Continuous Integration

AI is changing how engineering teams work. Faster iteration. More output. Less time spent on the basics. But turning that speed into real delivery isn’t straightforward. At this Future Form session, we’re looking at what it actually takes to move from faster development to shipping real value. Speakers: **Brian Scanlan\, Senior Principal Engineer \| Intercom** Brian will share how they’re increasing engineering throughput using AI inside a large SaaS codebase. What’s improved, where it’s worked best, and the practical challenges that come with scaling it beyond demos. **Luca Lanziani\, Head of DevOps & Platform Engineering \| Nearform** Luca will explore what happens around the code. Because when development speeds up, the constraints shift. Platform, delivery pipelines, team structures. The organisations that benefit are the ones that adapt. Join us for pizza, drinks, and practical insights of where AI can genuinely accelerate delivery, and what needs to change to make that happen. **If you’re working hands-on with AI tools or responsible for how software gets delivered, this session is for you.**

Hi folks! Welcome to our May Cloud Native London meetup! Join us to hear from our three great speakers and network with your fellow techies over pizza and drinks, or alternatively chat and following along on Youtube or LinkedIn! 6:00 Pizza and drinks 6:30 Welcome 6:45 The End of Handoffs: Build, Run, Own in One Flow (Alberto Pose, Pulumi) 7:15 You Can’t Patch Fast Enough: What AI-Driven Attacks Mean (Idan Elor, Oligo Security) 7:45 Break 8:00 From Zero to HyperPod: Distributed Model Training on AWS (Anton Nazaruk, Cloud Combinator) 8:30 Wrap up See you there! Cheryl (@oicheryl) **The End of Handoffs: Build, Run, Own in One Flow (Alberto Pose, Pulumi)** AI is changing the shape of team structures. A similar shift to the one that brought dev and ops together into DevOps is now happening as product must also meet the accountability bar. At the same time, tooling has not caught up with "throwing it to Claude/Codex". Engineers are confronted with a choice: trust code and actions they do not fully understand, or... move too slowly. Are these problems fundamentally new, or are there lessons we can draw from the past to adapt and think about what comes next? *Alberto Pose is a software engineer with a soft spot for developer tooling and infrastructure. He is currently part of the team managing the CI/CD pipelines for Pulumi's open source projects. Before this, he spent nearly ten years at Prime Video and AWS. A major highlight of his time there was helping bootstrap the living room device automation team, taking it from a small group effort to a 30 person organisation that brought full automation to millions of streaming devices worldwide.* **You Can’t Patch Fast Enough: What AI-Driven Attacks Mean (Idan Elor, Oligo Security)** Anthropic’s Project Glasswing announcement put the industry on notice. AI has fundamentally changed the threat landscape and the risks facing organizations, and it’s happening faster than most security models can adapt. AI-assisted attackers can now discover vulnerabilities, generate exploits, and launch attacks at rates never seen before, collapsing the window between disclosure and exploitation. In this environment, patching alone is no longer enough. For cloud-native applications, where systems are dynamic and constantly evolving, this creates a new challenge: how do you stay protected when you can’t fix vulnerabilities fast enough? This talk explores how the attacker model is shifting in the AI era, why traditional approaches are breaking down, and what it means to move from vulnerability-based security to real-time protection at runtime. We’ll cover how focusing on exploit techniques enables teams to stop attacks as they happen, including zero-days. *Idan Elor is Field CTO at Oligo Security, where he partners with large enterprises to solve complex application and cloud security challenges. He most recently served as Director of Solution Engineering & Tech-Alliances at Apiiro, where he empowered enterprises to secure their software supply chains. With over a decade of experience spanning application security, DevSecOps, and mobile security, Idan has also held leadership positions at companies like Snyk, Symantec, and HP. His unique background combines deep hands-on technical expertise. A passionate advocate for bridging the gap between security and development teams, Idan is known for his ability to translate complex security concepts into actionable strategies that organizations can actually implement.* **From Zero to HyperPod: Distributed Model Training on AWS (Anton Nazaruk, Cloud Combinator)** You've got a model that works. You just need more GPUs. How hard can it be? That's where the pain starts. GPU availability, infrastructure complexity, and cost are the three blockers that trip up even experienced teams when scaling from single-GPU training to serious distributed workloads. This talk is a practical walkthrough of how to set up distributed model training on AWS - covering the capacity options (On-Demand, Spot, Capacity Blocks, SageMaker Training Plans), when to use each, and a repeatable infrastructure blueprint for compute, networking, storage, and observability. I'll demo provisioning a HyperPod cluster and running a distributed training job with automatic failure recovery, and share the cost levers that matter at scale. Whether you're a platform engineer supporting ML teams or an ML engineer tired of fighting infrastructure, you'll leave with a decision framework and a blueprint you can implement. *Anton Nazaruk is CTO at Cloud Combinator, where he helps companies run GPU workloads on AWS - from early-stage startups to larger organisations doing distributed training at scale. He focuses on making ML infrastructure repeatable, resilient, and cost-efficient.* *LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anton-nazaruk* *Check out [https://www.oicheryl.com/cloudnativelondon](https://www.oicheryl.com/cloudnativelondon) if you're interested in speaking or sponsoring.*

