Melbourne Data Eng meetup, March 2025

Hey all, please join us for our March Melbourne Data Eng meetup. Join us for an engaging session filled with exciting discussions and networking opportunities.

Don't miss out—RSVP to secure your spot. A big shout-out to Starburst Data for providing us with the catering and Mantel Group for the venue! 🎉

🏠 Location: Mantel Group
🍕 Catering: Starburst Data 😊
💬 Join our Slack Group here: Data Engineers Slack Channel

Schedule:
- 5.00pm: Doors Open
- 5.30pm: Announcements and Welcome
- 5.40pm: 1st Talk
- 6.10pm: 2nd Talk
- 6.40pm: Networking
- 7.30pm: Doors Close

Speakers:
🎤 Martin Traverso, Co-creator of Presto and Trino, CTO at Starburst Data
Talk Title: The Future of Open Data Analytics: A Fireside Chat
Talk Summary: Join us for an exclusive fireside chat with Martin Traverso, Co-Founder and CTO of Starburst Data, and Co-Creator of Presto and Trino. Martin will share his journey from developing Trino at Facebook to shaping the future of open data architectures. We’ll explore the evolution of SQL analytics, the rise of the data lakehouse, and how Trino empowers AI-driven workloads, data mesh strategies, and real-time decision-making.
Speaker Bio: Martin is the Co-Creator of Presto and Trino and CTO at Starburst Data. Previously, he was a Software Engineer at Facebook where he lead the Presto development team and an architect at Proofpoint and Ning. Martin joined Facebook in 2012 when, at the time, Hive was the de facto platform for SQL analytics at Facebook. Seeing a need for fast interactive SQL analytics, Martin and 3 other engineers worked to create what became Presto and now Trino. In the Spring of 2013, Martin and the team rolled out what was then Presto into production at Facebook where it was later made open source in the Fall of 2013. Since then, Trino has gained wide adoption from companies like Netflix, Amazon, and LinkedIn and built a thriving community of data analysts and engineers.

🎤 Michael Markieta, Lead Solution Architect @ Starburst Data
Talk Title: Simplifying Data Exploration with Starburst and AI
Talk Summary: Join us for an insightful session on how Starburst and AI are transforming the way organizations explore and interact with data. We'll demonstrate how Starburst serves as a powerful data serving layer, enabling seamless access to data lakes and other sources, while integrating with Large Language Models (LLMs) to deliver a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) capability. Through a live demo, we'll showcase how Starburst's robust query engine allows users to retrieve data quickly and efficiently, while LLMs interpret free-text questions like "What were the top-performing products last quarter?" or "Show me trends in customer behavior over the past year." This combination simplifies data exploration, enabling analysts to focus on insights rather than complex query writing. We'll also highlight how Starburst's distributed SQL engine and federated query capabilities work alongside LLMs to provide a streamlined experience for querying and interpreting data, ensuring fast, secure, and scalable access to the data you need. By combining Starburst's data serving capabilities with the interpretative power of AI, organizations can drive better decision-making, foster a data-driven culture, and unlock the full potential of their data with greater ease and efficiency.
Speaker Bio: Michael Markieta is the Lead Solution Architect for Starburst in APJ based in Singapore. He prides himself in reaching trusted advisor status and reaching those light bulb "A-HA" moments with his clients, leveraging a unique blend of expertise in data strategy, platform engineering, and software development. Michael brings over a decade of experience ranging from roles as a OpenShift Black Belt at Red Hat, bootstrapping startup co-founder and CTO and Customer Engineer at Google.

If you'd like to present at future meetups, please submit your talk here!
Remember to bring along some great questions! See you all there...