from 6:00pm for a Data Streaming meetup hosted by Snowflake and supported by Dremio and Streambased!

📍Venue:
Snowflake
One Crown Place, London EC2A 4EF, U.K. 5th & 6th floors · London

PLEASE bring your PHOTO ID and REGISTER with your details for security purposes.

🗓 Agenda:

• 6:00pm – 6:30pm: Food/Drinks and Networking
• 6:30pm - 7:00pm: Celeste Horgan, Developer Advocate, Snowflake
• 7:00pm - 7:30pm: Tom Scott, Founder & CEO, Streambased
• 7:30pm - 8:00pm: Will Martin, EMEA Evangelist, Dremio
• 8:00pm: Q&A Networking

💡Speaker One:
Celeste Horgan, Developer Advocate, Snowflake

Title of Talk:
I have no idea what I’m doing, or: building an Apache Spark to Apache Iceberg pipeline from scratch for data ingestion

Abstract:
Transitioning to Apache Iceberg requires a shift in how we think about data storage and ingestion. Enter: Apache Spark… maybe? Exactly how is an open question. In this talk we’ll go through the trial-and-error process of ingesting data into an Apache Iceberg table using Apache Spark. We’ll learn about file formats for Apache Iceberg tables, when to partition (and what the consequences are), common integration mistakes (as made by me in the learning process), and what Apache Spark does best, and when a different tool might work better. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to learn a new piece of software fast using AI to help rather than hinder.

Bio:
Celeste Horgan is a Sr. OSS Advocate at Snowflake. She got her start in open source at the Linux Foundation, where she supported the Kubernetes project on their documentation. From there, she went on to work at Aiven on open source data platforms, and now continues that work evangelizing data systems for Snowflake. Her work on inclusive language has been featured in the New York Times, and she lives in London.

💡Speaker Two:
Tom Scott, Founder & CEO, Streambased

Title of Talk:
Turning The Database Inside Out

Abstract:
Over a decade ago, Martin Kleppmann's Turning the Database Inside Out reshaped how we think about data systems, putting the event stream at the heart of storage and computation. That vision inspired a generation of systems built atop Kafka, Flink, and event-driven materializations.

But what if we never finished what Martin started?

This talk takes the next leap, reimagining not just the transaction log, but the entire database through the lens of streaming. We'll keep Kafka as our canonical source of truth, but enrich it with the missing primitives: long-term storage, indexes, and projections. To achieve this, we'll move beyond Kafka's simple produce/consume model and embrace Apache Iceberg as the new foundation for durable, queryable event data.

Bio:
Long time enthusiast of Kafka and all things data integration, Tom has more than 15yrs experience in innovative and efficient ways to store, query and move data. Tom is currently CEO at Streambased a company focused on unifying operational and analytical data estates into a single, consistent and efficient data layer.

💡Speaker Three:
Will Martin, EMEA Evangelist, Dremio

Title of Talk:
From Stream to Table: Building Kafka-to-Iceberg Pipelines

Abstract:
While Kafka excels at streaming data, the real challenge lies in making that data analytically useful without sacrificing consistency or performance. This talk explores why Apache Iceberg has emerged as the ideal streaming destination, offering ACID transactions, schema evolution, and time travel capabilities that traditional data lakes can't match. Learn about some foundational tools that enable streaming pipelines and why they all converge on this industry standard table format.

Bio:
Will Martin is the EMEA Evangelist at Dremio. Beginning with a background of statistical analysis in particle physics, his professional journey has spanned multiple industries, including banking, shipping logistics, entertainment, healthcare, defence, and customer 360. With experience as a data engineer, solutions architect, and software developer, he has spent 15+ years collaborating with companies and organisations across EMEA and APAC, including roles at CERN, Deloitte, and Tamr.

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If you are interested in hosting/speaking at a meetup, please email community@confluent.io