Kubernetes

**Welcome to Networx London** Founders, investors, and startup-minded professionals—this evening is for you. Ever wondered how startups actually get funded and how the right people connect behind the scenes? Join us for a focused yet relaxed networking evening bringing together **startup founders, angel investors, venture capitalists, and ambitious professionals** across London’s innovation ecosystem. Whether you’re building a startup, investing in early-stage opportunities, or exploring the world of venture capital, this is your space to meet the people shaping the future of business. 📍 **Venue: The Sycamore, Holborn** A modern, relaxed venue in central London, just steps from Holborn station. Perfect for after-work networking, drinks, and great conversations. 📅 **Event Schedule** **18:30 – 19:00** \| Welcome & Warm intro **19:00 – 19:30** \| Open Networking **19:30 – 21:30** \| Informal Networking \(no pitches\, no pressure\) 💡 **Why Attend?** Connect with startup founders, angel investors, venture capitalists, and ambitious professionals in a relaxed networking environment. Discover how real opportunities are created through conversations, collaborations, and connections between founders and investors. **Who Should Attend:** Startup founders, co-founders, entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capital professionals, and startup operators, as well as professionals in finance, tech, and business interested in startups, early-stage investing, and London’s innovation ecosystem. **🎟 Tickets & Entry:** To avoid the venue getting overcrowded and ensure everyone enjoys an amazing night, we've introduced a small ticket price to keep things running smoothly. **Limited spots!** Register today and hit **Follow** for updates on future weekly events. 📸 **Event Photography** Please note that photos and videos may be taken for promotional purposes. **Instagram** 👉 [@networxldn](http://%5Bhttps//www.instagram.com/networxldn/%5D(https://www.instagram.com/networxldn/) "\[https://www.instagram.com/networxldn/\](https://www.instagram.com/networxldn/)") **WhatsApp**👉[https://chat.whatsapp.com/GisOCaIiMeKEehV5Lv7qxg](http://%5Bhttps//chat.whatsapp.com/GisOCaIiMeKEehV5Lv7qxg%5D(https://chat.whatsapp.com/GisOCaIiMeKEehV5Lv7qxg) "\[https://chat.whatsapp.com/GisOCaIiMeKEehV5Lv7qxg\](https://chat.whatsapp.com/GisOCaIiMeKEehV5Lv7qxg)")

**Venue:** Riverbank House, 2 Swan Ln, London EC4R 3AD **Please note:** 1\. 🚨🚨🚨 A valid photo ID is required by building security\. 🚨🚨🚨 2\. This event follows the [NumFOCUS Code of Conduct](https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct). Please familiarise yourself with it before attending. If your RSVP status says "You're going" you will be able to get in. No need to show your RSVP confirmation when signing in. If you can no longer make it, please unRSVP as soon as possible. **Code of Conduct:** This event follows the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct. Please get in touch with the organisers with any questions or concerns. As always, there will be free food and drinks, generously provided by our host, Man Group. **Main Talks** 1. [Robin Linacre](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinlinacre/) - **Rapid deduplication and fuzzy matching of large datasets using Splink** This talk introduces Splink, a free and open source Python library for probabilistic record linkage and deduplication at scale. I’ll explain the core ideas behind the approach, show how it can be used in practice, and reflect on the opportunities of building open source tools from within the public sector. Data deduplication is a common data quality challenge: it arises whenever multiple records are collected about the same person, organisation, or entity without a shared unique identifier. This talk will introduce the core ideas behind probabilistic record linkage and show how Splink, a free and open source Python library developed at the UK Ministry of Justice, can be used to link and deduplicate large datasets quickly and accurately. I’ll cover the practical steps involved in training linkage models, using unsupervised learning, improving performance and accuracy, and visualising results and diagnostics. I’ll also touch on what it has been like to build and maintain open source tooling from within the UK public sector, and the opportunities this creates for solving problems at citizen scale. The talk is aimed at people with basic experience working with tabular data in Python, and assumes no prior knowledge of record linkage. 2. [Filip Makraduli](https://www.linkedin.com/in/filipmakraduli/) - **Small Model Inference Infrastructure: Lessons Beyond vLLM** Embedding models are evolving rapidly, from dense-only architectures, to hybrid dense+sparse (BGE-M3), multi-vector late interaction (ColBERT), and vision-language models (ColQwen2, SigLIP). Yet while LLM serving infrastructure is well-established (vLLM, SGLang), small model deployment still relies on inefficient single-model containers or custom-built systems. Production teams face a dilemma: deploy dozens of single-model containers with 5-10% GPU utilization, or invest months building complex multi-model infrastructure. This talk explains some of the key concepts of embedding inference and how it is different to LLM inference. 3. [Ian Ozsvald](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianozsvald/) - **Build your own LLM, Live, with MicroGPT** Andrej Karpathy's MicroGPT is a single file no dependency mini GPT, you can run it live with me. We'll talk about how GPT works, we'll look at the code, we'll reflect on the Torch-based nanoGPT "big brother" and you'll end the talk with stronger intuitions about how our next best token guessing overlords are working. Plus you'll have a mini GPT running on your laptop in 200 lines of Python. \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- **Logistics** * Doors open at **6.30 pm** (get there early as you'll need to sign in with building security). * Talks start at **7:00 pm**, with drinks afterwards from **9:00 pm** at The Banker (EC4). We have reduced capacity for this event, but there will be plenty of people to discuss data science questions with. Please unRSVP in good time if you realise you can't make it. We're limited by building security on the number of attendees, so please free up your place for your fellow community members. If you want me to trim lightning talks down to two or shorten any abstracts, say which ones.

