Software Modeling

**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.

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.

This meetup is to reserve a 6x4 table to play whatever you like! An appropriate mat and terrain will be provided on the day. Please make sure you state your game system, opponent(s) name in the meetup question answer when you sign up. **NOTE**: This meet up is for 6 x 4 tables only, if you would prefer a smaller table, please book via our 'Small Tables' meetup. These tables are typically located in our 'bar area'. **Booking Tables - sign up here and include the following in your RSVP Question answer:** 1. **Game System -** Warhammer 40K, Age of Sigmar, Historical's, Kill Team, Necromunda, Etc) 2. **Opponent(s) Name -** State your opponent(s) name(s). Don't have any? find one in our chats! You can then update (EDIT) your RSVP to let us know their name(s). **Cancellations** * If you can't make it, please change your RSVP to 'Not Going' by 'Editing' your RSVP. This helps us manage capacity. **About Us** The LWG have vibrant community of nearly 2,000 active members looking for games in and around London, and generally discussing the hobby in the widest sense. If you'd like to be a part of this thriving community reach out to the event organiser who will add you to the appropriate chat group. We LOVE it when people share their experiences. Please follow us on Instagram and share your pics with us @lwarguild - we do regular WIP Wednesday's and Finished Friday - you may win something!

**Space is limited so book and pay early to avoid disappointment.** This evening workshop provides a perfect opportunity to experience the deep and insightful Systemic Constellations process in an intimate group setting. A unique and powerful therapeutic method for self-exploration, understanding core behaviours, removing blocks, and reintroducing movement and growth. It is used as a major resource in supporting healthy relationships, working through trauma, and assisting in depression treatment. **Issue Holder (client) and Representative spaces are available, please follow the link to book:** **For Representative (Participant) Booking £35** **[https://calendly.com/illiadato/in-person-family-constellations-evening-workshop](https://calendly.com/illiadato/in-person-family-constellations-evening-workshop)** **For Issue Holder (Client) Booking £175:** If you wish to attend as an Issue Holder at this workshop and have your own Constellation done please email your request to: [ih@londonconstellations.uk](http://ih@londonconstellations.uk/) Read comments of workshop participants here: [https://bit.ly/33Asprs](https://bit.ly/33Asprs) **WHAT ARE SYSTEMIC CONSTELLATIONS?** The Systemic Constellations method is a unique therapeutic process of exploration of the forces that move us in life. Such forces are often appearing as difficulties or a sense of being 'stuck' in life, affecting our behaviour, relationships, career, health/wellbeing, or even financial circumstances. This method provides a three-dimensional ‘map’ of one’s life as it is at present. It is a simple yet powerful way to explore entanglements and blockages in our personal life and our family history. The method brings awareness and clarity into personal challenges by focusing the client on the root cause of such difficulties. Constellations provide an opening for a positive life shift and present ways for deep healing processes to occur. **WHAT HAPPENS IN A CONSTELLATION SESSION?** In Constellations work the ‘client’ is referred to as the ‘Issue Holder’. The method uses workshop participants as ‘Representatives’ to stand in for key people in the client’s life such as family members, colleagues, partners, ex-partners, etc., sometimes ‘abstract’ concepts such as an emotion, country of origin, religion, or destiny are also represented. All participants are invited to take part as Representatives. Workshop participants often report (see reviews: [https://bit.ly/33Asprs](https://bit.ly/33Asprs)) experiencing profound insights into their own lives by simply witnessing the process, regardless of how they choose to take part. **WHY DOES THIS WORK?** Scientific research shows that the experiences of your ancestors can determine your behaviour today and affect future generations.\*\* Recent scientific research into DNA reveals that a component named epigenetics is embedding the effect of a traumatic experience by altering the genetic structure. It means that some of our behaviour patterns can be attributed to traumatic events in our family history. This notion has always been one of the guiding principles of Systemic / Constellations Therapy, a form of work that is dedicated to exposing and dealing with issues emerging from our family system. *“It is only now that science is catching up with what is evident in Systemic Constellations work and visible in every one of our therapy sessions; trauma in the family history directly affects future generations' behaviour"* Illi Adato MD Our group provides a safe space where deep personal work is done and where maintaining confidentiality and respect for each other's privacy is paramount. **\*\* DNA research paper and news articles:** Discover - Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes [https://bit.ly/3dLwEkK](https://bit.ly/3dLwEkK) BBC News - "Memories" pass between generations [http://bbc.in/1dNShPe](http://bbc.in/1dNShPe) **Facilitated by Illi Adato** MA Lon\. Inst\. SQHP\. Crt\(HYP\)\. Crt\(COACH\)\. Systemic\, Organisational & Family Constellations member of ISCA \| Hypnotherapy member of GHR \(UK\) & IHF \(USA\) \| Tune\-In Counselling \| Advanced NLP Therapeutic Specialist™ *** 💬**Personal one-to-one counseling** can be combined with group work. **Book here: [https://calendly.com/illiadato/1st-personal-session](https://calendly.com/illiadato/1st-personal-session)** **VIDEO COURSES** 📌 Watch anytime \| 📩 Instant access after payment **Becoming a Bridge - Working with Death As a Key Resource In Constellations** £19 Explore the transformative power of death in Systemic Constellations with Illi Adato in this recorded 1.5-hour video course. Designed for facilitators, practitioners, and those drawn to deep experiential learning, this session offers practical insights into holding space for loss and transition. **🛒ACCESS HERE: [https://calendly.com/illiadato/becoming-a-bridge-video-course](https://calendly.com/illiadato/becoming-a-bridge-video-course)** **Constellations, Systemic Principles & How They Affect Us - Video Crash Course** £6 Explore the hidden forces shaping your life with this **recorded mini-course** by Illi Adato. Learn the **Orders of Love**, uncover deep-rooted patterns, and experience a guided **HypnoConstellations™** process for personal healing. **🛒ACCESS HERE: [https://calendly.com/illiadato/systemic-principles-crash-video-course](https://calendly.com/illiadato/systemic-principles-crash-video-course)** Have questions? Reach out: [office@londonconstellations.uk](http://office@londonconstellations.uk/) Looking forward to another moving experience of learning together! London School of Systemic & Family Constellations