The International Cafe is a warm, welcoming space where people from all backgrounds come together to make friends, practice English, and have fun in a relaxed setting. Whether you're new to the area or just looking to connect, it’s a great place to meet people, share cultures, and enjoy conversation, games, and activities. come join our friendly international community!

Welcome to our May event. We're delighted to welcome [Elena Lape](http://linkedin.com/in/elenalape), Founder, Holopin and [Rupam Jha](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rupam-jha-151313a7/), Senior DevOps Engineer, as well as [Areg Hovakimyan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/areg-hovakimyan/), Senior DevOps Engineer. **Elena** takes an affectionate but honest look at the wonderfully chaotic reality of working with AWS, a platform that can do almost anything, but rarely in just one obvious way. **Rupam** answers the question every fast-moving team faces: how do you stay secure, compliant, and audit-ready on AWS without creating bottlenecks for builders? **Areg** provides an overview of Amazon EKS, while highlighting what truly makes a difference in production. A big thank you to our sponsors [Cloudscaler](https://rebrand.ly/cloudscaler), [Rayo](https://rebrand.ly/rayo-cloud) & [The Scale Factory](https://rebrand.ly/scalefactory) **Programme:** 18:00: Arrival, registration 18:15: Talks start 20:00: Networking with food and a drink provided by the generosity of our sponsors. **Talk 1:** ***AWS: An Experience with Elena Lape*** Those of us who care a lot about developer experience would certainly agree: AWS is, undeniably, an experience. This session explores the quirks, overlaps, and “wait, why?” moments that make AWS both impressive and deeply relatable. Expect an affectionate look at the strange reality of using a platform that can do everything except explain itself briefly. **Elena** is founder and Head of Engineering at Holopin, where she leads a platform used by 150,000+ software engineers worldwide. Before Holopin, she worked across several Silicon Valley scaleups building Kubernetes integrations, developer tooling, and cloud infrastructure, and has been building on AWS since 2016. Elena is deeply focused on developer experience. She spent part of her early career at GitHub, remains active in hackathon communities, and today serves on the W3C Advisory Board. **Talk 2:** ***Learn how to turn AWS security and compliance policies into automated, scalable, and auditable practices — without slowing down innovation with Rupam Jha*** Many organisations struggle to enforce security and compliance consistently across AWS environments while scaling their workloads. In this session, I’ll walk through practical strategies to secure AWS accounts, implement automated compliance controls, and simplify audits. Using real-world examples and best practices, attendees will leave with actionable techniques to protect data, streamline operations, and maintain regulatory readiness in the cloud. **Rupam** is a Senior DevOps and Platform Engineer who enjoys building AWS platforms that are scalable, secure, and easy for teams to use. Her focus is on creating cloud-native environments with tools like AWS, Kubernetes, EKS, Terraform, and Vault, helping engineering teams ship faster and more confidently through automation, standardisation, and strong platform foundations. A big part of what she does is reducing complexity for developers by building self-service infrastructure, improving delivery pipelines, and making platforms more reliable, observable, and cost-effective. She cares about security by design and operational excellence, and she believes infrastructure should feel like a product - something dependable, well-designed, and built to help teams move quickly without adding unnecessary risk. **Lightning Talk:** ***EKS in Production: What Actually Changed After Adoption*** **Areg** is a Senior DevOps Engineer and will talk about Amazon EKS. Amazon EKS offers many capabilities to simplify Kubernetes operations, but in practice, not all of them deliver the same value. In this 15 minute talk, Areg will provide a quick overview of key EKS capabilities, highlight 2-3 that truly make a difference in production, and explore common areas where teams tend to overcomplicate their platforms. **Do you have a story to share?** If you are interested in speaking at one of our events, please check out our [call for papers here](https://awsuguk.org/call-for-papers/). We are advocates for greater inclusion & diversity in UK Tech and are especially keen to receive talk submissions from people in underrepresented groups. If you are interested in speaking at a future meetup but would like to discuss what to expect or need assistance, please contact our Inclusion & Diversity Lead Natalie Gray - graynataliej@gmail.com or DM her [@natjgray](https://twitter.com/natjgray) Check out our [website](https://awsuguk.org/) for more information about our community. Remember to follow us [@AWSUserGroupUK](https://twitter.com/AWSUserGroupUK) and on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/aws-ug-uk) for the latest updates, and you can find videos of our past meetups [here.](https://awsuguk.org/our-videos/)

