The past ten days, I have spent quite some time promoting the virtual conference Data Community Weekender Europe, or #DataWeekender on May 2 2020. I’m one of six organizers, all people from the Microsoft Data community, better known as #sqlfamily. We saw conferences get cancelled or postponed and wanted to do something for the members of the community, speakers as well as conference attendees. So we came up with the idea to organize a virtual conference – #DataWeekender.
We are not alone, EightKB is another new Microsoft Data Platform conference, in June. And GroupBy is happening as usual in May. (I have submitted sessions to both, and for GroupBy, you are very welcome to vote for my session, as their sessions are picked by the community, not the organizers).
But #DataWeekender is probably the conference with the shortest time from idea to conference day. We opened up Call for Speakers April 8 and the conference is May 2. Given that short timeframe, I’m completely blown away by the number and quality of submissions. Doing session selections has been extremely difficult. If we created a new conference, with only the speakers and sessions we unfortunately had to reject, it would still be a very respectable conference schedule.
We still have a lot of work to do the coming less than two weeks leading up to the conference. And during the actual conference, the whole organising team will be busy moderating sessions. And until then, we need to test out conference technology, distribute and get confirmation on tons of information to speakers. And last but absolutely not least, we need to continue marketing the conference to attendees.
A very important milestone in the conference planning is now done. We have a schedule! Six tracks. 42 sessions. 43 speakers. Check it out on www.dataweekender.com/schedule ! Also checkout the speaker wall below, click on speaker name to see their bio and session.
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Reza Rad
RADACAD, Microsoft Regional Director, Mentor, Trainer, Consultant, MVP
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Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen
BI Architect
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Chris Adkin
SQL Server Solutions Architect for Pure Storage EMEA
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Jess Pomfret
SQL Server DBA, from the South of England
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Bob Pusateri
Microsoft Certified Master, Data Platform MVP
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Alexander Arvidsson
Star Wars fan extraordinaire
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Amy Boyd
Senior Cloud Developer Advocate in AI/ML at Microsoft
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Gianluca Sartori
@spaghettidba
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Rob Sewell
Be-Whiskered PowerShell Ninja
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Vedran Kesegić
SQL Server Master, Consultant, Trainer
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Alex Whittles
Chief Frog
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Bent Nissen Froning
Data Platform MVP | Chief Architect
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Anupama Natarajan
Data and AI Consultant, Pearl Innovations Limited
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Mark Pryce-Maher
Hot Yoga Master (Not really)
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Erland Sommarskog
Erland Sommarskog SQL-Konsult AB
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Neil Hambly
DataMovements Founder, MCT and Regular Presenter
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Glenn Berry
Glenn Berry, Principal Consultant
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Tomaž Kaštrun
SQL Server developer and data scientist
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Amit Bansal
SQL MCM, SQLMaestros
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Angela Henry
Data Platform MVP
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Mary Fealty
Power BI Evangelist
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Matt Gordon
Data Architect at Insight Digital Innovation
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Marco Russo
SQLBI
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Craig Porteous
Senior Data Engineer | Data Platform MVP @ Incremental Group
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Christine Assaf
People Solutions Consultant
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Milos Radivojevic
Principal Database Consultant at bwin
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Eitan Blumin
The fastest DBA alive
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Uwe Ricken
db Berater GmbH – Managing Director
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Sander Stad
Waypoint Analytical, PowerShell Underdog
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Richard Douglas
I am paid in Starbucks Caramel Macchiato’s since Brexit
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William Assaf
Principal Consultant
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Nicky van Vroenhoven
Lead BI Developer
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Jasmin Azemović
CISO| Associate Professor | Microsoft MVP
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Ben Weissman (he/him)
Works with Computers
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Wolfgang Strasser
data juggler
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Thomas Hütter
Explorer of Data
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Laura Graham-Brown
MVP, Power Platform Consultant and Agony Aunt
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Kasper de Jonge
Principal Program Manager, MS Power BI
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Michael Johnson
Business intelligence consultant
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Annette Allen
Organiser of things
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Tracy Boggiano
Database Superhero
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Shabnam Watson
BI Architect
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Mihail Mateev
Senior Solution Architect at EPAM Systems, Soft Project, Owner
#DataWeekender is running on a zero budget. We haven’t accepted any sponsors and we are not charging anyone to attend. Speakers get a Thank You, and bragging rights for getting selected. But nobody is paid anything. That makes marketing a little different than commercial conferences. We also do not have the Sql Saturday platform to channel information to the community. Instead, we are relying on our contacts with User Groups all over Europe and our social media channels.
Therefore, I ask from you to help promoting the conference. The schedule will be up on www.dataweekender.com late tomorrow. Whenever you see information about #DataWeekender in your social media feeds, please help us share the information. We would be very happy if you also make a post on your own about it. The speaker line-up is truly an impressive one, with MVPs, Certified Masters, Microsoft Employees and other amazing Data Platform presenters. Please help us get that known to the Data Platform community. I’m going to be more active than usual on the blog, sharing news not suited for the Twitter limited number of characters.
I hope to see you on May 2!.