*📌**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. 📍**Location:** – London Bridge Hive, 8 Holyrood Street, SE1 2EL London

Dancer Olia is an exciting new model for our group. Link to Olia's Instagram [@olia.p.o](https://www.instagram.com/olia.p.o/) The session is held in the TRA Community Hall, Ground Floor, Simla House, Weston Street, SE1 3RL. All abilities are welcome to draw and meet likeminded people. Two hours of active dynamic poses from 2 to 25 minutes. £12.00 for the session. The group is run on a drop-in basis. Pay on the night. Cash or card. Artists are advised to bring their own materials although a small amount will be available for emergency use. I think that is everything but message me if you have any queries. Kind regards, Cliff

May Edition ✨✨! We will be at Kraken Tech (Octopus Energy Group), London office! (in-person only event, no streaming) **Talks:** **Django's GeneratedField by example — Paolo Melchiorre** Learn how to use Django 5.0's GeneratedField through practical examples. This field lets the database compute values automatically based on other fields in your model — a powerful feature that's easy to underuse. Paolo will walk through real-world use cases to show where it fits and how to make the most of it. Paolo Melchiorre is a Python backend developer, Django contributor, and Python Software Foundation Fellow. He serves on the Django Software Foundation board, co-organises PyCon Italia, and is a coach for Django Girls and a navigator for the Djangonaut Space mentorship programme. *** **Django in the Lab: how web development is reshaping behavioural research — Andy Woods** Off-the-shelf platforms can't always keep up with the complexity of academic research. Andy has been using Django since version 1.11 to build tools that can — from coordinating live location-based VR studies to running inclusive diary studies via WhatsApp and auditing immersive experiences for accessibility. He'll share where Django works especially well in academic settings, what surprised him along the way, and why this moment feels like a real opportunity for the Django community. Andy Woods is a Senior Research Engineer-Psychologist at CoSTAR & StoryFutures, Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Django Software Foundation Individual Member. **Want to share your Django or Python knowledge?** We’d love to feature your talk! Just fill out our [Speaker form ](https://tinyurl.com/django-london-speaker-form) to propose a talk! **Agenda:** • 6:15pm Doors open, socialising • 6:30pm Food and drinks offered by our sponsor • 7:00pm Doors close \*\* • 7:15pm Introduction, News, Talks • 8:30pm Socialising • 9:30pm Fin **Please make sure to arrive between 6:15 PM and 6:55 PM**. If you arrive earlier than 6:15 PM or later than 6:55 PM, you can take a seat in the seating area located in the downstairs reception. **Please note that we cannot accommodate arrivals after 7:15 PM.** Our meetups are governed by a [Code of Conduct](https://www.djangolondon.com/code-of-conduct/). Please take a few minutes to read it. This meetup is sponsored by: • [Kraken Tech (Octopus Energy Group)](Octopus%20Energy%20Group): "Kraken is a revolutionary energy tech platform built with predominantly Python & Django. We Serve 54 million households worldwide and have 38GW of contracted capacity." • [JetBrains](https://www.jetbrains.com/): "We make professional software development a more productive and enjoyable experience." Website: [https://djangolondon.com](https://djangolondon.com/) BlueSky: [@djangolondon.com](https://bsky.app/profile/djangolondon.com) Github: [github.com/djangolondon](https://github.com/djangolondon/) Open Collective: [opencollective.com/the-london-django-meetup-group](https://opencollective.com/the-london-django-meetup-group/)

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.*

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.**

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

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.

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!

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.

**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 John Lairson will share a notebook describing the Alpaca (Paper) Trading API and discuss different algorithms for evaluating stock trades. 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

**TBA**

Come out to Improving for our monthly iOS and Mac meetings. This Month's Presentation: Nothing yet. (You should volunteer). What is Cocoaheads (http://cocoaheads.org/)? CocoaHeads is a group devoted to discussion of Apple Computer's Cocoa Framework for programming on MacOS X and iOS (including the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch). During monthly meetings, members present on their projects and offer tutorials on various programming topics. What is BuckeyeCocoa (http://buckeyecocoa.org/)? BuckeyeCocoa is a group of Objective-C/Swift developers/enthusiasts. We host monthly Cocoaheads and near-weekly NSCoder meetings in Columbus, Ohio. The meetings are free to attend. Presentations! Presenters welcome! We are always in need of people willing to present material. Any Swift and/or Objective-C related topic is welcome. Times can be 5 minutes (i.e. lightning talks) to a maximum of 2 hours. Interested? Contact info is on the BuckeyeCocoa website. To volunteer for a presentation contact us at @BuckeyeCocoa on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter! @BuckeyeCocoa (https://twitter.com/#!/Buckeyecocoa/) For more information: http://buckeyecocoa.org/

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.