Join our fun and challenging **upper intermediate coaching sessions**—perfect for players looking to improve their volleyball skills in a supportive and energetic environment. Each 2-hour session includes a structured warm-up, high-intensity drills, and game play. Participants should be comfortable with the 5-1 rotation, though exceptions may be considered. **Location**: Bacon's College, Canada Water **Time**: Wednesdays, 18:00 – 20:00 **Price**: £13 (Pay As You Go) *Pay by card or tap after the session* **Cancellation Policy**: Cancel by Tuesday at 18:00 We’re proud to be part of the **SQUAD Volleyball** family. These sessions offer players an exciting opportunity to grow, develop their game, and potentially join a SQUAD team competing in the London Volleyball Association leagues.

Do you want to submit a talk to a Postgres conference? Do you want to try out the challenge of fitting a bunch of interesting information into 5 minutes for a lightning talk? Can you talk for 1 to 2 minutes on a Postgres topic you've just heard? On the 6th of May, we will be back at Star of Kings, running an event which is all about speakers and speaking. With the Call for Papers for PGDay UK closing on the 12th, we are inviting anyone who has a talk idea, is unsure of whether the topic fills the time, or just might enjoy a bit of technical improv to join us. If you would like to present a talk or a lightning talk, please get in touch. We will update this event description a people come forward. In the absence of any volunteers it will be Postgres-themed improv talks and, maybe, an organiser taking a talk for a spin. Don't let it come to that :)

Join a relaxed creator walk through central London designed for photographers, content creators, influencers and anyone who wants better social media content. **Tickets Must Be Booked in Advance here:** [https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-content-walk-better-reels-hidden-photo-spots-tickets-1988561591250](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-content-walk-better-reels-hidden-photo-spots-tickets-1988561591250?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true) Ticket price £16.96 This is not just a meetup. During the walk I’ll share practical tips on how to create stronger Instagram Reels, better phone photos, smoother movement shots, filming confidence in public, and how to use London locations creatively. We’ll visit stylish spots around Covent Garden, Seven Dials and nearby streets while creating content and meeting like-minded people. Perfect for beginners or experienced creators. What you’ll get: • Better phone content skills • Reels ideas and filming tips • Hidden photo/video locations • Creative networking • Fresh content for Instagram/TikTok Limited small group for better experience.

*📍**Location*** London Bridge Hive, 8 Holyrood Street, SE1 2EL London - 2 minutes from London Bridge Station *📌**Description*** Agentic AI isn’t about replacing engineers — it’s about reshaping how work flows through the SDLC. We’ll explore new interaction patterns, boundaries, and responsibilities in AI-native delivery. 🔍 ***Key topics*** •Agentic AI • SDLC **⏲️ *Agenda*** 6:00 Pizza and drinks 6:30 Welcome 6:45 Talk 7:30 Q&A 7:45 Networking and Pizzas! 🍕 8:30 Wrap up & See you at the next Meetup! **🎙️*Speaker*** Giulio Roggero CTO @ Mia-Platform 25 years of experience in software engineering, serial entrepreneur with more than 10 business initiatives launched, today is co-founder and CTO at Mia-Platform, the Internal Developer Platform named by Gartner Cool Vendor for Software Engineering Technologies and in the Cloud Application Platforms Magic Quadrant. Principal focus: cloud native, platform engineering, data fabric and omnichannel experience. He likes to paint Blood Bowl miniatures, construct Lego, build and drive RC Cars and learn piano.

