Name: Driving value forward: rapid development to real-world impact
Start: 2025-01-21T17:30:00+01:00
End: 2025-01-21T20:30:00+01:00
Location: Databricks Amsterdam

We are pleased to invite you to our upcoming meetup co-organized with Databricks on **January 21** at the **Databricks Amsterdam Office**. Get ready for a deep dive into the cutting edge of data intelligence and innovation! First, join Principal Engineer Martin Grund as he reveals how to supercharge your development workflows - making it dramatically easier to build and run large-scale data applications from anywhere. Then, discover how ABN AMRO’s Christian te Riet (Senior Data Scientist) and Ivan Liono (Machine Learning Engineer) orchestrate high-impact, data-driven marketing campaigns using databricks and MLflow. From streamlined developer and application experiences to scaling personalized campaigns, these talks offer practical takeaways for engineers, data scientists, developers and data & AI strategists and practitioners who want to make a real-world impact - fast! We look forward to seeing you then 👋.

**SCHEDULE**

17:30 - 18:15: Walk-in with drinks and bites (🍕 /🍺)
18:15 - 19:00: **10x Easier Development for Spark and Python using Databricks Connect! by [Martin Grund](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgrund/)**
19:00 - 19:15: Break
19:15 - 20:00: **Orchestrating and Scaling Marketing Campaigns using Databricks & MLflow by [Christian te Riet](https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-te-riet/) & [Ivan Liono](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanliono/)**
20:00 - 20:30: Networking and drinks

**TALKS**

**\[Talk 1\]: 10x Easier Development for Spark and Python using Databricks Connect\!** by **[Martin Grund](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgrund/)**
Databricks Connect allows customers to connect to Databricks natively using Python, Scala, or R from any IDEs and data applications leveraging the power of serverless Spark. Using the serverless Spark platform has never been easier. All you need to connect to Spark is a Databricks workspace and user credential, and within seconds, you can leverage the full elasticity of the serverless Spark infrastructure. In this talk, Martin Grund, Principal Engineer at Databricks will walk you through live examples of developing and running applications using DB Connect with Databricks serverless Spark directly from different applications like Ploty, RStudio, integration testing, or even any other hosted notebook offering. Using Databricks Spark instantaneously from anywhere will dramatically improve your developer and application experience.

**\[Talk 2\]: Orchestrating and Scaling Marketing Campaigns using Databricks & MLflow** by **[Christian te Riet](https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-te-riet/)** and **[Ivan Liono](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanliono/)**

In this talk, Christian te Riet and Ivan Liono will explore how ABN AMRO leverages Databricks and MLflow to effectively scale data-driven marketing campaigns. By centralizing and automating the creation of machine learning models for marketing campaigns, they aim to deliver more personalized experiences, boost conversion rates, and reduce operational costs. Their system generates uplift, propensity-to-buy, and churn models for various products (or product groups), simplifying model management and compliance.

Christian and Ivan will share insights from both the data science and engineering perspectives, discussing their technical implementation, design decisions, and the successes and challenges they’ve encountered. This session will inspire attendees and invite feedback, offering practical takeaways for anyone looking to implement similar solutions.

**NOTE:**
Since we can only host a limited amount of attendees for this meetup event, if you cannot join the event, update your status to "**not going**" so you can give your spot to the folks on the waitlist. Thanks for your help!

**DIRECTIONS**

**Address:**
Databricks Amsterdam Office
Barbara Strozzilaan 350 2nd floor, Eurocenter Amsterdam
1083 HN Amsterdam

**By Bike**
If you’re already in Amsterdam or nearby, biking is a convenient option. Use Google Maps or a similar app for a bike-friendly route. Most paths will guide you to the business district near Amsterdam RAI Station. Once you arrive at Barbara Strozzilaan, look for the Eurocenter Amsterdam building at number 350. The Databricks office is on the 2nd floor.

**By Train & Metro**
Take a train or metro to Amsterdam RAI Station (many intercity and local trains stop here). Exit the station and follow signs toward Barbara Strozzilaan - it’s roughly a 5–10 minute walk. Databricks is located at Barbara Strozzilaan 350, in the Eurocenter Amsterdam building, on the 2nd floor.

**By Tram or Bus**
**Tram:** Lines such as 4 and 12 typically serve the Amsterdam RAI area (check current schedules).
**Bus:** Multiple bus routes also stop near Amsterdam RAI Station (e.g., 62, 65, 125, depending on direction).

Take the tram or bus to Amsterdam RAI Station. Exit the station and walk to Barbara Strozzilaan, following the same route as above. Look for Eurocenter Amsterdam at number 350, then go to the 2nd floor for Databricks.

**By Car**
If you’re driving, take the A10 ring road around Amsterdam and use the exit for Amsterdam RAI (often exit 9 or 10, depending on your direction). Follow signs toward Barbara Strozzilaan.

**Parking:** There are paid parking facilities near the RAI and within the Zuidas area. You may also find parking options in the Eurocenter garage.

PyData Amsterdam

PyData

Adyen

The NextGen

Heineken

Rabobank

Picnic

Dexter

Technology

Artificial Intelligence

Python

Hadoop

Big Data

Natural Language Processing

Machine Learning

Data Analytics

Data Visualization

Predictive Analytics

Data Mining

NoSQL

Data Science

Deep Learning

Apache Spark

**Martin Grund** 
Martin Grund is a Principal Engineer at Databricks in Berlin and is leading multiple engineering teams at the intersection of data governance, security, and distributed systems. Together with his teams, he's contributing to core engineering areas of Databricks, such as Unity Catalog and Serverless Spark. As part of that he has been spearheading the efforts around Spark Connect in open source Apache Spark™ for the last few years. He holds a PhD in computer science from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany.

**Christian te Riet** 
Christian te Riet is a senior data scientist working in the Consumer & Affluent Team of the Value from Intelligence & Analytics Center of Expertise (VIA CoE) at ABN AMRO. He is interested in causal inference and causal machine learning and applies these techniques to the customer experience and e-commerce domain by building scalable churn, propensity-to-buy and uplift models.

**Ivan Liono**
Ivan Liono is a machine learning engineer working in the Machine Learning Team of the Customer Interaction and Engagement (CIE) data domain and Dialogue Orchestration (DO) at ABN AMRO. He works on operationalising use cases for the e-commerce and customer experience domain (VIA CoE), and applies his previous software experience to the role with an interest in scalable and performant ML systems, with an emphasis on observability and maintainability.

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Driving value forward: rapid development to real-world impact

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