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**Join Us for PyData Meetup @ Melio!** Get ready for insightful sessions, networking with the PyData community, and, of course, pizza and beer! A big thanks to **Melio** for hosting us and supporting the community. **📅 Details** Date: Sunday, June 14th, 2026 Time: 18:00 - 21:00 Location: Melio Office, Hagag Towers, North Tower, Floor 32, HaArba’a St 28, Tel Aviv Language: This meetup will be held in Hebrew **🕒 Agenda** 18:00: Gathering, snacks, and drinks 🍕🍻 18:30: Welcome words 18:45: **A Match Made in Heaven: LLM Judgment at Vector-Search Speed,** Shon Mendelson, Staff AI Scientist @ Intuit 19:15: **Dr. Data: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AI Bomb**, Dr. Adi Sarid, CEO @ Sarid Research 19:45: **Cost-Efficient AI Systems in Practice,** Michael Levinger, Senior AI Engineer @ Melio **🎤 Featured Sessions** **A Match Made in Heaven: LLM Judgment at Vector-Search Speed** **Speaker: Shon Mendelson, Staff AI Scientist @ Intuit** Last year, I spent far too long chasing a stubborn data quirk: why our system couldn't see that “The Law Offices of John Miller” and “Miller, John S. PLLC” were the same entity. It led to a bigger question: can you achieve LLM-level judgment at vector-search speeds? Traditional vector search is fast, but often misses subtle context like this, while relying entirely on LLMs is too slow and costly for production at scale. In this talk, I’ll share how we bridged that gap at Intuit with a hybrid system that combines fast vector search, efficient small transformer-based models, and fine-tuned SLMs. The result is a system capable of handling millions of weekly entity comparisons, significantly boosting recall while maintaining precision levels comparable to traditional methods. **Dr. Data: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AI Bomb** **Speaker: Dr. Adi Sarid, CEO @ Sarid Research** When GenAI dropped, our quant market research agency had a beautifully naive thought: "We can finally replace all our human labelers with a simple API call!" Spoiler alert: Scaling AI without hallucinations isn't quite that simple. Join us for a brutally honest, technical look at our data science team's journey from prompt-panic to AI-powered productivity. We’ll share our biggest wins and hardest lessons regarding evaluation frameworks, the rapid obsolescence of custom packages, and the newfound "full-stack audacity" of modern data scientists. **Cost-Efficient AI Systems in Practice** **Speaker: Michael Levinger, Senior AI Engineer @ Melio** Deploying large language models and AI agents in real-world systems requires a constant trade-off between cost, latency, and performance. This talk explores how to optimize LLM- and agent-based systems using techniques such as caching, model routing/cascades, tuning, RAG, and distillation—significantly reducing costs without sacrificing quality. Through a case study of an ATO-agent system, we’ll also cover practical approaches to cost estimation, monitoring, and budgeting. In addition, we’ll compare leading industry models—such as Gemini, Claude, and GPT—focusing on differences in response speed, cost efficiency, and real-world performance, and how to choose the right model for each use case within broader agentic workflows. **🚀 RSVP** Space is limited – RSVP now to secure your spot! We look forward to seeing you there! **📍 How to find us:** Enter the North Tower in Hagag Towers (Ha'Arbaa 28), go up to floor 32, and find us there. **We highly recommend using public transport, but if you’re coming by car, [here is a list of nearby parking lots](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15GIvUZWui78k4b0EyikjvzNMnDede4lY/edit?gid=751370004#gid=751370004).**