Discover the World at International Cafe! We are a group of Christian volunteers set out to create a friendly community that welcomes everyone! Come and practice speaking English with our English speaking volunteers. You will learn more about British culture and discuss life with NEW topics each week. We also include a Bible story at the end of our sessions. At International Cafe, we start our meet up with Tea & Coffee and continue in engaging conversations. Each week, we'll look at NEW topics about British culture and history, so you can learn and socialize. Best of all, it's a free event and open to everyone! So mark your calendars: 🕕 Time: **Sunday at 2:30 PM** 📍 Address: ECIR OEA, Inspire at St James Questions? Text Organiser at 07708228436.

**MONTY ENGLISH CONVERSATION GROUP** [https://montyenglish.co.uk/english-conversation-group-classes-in-london](https://montyenglish.co.uk/english-conversation-group-classes-in-london) **How to find us** When you arrive at the Royal George we go down into the basement and you will find us there. Just ask a staff member if you cannot find us! Here is the location of the Royal George on google maps: [https://maps.app.goo.gl/HpkySsu2rEqUUub1A](https://maps.app.goo.gl/HpkySsu2rEqUUub1A) * Food or drink at the pub is not included (please make at least one purchase - they have a good range of drinks and great food if you feel hungry) **How are the lessons?** The lesson is a General English lesson focused on speaking and error correction - every lesson we usually cover 3 different topics. This will encourage you to use new vocabulary and practise grammatical structures. The group has a limit of 25 people but I usually accept people if you are on the waiting list. You will be divided into groups of 3-6 with others of a similar speaking level so you'll have plenty of opportunity to talk and ask questions to your qualified, native teacher Jon. The lesson takes place in the relaxed environment of the Royal George basement which is a pleasant pub, a two-minute walk from Tottenham Court Road tube station. The lesson is ideal for pre-intermediate, intermediate and upper-intermediate students wishing to get to the next level. If you have any questions about the English lesson then please call me or send me a message. **Payment** Payments can be made in cash or by card (free of charge) when you come to the class. If it is your first time it is only £2! After your first time it is £6 for a single class or you can buy a ticket that makes each class cheaper; 5 classes for £20, 10 classes for £25 (you can use these tickets whenever you like and do not need to come in a set period of time) or 20 classes for £40 which has a limited use to within a six-month period. You can also pay via our website: [https://montyenglish.co.uk/english-conversation-group-classes-in-london](https://montyenglish.co.uk/english-conversation-group-classes-in-london) I hope to see you soon - if you have any questions please message me (via WhatsApp) on 07771 561 576 All the best, Jon (event organiser)

