IN-PERSON: Apache Kafka® Meetup Malta

Join us for an Apache Kafka® meetup on Thursday, October 30th from 6:00pm in Malta hosted by Moneybase!

📍Venue:
Moneybase
(Calamata Cuschieri)
Level 0, Ewropa Business Center, Triq Dun Karm, Birkirkara BKR 9034, Malta

🗓 Agenda:

• 6:00pm: Doors open
• 6:00pm - 6:30pm: Food, Drinks and Networking
• 6:30pm: Welcome & Introductions
• 6:30pm - 7:00pm: René Mifsud, Senior DevOps Engineer, Bitpanda
• 7:00pm - 7:30pm: Melih Arslan, Solutions Engineer, Confluent
• 7:30pm - 8:00pm: Additional Q&A & Networking

💡 Speaker One:
René Mifsud, Senior DevOps Engineer, Bitpanda

Title of Talk:
Bitpanda’s journey with Kafka and Disaster Recovery

Abstract:
How we run and harden Kafka at Bitpanda. I’ll cover GitOps/Terraform provisioning, upgrades, capacity management, observability/SLOs, and clean workflows for Connect and Schema Registry. Then the DR setup: cross-region replication, clear RPO/RTO, failover runbooks, and regular drills. Expect practical patterns and copy-ready checklists.

Bio:
René Mifsud is a Senior DevOpsat Bitpanda. He runs Kafka operations and DR end-to-end. GitOps-driven clusters, reliable Connect pipelines, and repeatable failover drills, focused on smooth maintenance and fast recovery.

💡 Speaker Two:
Melih Arslan, Solutions Engineer, Confluent

Title of Talk:
From Data Streams to Decisions: Building an Agentic Mortgage Underwriting System with Confluent and AI

Abstract:
This session showcases how to build an agentic mortgage underwriting system that combines real-time data streaming and AI-driven decision-making. The demo illustrates how specialized AI agents collaborate to process loan applications, assess risk, and provide transparent, auditable outcomes. Attendees will see how Kafka topics, stream processing, and vector search enable dynamic, data-aware reasoning. The session highlights how LLMs and event-driven architectures can work hand in hand to automate complex workflows.

Bio:
Melih is a Barcelona-based Solutions Engineer at Confluent, helping digital-native organizations across emerging markets turn real-time data streaming into measurable business outcomes. With an M.Sc. in Electronics and a career spanning embedded programming, data analytics, cloud computing, and DevOps, he combines hands-on expertise in AWS, Kubernetes, and infrastructure automation with a customer-focused mindset. Having worked with enterprises across the Nordics and the UK, and now emerging markets, Melih specializes in guiding executives and technical leaders on how Kafka and modern data streaming can drive scalability, agility, and innovation.

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DISCLAIMER
NOTE: We are unable to cater for any attendees under the age of 18.
If you would like to speak or host our next event please let us know! community@confluent.io