**Join Us for PyData Meetup @ Melio!** Get ready for insightful sessions, networking with the PyData community, and, of course, pizza and beer! A big thanks to **Melio** for hosting us and supporting the community. **📅 Details** Date: Sunday, June 14th, 2026 Time: 18:00 - 21:00 Location: Melio Office, Hagag Towers, North Tower, Floor 32, HaArba’a St 28, Tel Aviv Language: This meetup will be held in Hebrew **🕒 Agenda** 18:00: Gathering, snacks, and drinks 🍕🍻 18:30: Welcome words 18:45: **A Match Made in Heaven: LLM Judgment at Vector-Search Speed,** Shon Mendelson, Staff AI Scientist @ Intuit 19:15: **Dr. Data: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AI Bomb**, Dr. Adi Sarid, CEO @ Sarid Research 19:45: **Cost-Efficient AI Systems in Practice,** Michael Levinger, Senior AI Engineer @ Melio **🎤 Featured Sessions** **A Match Made in Heaven: LLM Judgment at Vector-Search Speed** **Speaker: Shon Mendelson, Staff AI Scientist @ Intuit** Last year, I spent far too long chasing a stubborn data quirk: why our system couldn't see that “The Law Offices of John Miller” and “Miller, John S. PLLC” were the same entity. It led to a bigger question: can you achieve LLM-level judgment at vector-search speeds? Traditional vector search is fast, but often misses subtle context like this, while relying entirely on LLMs is too slow and costly for production at scale. In this talk, I’ll share how we bridged that gap at Intuit with a hybrid system that combines fast vector search, efficient small transformer-based models, and fine-tuned SLMs. The result is a system capable of handling millions of weekly entity comparisons, significantly boosting recall while maintaining precision levels comparable to traditional methods. **Dr. Data: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AI Bomb** **Speaker: Dr. Adi Sarid, CEO @ Sarid Research** When GenAI dropped, our quant market research agency had a beautifully naive thought: "We can finally replace all our human labelers with a simple API call!" Spoiler alert: Scaling AI without hallucinations isn't quite that simple. Join us for a brutally honest, technical look at our data science team's journey from prompt-panic to AI-powered productivity. We’ll share our biggest wins and hardest lessons regarding evaluation frameworks, the rapid obsolescence of custom packages, and the newfound "full-stack audacity" of modern data scientists. **Cost-Efficient AI Systems in Practice** **Speaker: Michael Levinger, Senior AI Engineer @ Melio** Deploying large language models and AI agents in real-world systems requires a constant trade-off between cost, latency, and performance. This talk explores how to optimize LLM- and agent-based systems using techniques such as caching, model routing/cascades, tuning, RAG, and distillation—significantly reducing costs without sacrificing quality. Through a case study of an ATO-agent system, we’ll also cover practical approaches to cost estimation, monitoring, and budgeting. In addition, we’ll compare leading industry models—such as Gemini, Claude, and GPT—focusing on differences in response speed, cost efficiency, and real-world performance, and how to choose the right model for each use case within broader agentic workflows. **🚀 RSVP** Space is limited – RSVP now to secure your spot! We look forward to seeing you there! **📍 How to find us:** Enter the North Tower in Hagag Towers (Ha'Arbaa 28), go up to floor 32, and find us there. **We highly recommend using public transport, but if you’re coming by car, [here is a list of nearby parking lots](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15GIvUZWui78k4b0EyikjvzNMnDede4lY/edit?gid=751370004#gid=751370004).**

**Improving Office in Franklinton** Physical location: Improving Office 330 Rush Alley Suite #150 Columbus, OH 43215 Schedule: 6:00 p.m.: Socialize, eat, and drink. Improving will be providing pizza and beverages. 6:30 to 8:00 pm. Main meeting and presentation(s). Topic: This month Chris Pazsint will be talking about Agentic Coding. How does one use CLI Based Agents, and Agentic IDEs such as Cursor, Kiro, Antigravity? How to include agentic coding plugins for IDEs you already love such as Visual Studio Code. We meet on the last Monday of each Month. Presentations are given by members and friends of this group. If you would like to do a presentation (small or large) on a python topic, please contact Central OH Python at centralohpython@gmail.com