Join us on May 7th from **6:00pm** for a Data Streaming meetup hosted by **[Fresha](https://www.fresha.com/)**! 📍**Venue:** **Fresha** The Tower, 207 Old Street London, EC1V 9NR 7th Floor **PLEASE bring your PHOTO ID and REGISTER with your First and Last Name, Email. Thanks!** **DOORS CLOSE AT 7PM FOR SECURITY.** 🗓 **Agenda:** * 6:00pm – 6:30pm: Food/Drinks and Networking * 6:30pm - 7:00pm: Anton Borisov, Principal Data Engineer, Fresha & Nicoleta Lazar, Sr. Data Engineer, Fresha * 7:00pm - 7:30pm: Olena Kutsenko, Staff Developer Advocate, Confluent * 7:30pm - 8:00pm: Tom Scott, Founder & CEO, Streambased * 8:00pm - 9:00pm: Q&A Networking 💡**Speaker One:** Anton Borisov, Principal Data Engineer, Fresha & Nicoleta Lazar, Sr. Data Engineer, Fresha **Title of Talk:** Apache Fluss: Streaming Storage for Real-Time Analytics **Abstract:** Apache Flink has largely solved streaming computation, but state management remains a bottleneck. Operator state—often backed by RocksDB—is scoped to individual jobs, making it hard to share state across pipelines without re-emitting it through systems like Apache Kafka. This leads to expensive joins and added operational complexity. Apache Fluss (incubating) addresses this by externalizing state into a streaming storage layer backed by S3. Its PrimaryKey tables act as upsertable key-value stores with replicated changelogs, enabling shared state tables accessible from Flink, Spark, or native clients. With Flink 2.1’s Delta Join, both sides of a join can perform lookups against Fluss-managed indexes—eliminating the need for large join state altogether. In this talk, we’ll introduce Fluss, show key use cases like CDC enrichment and bilateral joins, and share lessons from running it in production on EKS —including the trade-offs and rough edges we encountered. 💡**Speaker Two:** Olena Kutsenko, Staff Developer Advocate, Confluent **Title of Talk:** The journey of a record from Kafka topic to analytics table **Abstract:** Modern data platforms increasingly rely on streaming systems like Apache Kafka as the source of truth—but turning event streams into reliable, queryable analytics tables is far from trivial. This talk explores what really has to happen when moving data from a Kafka topic into an Apache Iceberg table. Beyond simple ingestion, we will walk through the essential steps: schema evolution, data normalization, partitioning, exactly-once guarantees, late-arriving events, and table maintenance. Using Confluent Tableflow as one concrete example, we will examine how these challenges can be addressed in practice. Along the way, we will compare alternative approaches—such as Kafka Connect sinks, stream processing pipelines, and custom ingestion frameworks—to highlight trade-offs in correctness, latency, and operational complexity. The goal is not to promote a single solution, but to provide a mental model for designing robust streaming-to-lakehouse pipelines, helping you understand what matters regardless of the tooling you choose. **Bio:** Olena is a Staff Developer Advocate at Confluent and a recognized expert in data streaming and analytics. With two decades of experience in software engineering, she has built mission-critical applications, led high-performing teams, and driven large-scale technology adoption at industry leaders like Nokia, HERE Technologies, AWS, and Aiven. A passionate advocate for real-time data processing and AI-driven applications, Olena empowers developers and organizations to use the power of streaming data. She is an AWS Community Builder, a dedicated mentor, and a volunteer instructor at a nonprofit tech school, helping to shape the next generation of engineers. As an international speaker and thought leader, Olena regularly presents at top global conferences, sharing deep technical insights and hands-on expertise. Whether through her talks, workshops, or content, she is committed to making complex technologies accessible and inspiring innovation in the developer community. 💡**Speaker Three:** Tom Scott, Founder & CEO, Streambased **Title of Talk:** *Infinite Kafka? Rethinking Retention with Iceberg* **Abstract:** Apache Kafka is designed for high-throughput, low-latency event streaming, not cost-efficient long-term storage. Yet we constantly see cases like event sourcing, audit/compliance, and large-scale reprocessing forcing that pattern onto it. As retention increases, costs grow linearly to support edge cases, one-time runs, and “checkbox” use cases. Can Iceberg help here? In this talk, Tom explores a hybrid architecture that separates hot and cold data while preserving Kafka’s log semantics. Using a combination of Kafka and Apache Iceberg, he demonstrates how to extend Kafka into low-cost object storage, enabling effectively unlimited retention without sacrificing performance or access patterns. The result is a unified log that supports both real-time processing and long-term replay, removing the traditional trade-off between cost and capability in Kafka-based systems. **Bio:** Long-time enthusiast of Kafka and all things data integration, Tom has more than 15 years of 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. \*\*\* If you are interested in hosting/speaking at a meetup, please email community@confluent.io