Hello! Thanks for taking an interest in this group. Join us for a fantastic evening of networking and learning at **Drake & Morgan at King's Cross**. Connect with like-minded individuals in the property industry and gain valuable insights into the latest trends and strategies. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this event is perfect for expanding your network and knowledge. Don't miss out on this opportunity to grow your business and make meaningful connections. See you there! Attendees will be added to the Smarter Property What'sApp Group, where you can connect with 100's of investors and property professionals. The structure of the event is informal networking for people who are interested in property investment, already in property or looking to expand their network. We have over 20 years experience in BTL, HMO, Serviced Accommodation, sourcing, development, and can direct you to relevant professionals in their field if there is anyone in particular you're trying to connect with. Newbies and pros all welcome. We look forward to seeing you there! James & Nick

J.G. Ballard's mesmerizing and ferociously prescient novel imagines a terrifying future in which solar radiation and global warming have melted the polar ice caps and Triassic-era jungles have overrun a submerged and tropical London. Set during the year 2145, the novel follows biologist Dr. Robert Kerans and his team of scientists as they confront a surreal cityscape populated by giant iguanas, albino alligators, and endless swarms of malarial insects. Nature has swallowed all but a few remnants of human civilization, and, slowly, Kerans and his companions are transformed—both physically and psychologically—by this prehistoric environment. A thrilling adventure and a haunting examination of the effects of environmental collapse on the human mind. Available from all good libraries and book shops. You don't have to have read it to join us - but it'll probably help. We will be meeting in The Ludski Bar in the Rio Cinema. [https://www.riocinema.org.uk/your-visit/](https://www.riocinema.org.uk/your-visit/) You are welcome to bring outside food in with you but please buy your drinks from inside the cinema. Thank you. We hope to see you there. ... To join the Brain Worms WhatsApp Group please click here: [https://chat.whatsapp.com/EvFibn1d6AsEwdVGmwkhko](https://chat.whatsapp.com/EvFibn1d6AsEwdVGmwkhko) (in order to stop spam bots this will take you to a Waiting Room. Once in please write your name and we will join you to the main chat). Meetup charges subscription fees. If you would like to make a donation please click here: [https://paypal.me/philosophycollective](https://paypal.me/philosophycollective)

Friendly book group Please remember to change your RSVP if you can't make it so someone on the waitlist can take your slot. New books chosen by popular vote and read 2 months later. We look forward to seeing you there!