If you are interested in selecting investment choices for your 401(k) or other workplace savings plan, minimizing your income tax liability, or identifying the most effective investments for your brokerage account, we are the group for you. We are a local chapter of Bogleheads, whose investment strategy can be found here: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investment_philosophy Or you can peruse the Boglehead forum here: https://www.bogleheads.org/index.php I look forward to seeing you there. Mark Vonder Haar

Over a billion documents processed. Millions of Veterans impacted. Hundreds of thousands of employee hours saved. Faster decisions. Greater accuracy. More benefits in the hands of our disabled Veterans. We created Smart Search, the world’s largest consumer of Amazon Textract, right when GenAI began reshaping what’s possible. Since then, we’ve built a suite of AI‑driven solutions that transform this data into real, measurable outcomes—accelerating benefits decisions for our Nation’s Veterans. Join us for a focused conversation on how an outcome‑driven approach to AI is helping us boost accuracy, streamline workflows, and deliver faster results for those who have served. This is a follow up to the AWS re:Invent 2023 "Intelligent Document Processing with Gen AI for Public Sector" presentation. About Speaker: Cameron Williams is a Senior Technical Project Manager and cross-functional technical leader at Booz Allen Hamilton with 15+ years of experience architecting and evolving scalable, cloud-native systems, from greenfield development to complex enterprise modernization. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronw711/ **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **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

**Welcome to the Women’s Columbus Bogleheads® Sub-Group** This sub-group is for **women who want to learn and discuss finances in a safe, supportive space**. For those interested in moving towards financial independence and retirement by learning investment basics, choosing your 401(k) investments, minimizing taxes, and more. We’re a local chapter of **Bogleheads®**, following a long-term, practical investment philosophy: [Investment Philosophy](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investment_philosophy): https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investment_philosophy [Bogleheads Forum](https://www.bogleheads.org/index.php): https://www.bogleheads.org/index.php No question is too small, and no experience is too simple. Share, ask, and learn — at your own pace, without judgment, in a group of like-minded women. Let’s build confidence and knowledge **together**!

**Important time note:** Please plan on arriving between 5:30 and 6:00 as the elevators lock after 6 and you'll need to message us and we'll need to come get you. The building address is 4450 Bridge Park The entrance is 6620 Mooney St, Suite 400 You will need to scan your ID at the door to get a visitor badge. **Abstract** *Customize the IDE: Building Extensions for Visual Studio Code* Visual Studio Code is one of the most widely used development environments today, and much of its flexibility comes from its extension ecosystem. Extensions allow developers to customize the editor with new features, integrations, and workflow improvements tailored to their needs. In this session, we’ll cover what extensions are and the different types available, including full extensions written in TypeScript or JavaScript, along with lighter-weight extensions such as color themes, language packs, language support, code snippets, and keymaps. We’ll also look at practical reasons a developer might create an extension, from automating repetitive tasks to adding custom tooling. The session includes a hands-on walkthrough of creating a new extension, testing it locally, and understanding the basic project structure. We’ll close with a brief overview of how extensions are packaged and published to the Visual Studio Marketplace and other distribution options. **YouTube Link** TBD

Join us for our June Book Club gathering where we will come together to discuss [The Queer Principles of Kit Webb](https://catsebastian.com/the-queer-principles-of-kit-webb/) by Cat Sebastian in a safe and welcoming environment. Make new friends who share your passion for books and connect with fellow LGBTQ book enthusiasts.

**Latest Dojo Location!** **Knotty Pine Brewing** 1765 W 3rd Ave, Columbus, OH 43212 We're going to try a new dojo location for a few weeks and see how it works Dojos are informal Python group study sessions where everyone interested in Python gathers to learn about Python, help others with Python, or just hang out. Everyone is welcome from Python beginners to experts. Bringing a laptop is encouraged (we'll have extension cords and power strips). If there's something you want to learn leave a comment on this invite so we can plan ahead. We're looking for speakers for our Monthly Meetups! Fill out the form if you are interested in presenting to the Python Community. https://forms.gle/ehSfUAC2WgR34Crq9