Hello and welcome to our next **GenAI UK x Cloud Native & Open-Source AI** meetup. This event brings together engineers, practitioners, builders, and leaders working across cloud-native platforms, open-source ecosystems, Gen AI, Data and Agentic AI. Our meetups are friendly, welcoming, and community-driven; everyone is welcome, whether you’re experienced or just curious. This session will include practitioner talks, demos, Q&A, and time for networking with like-minded peers. We run bi-monthly in-person meetups in London, bi-monthly online global events, and regional chapters across the UK, North America, and APAC. Food and refreshments will be provided for in-person events where a host venue is supporting. We are delighted to host this event in **London** on the **7th of May** with Netmind AI NetMind XYZ ([https://xyz.netmind.ai/](https://xyz.netmind.ai/)) is NetMind.AI's new agent platform where you can create your agents with just natural language. Agents on NetMind XYZ can now join moltbook. **Speakers and Sessions:** Speaker: Xiangpeng Wan, Product Lead at Netmind.AI Session Title: Enterprise Agentic Application Layer - Leveraging Claude Code Paradigms Description: The March 2026 Claude Code leak exposed the blueprints of enterprise-grade AI agents, revealing advanced paradigms like Multi-Agent Swarms, Context Engineering, and IDE Bridges. While the codebase remains legally untouchable, its architectural concepts are rapidly accelerating open-source infrastructure. This presentation dissects these core mechanics to highlight a critical strategic pivot: stop reinventing frameworks and start building applications. As underlying agent infrastructures become commoditized, the true competitive advantage now lies in integrating domain knowledge and optimizing UX. Join us to learn how to leverage these battle-tested philosophies to dominate the application layer, turning "radioactive code" into actionable product strategies. Speaker: Richárd Kovács, CTO at Harikube Session Title: From Orchestration to Platform: The Missing Puzzles to Unify Polyglot Services on Kubernetes. Description: Imagine a world where Kubernetes itself becomes the unified platform—not just for container orchestration, but for serverless functions, microservices, and the entire API ecosystem. This presentation explores the missing architectural pieces required to make that world a reality. We focus on the architectural puzzles required to unify these layers: serverless functions, specialized Kubernetes Operators, and the powerful Aggregation API layer. By solving these integration puzzles, you can empower development teams to build real Cloud-Native nanoservices, microservices, and REST APIs on the same PaaS, in any language they choose, turning Kubernetes from a simple orchestrator into a powerful, opinionated application platform. **Agenda (GMT /UK ):** * 18:00: Welcome and refreshments * 18:30: Introduction - Ethan Sumner * 18:35: Richárd Kovács * 19:10: Break * 19:20: Frank Contrepois * 19:55: Close and Networking **Get Involved:** We are always keen to hear from: • Speakers — case studies, engineering deep dives, lessons learned, open-source talks • Hosts — organisations able to provide space for future meetups • Sponsors — support with refreshments, marketing, or accessibility If you would like to speak, sponsor, or host a future event, please get in touch with **[Ethan Sumner](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethansumner404/)**[ ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethansumner404/)via LinkedIn. You can find our YouTube Channel **[here](https://www.youtube.com/@CommunityStackHQ)[.](https://www.youtube.com/@CommunityStackHQ)** This community forms part of the **[Community Stack ecosystem](https://www.meetup.com/pro/generative-ai-uk-community/)**[ ](https://www.meetup.com/pro/generative-ai-uk-community/)and follows the Community Stack Code of Conduct to ensure a respectful, inclusive, and welcoming environment for all attendees.