**Kindly note that this is a paid event and the average number of attendees for our events is 60-70 people. You can register on [https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-connector-annual-membership-tickets-1987976575452?aff=meetup](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-connector-annual-membership-tickets-1987976575452?aff=meetup)** Annual membership for London Connector® offering curated introductions, exclusive events,and meaningful connections with founders, investors ## **Introduction** London Connector® brings together a select network of founders, investors, entrepreneurs, and senior decision-makers in curated environments designed for meaningful connection and real momentum. In a city that moves fast, meaningful opportunities come from being in the right room with the right people. This annual membership gives you ongoing access to a community where conversations become opportunities, and introductions become long-term relationships. ## **The Experience** This Eventbrite listing is your entry point into the London Connector® annual membership ecosystem. Each event is intentionally curated to ensure relevance, quality, and alignment among guests. Expect an atmosphere that is professional, relaxed, and focused on high-quality conversations. ## **What You Gain Through Annual Membership** London Connector® annual membership is designed for individuals who value consistent access, relevance, and long-term relationship building throughout the year. Members benefit from: * Access to curated networking events across premium London venues throughout the year * Direct introductions to trusted and vetted service providers within our network * Entry into a trusted, invitation-led business community * Opportunities for strategic collaboration and partnerships year-round * Continuous access to a high-quality professional network * Unlimited to themed Connector events across sectors including Tech, AI, Legal, and Investment and wealth management ## **The Networking Standard** London Connector® events are designed with intention and precision. Each gathering brings together carefully selected guests to ensure that every conversation has relevance and potential. The result is a calm, focused environment where relationships develop naturally and opportunities emerge with clarity. ## **Who This Is For** London Connector® is designed for: * Founders building and scaling companies * Angel investors and venture capital professionals * Entrepreneurs and business owners * Senior executives and corporate leaders * Advisors, consultants, and deal facilitators If you value access to high-quality people and meaningful business relationships, this community is designed for you. ## **Our Ethics & Approach** At the heart of London Connector® is a simple belief: **together we grow.** We operate with a win–win mindset where every introduction and interaction is designed to create shared value and mutual opportunity. Our principles are: * We grow together through aligned ambition and collaboration * We prioritise meaningful, long-term relationships * We create highly relevant, curated introductions * We foster trust, respect, and professional integrity * We believe the strongest opportunities come from shared success London Connector® is a community built on collective growth and long-term value creation. ## **WhatsApp Community & Ongoing Access** Annual members and guests are also invited into a private WhatsApp community that extends the experience beyond each event. This space is designed to support ongoing connection, conversation, and opportunity sharing throughout the year. Inside the community, you can expect: * Direct access to fellow founders, investors, and decision-makers * Continued relationship building after events * Relevant introductions and collaboration opportunities * A focused professional environment for meaningful exchange ## **Join Us** We try and maintain a balance of professions within our network, before booking your membership, kindly contact [Duccio Zambrini](https://www.linkedin.com/in/duc-zambrini-a5590a261/ "https://www.linkedin.com/in/duc-zambrini-a5590a261/") on his whatsapp 07789 740193 We look forward to welcoming you. * [United Kingdom Events](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/d/united-kingdom/events) * [Greater London Events](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/d/united-kingdom--greater-london/events) * [Things to do in London](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/ttd/united-kingdom--london) * [London networking](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/d/united-kingdom--london/networking) * [London Business networking](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/d/united-kingdom--london/business--networking)

We are back to in person pub every month! At the Sir John Oldcastle Pub right by Farringdon station. Reachable by three tube lines, national rail and bus routes. First Tuesday of every month. PLEASE NOTE WE ARE NOT A SEX/SWINGERS CLUB! PLEASE READ THE GROUP DESCRIPTION BEFORE JOINING While this is a free event, I'd like to request that those attending the social make a voluntary donation of £1 to help cover the admin costs of Meetup.com: https://ko-fi.com/ldnpolyam This meetup group is for anyone who is interested in openly and honestly loving more than one partner - you may call yourself polyamorous or non-monogamous or any other label you prefer, but if you are interested in having, or currently have multiple romantic and/or sexual relationships where all concerned are consenting and in full knowledge, you are welcome to come along and chat with others who understand those choices. This is NOT a dating group of singles! If you are actively looking for a partner, that's fine, but the group is not set up for the purpose of matchmaking, and some of our members are pretty "polysaturated" (i.e. they have as many relationships as they want and are not looking for more!) I'd hate for anyone to come along expecting that everyone there is looking for new partners and then be disappointed. If you are looking for new partners, look out for things like Poly Speed Dating nights, Poly Cocktails and try looking online at, for example, okcupid.com. If you receive unsolicited "let's meet" or other predatory messages from a member, please forward them to the admin team. We aim to be a safe space for everyone. Come along and talk to others about how they found their partners, too, if you like. We are a friendly group and not known to bite. ;-) You can find us by looking for the plush and inflatable parrots on our tables, or for Angus' blue hair. Alternatively ask at the bar for "Angus' group", "The poly group", or "the parrot people". We're usually in the area towards the back of the pub.

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.

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.

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.*

Please do join us on Thursday at Christ Church Mayfair (CCM) for an evening of snacks, socialising, fun, and a short talk on the Christian faith. We've loved seeing so many people come along to this monthly event (to be clear most are not from meetup!), but always awesome to have more! No need to bring anything, do let those providing snacks if you are allergic to anything, there will be hand sanitizer on arrival. This should also provide an opportunity to practice your English, there will be lots of different nationalities present and many languages spoken though if you need any help. This is a monthly event that takes place on the first Thursday of the month and so if you can't make it this month please join us on June 5th for Festa Junina, a Brazilian festival. CCM is in the centre of London, situated near Hyde Park Corner on Down Street and is a short walk from both Green Park and Hyde Park Corner Tube stations. Please arrive for 7:30, there will be people ready to welcome you and chat with you from then. Looking forward to meeting you!

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

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/)

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 :)

Main Library, Meeting Room 2B Join us for a welcoming evening of reflection, gentle music, and meaningful conversation. We’ll begin with a short grounding moment, followed by a brief reading from spiritual or philosophical traditions, and an open reflection circle where participants can share (or simply listen). Libera Animae is an interfaith community focused on inner growth, creativity, and authentic connection. All backgrounds are welcome.

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

We will show how to build custom agents with Microsoft Agent Framework. Attendees will learn how to build and custom host agents when Microsoft Foundry is not a viable option.

**PLEASE BUY TICKETS THROUGH EVENTBRITE. RSVP THROUGH MEETUP IS NOT A TICKET PURCHASE CONFIRMATION.** Strive welcomes you to 'General Business Networking', Columbus' hottest networking event! We are set in the perfect central location in Downtown for all to join. Are you interested in business? Want to elevate your career? Meet Consultants, Analysts of all types, Bankers, Software Engineers, Entrepreneurs, and more who are active in the space or are eager to get started. **\*\*This will be a multi-vertical event\*\*** **There will be professionals with backgrounds in the arts, finance, tech, real estate, healthcare, and more. Come with an open mind, and leave with connections that wouldn't be possible otherwise!** Pack some business cards and come with an open mind! Meet your future business partners, employers, coworkers, investors, and friends. You don't want to miss this opportunity to expand your network and create a brighter future. We will have a space for our event to check-in. The event will go from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM (feel free to come at any point in this timeframe). Name tags will be provided. Business casual dress code. Job fair attire. **Remember, it's not who you know, it's who you meet tomorrow!** We look forward to meeting you at the event! Sincerely, Strive Networking Team *Refund requests are permitted up to 24 hours after purchase, so long as we are not within 48 hours before the event start time. Refunds will be made in full and repaid to your method of payment. Note that we are unable to reimburse PayPal fees.* *Disclaimer: By attending Strive Networking events you agree to photos/videos taken during the event being used to promote future events.*

Join us for a practical, beginner-friendly guide to choosing the right large language model. We’ll compare major models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama, talk about when to use hosted APIs versus local models, and break down the tradeoffs around cost, speed, quality, privacy, context windows, coding ability, and reliability. You’ll leave with a clearer mental model for picking an LLM based on your actual use case instead of hype, benchmarks, or brand names. No deep AI background required. LOGISTICS AND PARKING: The talk starts at 7:00 PM. The first half hour is reserved for everyone to get set up and mingle. Free pizza and drinks! The cheapest parking option is to find street parking, which will only cost you a few bucks. Otherwise, park in the nearby veteran's museum lot for $8. It's highly recommended you avoid the nearby $15 garage parking.

Practical AI for Power BI Developers A year ago, “agentic AI” was mostly hype for Power BI teams. Today, it deserves your undivided attention. For Power BI pros, there is now a real opportunity to reduce repetitive development work, accelerate delivery, and help developers do more, but only when strong DataOps practices are in place to make AI workflows effective. This session is a no-nonsense introduction to effective AI patterns for Power BI and Fabric development. Along the way, we will make sense of the growing pile of terminology, including skills, plugins, hooks, and MCP. You will see examples of how modern AI tooling can help with development tasks across Power BI and Fabric, along with the prerequisites, guardrails, and DataOps principles needed to use it responsibly. Whether you're burned out on AI hype or already using Copilot CLI daily, this session will show you the foundations that are finally making AI-assisted development genuinely useful.