Join us on Wednesday 6th May for our next AI Exchange event, hosted by AWS at their Holborn HQ. Here's what's on the agenda: **[WeBuild-AI](https://www.webuild-ai.com/)** are making the case that bigger isn't always better. Their talk breaks down how small language models, through distillation, fine tuning and low rank adaptation, can deliver the same results as larger models, at a fraction of the cost. **[Nova Intelligence](https://www.novaintelligence.com/)** are tackling a problem that doesn't get talked about enough, most AI agents simply weren't built to work with enterprise software like SAP. Their talk discusses how they have solved that, and what it looks like when AI works as well in the enterprise world as it does everywhere else. **[AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/)** are tackling the question underneath all the others, not how to use AI, but what it's doing to the human mind. Their talk explores how cognition is shifting, which human traits become more valuable as AI takes on complexity, and what genuine human AI partnership actually looks like. As always, doors open at 6:30pm and talks start at 7pm sharp. We have a tight capacity for this event, so please RSVP as soon as you can to secure your space. **Agenda:** **[Adel Rahimi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelr/) @ [WeBuild-AI](https://www.webuild-ai.com/)** "**Small Language Models: Practical AI for the Real World"** Large language models have dominated the AI conversation, but a quieter revolution is underway. In this talk, we'll explore the rise of small language models and why they matter now more than ever, from reduced infrastructure costs to data sovereignty and the ability to run AI on-premise or at the edge. We'll dive into the techniques that make small models punch above their weight, including distillation, quantisation, fine-tuning and low-rank adaptation. Whether you're navigating regulatory constraints, working with limited compute, or simply looking for a more practical path to production AI, this session will give you the tools to think smaller and smarter. Bio: Adel is a Principal Engineer at Webuild-AI. He has a decade of experience in building and scaling AI and ML solutions at different industries and different company sizes, ranging from series A to unicorns and more recently he was a Sr. AI Engineering Manager at Procter & Gamble. He has also published several research papers in the areas of AI Explainability and NLP and is an advocate of safe and explainable AI. **[Marcello Urbani](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcello-urbani-4730b75/?skipRedirect=true) @ [Nova Intelligence](https://www.novaintelligence.com/)** "**Bringing Agentic AI to the SAP Ecosystem"** Most enterprise software wasn't built with AI agents in mind — and mainstream agents weren't built for enterprise software. SAP is the sharpest example: code lives in the system, not a filesystem, and git-based workflows simply don't apply. Nova closes that gap — an agentic assistant that speaks SAP natively. This talk covers the mismatch problem, how we designed Nova around SAP's environment, and what it looks like when an AI agent finally works as well on SAP as it does on mainstream systems. Bio: Marcello is a software engineer with over two decades in the SAP ecosystem, most of them building DevOps tooling at Basis Technologies. Last year he joined Nova Intelligence to focus on AI applied to SAP systems. An active open source contributor, he is best known for abapfs, a VS Code plugin that enables ABAP development directly in the editor. **[Elliott Almeida](https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliott-almeida/) @ [AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/)** **"The Cognitive Partnership: How AI is Reshaping Human Intelligence"** This session explores the profound psychological transformation at the intersection of human cognition and artificial intelligence. Moving beyond tactical implementation, we examine how AI is fundamentally altering our cognitive identity and which human psychological profiles naturally thrive in AI collaboration. Drawing on the "Missing Middle" philosophy and the tension between cognitive offloading and scaffolding, we investigate the paradox of augmentation: as AI handles increasingly complex cognitive tasks, what uniquely human capacities become more valuable? We hope to see you there for another great AI filled evening! **Sponsors...** The AI Exchange is brought to you in partnership with[ LinuxRecruit](https://www.linuxrecruit.co.uk/) and[ AWS.](https://aws.amazon.com/) LinuxRecruit is building the next wave of Tech Unicorns in Europe. Whether you're hiring or exploring your next opportunity, [get in touch](https://www.linuxrecruit.co.uk/jobs). The types of roles we have currently are across Founding Engineers, Engineers across Product, Software, AI/ML, Data and Platform Infrastructure/DevOps.

Customer identity resolution becomes increasingly complex as organizations scale across multiple systems, regions, and data formats. Traditional rule-based approaches often fail to keep up with data variability, require constant manual tuning, and struggle with real-time processing needs. This session presents a practical approach to building a scalable identity resolution pipeline using AWS services and modern AI techniques. The architecture combines data ingestion through Amazon S3 and AWS Glue, transformation pipelines using Spark on EMR, and machine learning models deployed via SageMaker for entity matching and standardization. Graph-based relationship modeling is implemented using Amazon Neptune to improve resolution accuracy by incorporating household and shared attribute context. We will walk through how machine learning models can be used for name and address normalization, how intelligent blocking strategies improve matching efficiency, and how feedback loops can be introduced to continuously improve accuracy. The session also highlights how serverless components such as AWS Lambda can be used for orchestration and real-time processing. **SPEAKER BIO** Mosaic Syed is a Senior Data Engineering and Cloud Solutions Architect with over 20 years of experience designing and delivering scalable, secure, and high-performance data solutions across global enterprise environments. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosaic-basha-syed-92300856 **CALL FOR SPEAKERS** Learn more: [https://www.awscolumbus.com/get-involved/](https://www.awscolumbus.com/get-involved/) **THANK YOU** *VEEAM* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Veeam*, please visit their website: [https://www.veeam.com/](https://www.veeam.com/) **DIRECTIONS** 8800 Lyra Dr #450 · Columbus, OH go to 4th floor. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

Let’s meet, wander the exhibits and open galleries, and enjoy an evening out in the Franklinton Arts District. (Nearby pay parking is available in the garage on McDowell, right around the corner from One Line Coffee, and, past it along the curb as McDowell dead ends.)

This meetup is a beginner-friendly session introducing version control for Unity projects, with a look at three common tools: Git, Perforce, and Unity Version Control. The goal is to help you understand what version control is, why it matters for Unity development, and what options are out there. The format will likely be presentation-style, with live demos and time for questions throughout. You'll see each tool in action and learn how they fit into a Unity workflow. What to Expect: * An introduction to version control and why it's essential for Unity projects * An overview of Git, Perforce, and Unity Version Control * Demos of each tool in a Unity workflow * Tips for getting started * No prior version control experience required * Resources for continued learning All experience levels are welcome. Whether you're new to version control or already using one of these tools, this session will help you understand what each one offers. Food and drinks provided. Join us to learn more about version control options for Unity.

Feeling down? Sometimes depressed? Can't focus? Negativity & stress? Recent losses? Creativity in career and personal life hindered by mental blocks? Sometimes we never fully recover from traumatic experiences. Whether it was yesterday, last week or a year ago, traumatic experiences - a loss of a loved one, losing a job, a breakup - can leave you scarred. You talk about it and feel a little better, but it never goes away. After you hang up the phone, it's still there; the sadness, the cloud, the over-thinking, the worry, the guilt. You try to focus, but you're blocked. You try to look forward into new experiences, new relationships but a cloud is hanging over you, casting a shadow on what you once considered a bright, cheerful future. What happened to your courage? Your strength of character? You're 'why not' attitude? Whoever said 'time heals' must have had a special time machine, because after weeks, months, years, you're wondering - when exactly does that kick in? Sometimes it seems like drinking or drugs are the way to go. But they wear off, and now the problem is still there with added side effects from the drugs. At this free local Meetup event we will talk about: * What causes grief, anxiety and depression to become chronic. * Is it possible to regain your joy and happiness even after traumatic experiences? * How to break away from negativity and focus on the future * What are the steps to take to get control of your mind and your emotions? Learn about a safe, gentle, do-it-yourself counseling that can be done in the comfort of your own home. Let's explore safe, effective solutions for healing from traumatic experiences. Be sure to click on the red "Attend" button below to come to the event. We look forward to seeing you there. This group is sponsored by the Dianetics & Scientology Life Improvement Center.

**Building a great product is one thing—building momentum behind it is another.** Join **Senior Product Manager Adam Solaiman** and **User Experience Manager Tyson Smith** for a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to turn complex ideas into scalable products inside large organizations. In this session, they’ll share how teams move from ambiguity to execution—navigating organizational complexity, aligning stakeholders, and continuously evolving products after launch. You’ll walk away with insights on how to: * Build and sustain momentum across teams * Adapt to changing priorities without losing direction * Scale products thoughtfully in complex environments Whether you're driving a new initiative or growing an existing product, this conversation will give you practical strategies to keep things moving forward. Come connect, learn, and swap stories with fellow product professionals. \-\-\- Food and drinks will be provided by Switchbox, our generous host. Free parking will be available at the front and back sides of the Switchbox Office.

It’s time to take control of your mental health. How do you get rid of stress, anxiety and uncertainty? These emotions are buried deep in your reactive mind. Find out what the reactive mind is, and in the process find yourself. Have you ever suffered from a traumatic experience, a deep loss or been through a painful breakup? Has your ability to communicate suffered as a result? And after that, even though you "moved on" did you find that things were never quite the same? Have you ever looked at childhood photos, or reminisced your early life and wondered where that happiness and spark went? Are your emotions out of your own control? Have you ever felt, even if you aren’t aware of it, that possibly you are getting in your own way of your happiness and success? How does this affect your self-confidence? Find out what is at the root of all stress, anxiety, depression and self-doubt. Find out how and why you hold yourself back from achieving your goals and having the life you have dreamed of. As soon as you learn what is at the root of these unwanted conditions, you’ll see it is something you can DO something about. You will not be labeled or categorized at this MeetUp.

Columbus Code & Coffee is an inclusive, informal co-working session. People of all skill levels attend, and we love it that way. Many people (optionally) bring projects to work on, and many other people (optionally) socialize the entire time. It's entirely up to you! **What to Expect at the Intro Circle** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ Near the beginning of the event (1:30 pm), we do a standup: * Organizer announcements, updates, and logistics Round 1 - (7 secs max): * Your name * What you're working on * What you can help others with Round 2: * Community events you wanna plug. If none, that's cool too. Round 3: * Job opportunities you're hiring for OR announce that you are looking for one. If none, that's cool. After the introduction circle, everything is self-organized! Feel free to work alone, pair up, attend one of our workshops/presentations, or mingle!