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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Anupama Natarajan
Data and AI Consultant, Pearl Innovations Limited
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Shabnam Watson
BI Architect
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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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Erland Sommarskog
Erland Sommarskog SQL-Konsult AB
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Nicky van Vroenhoven
Lead BI Developer
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Christine Assaf
People Solutions Consultant
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Kasper de Jonge
Principal Program Manager, MS Power BI
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Tomaž Kaštrun
SQL Server developer and data scientist
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Marco Russo
SQLBI
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Wolfgang Strasser
data juggler
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Amit Bansal
SQL MCM, SQLMaestros
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Vedran Kesegić
SQL Server Master, Consultant, Trainer
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Reza Rad
RADACAD, Microsoft Regional Director, Mentor, Trainer, Consultant, MVP
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Mary Fealty
Power BI Evangelist
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Thomas Hütter
Explorer of Data
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Mark Pryce-Maher
Hot Yoga Master (Not really)
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Ben Weissman (he/him)
Works with Computers
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Michael Johnson
Business intelligence consultant
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William Assaf
Principal Consultant
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Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen
BI Architect
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Jasmin Azemović
CISO| Associate Professor | Microsoft MVP
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Alex Whittles
Chief Frog
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Uwe Ricken
db Berater GmbH – Managing Director
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Matt Gordon
Data Architect at Insight Digital Innovation
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Bob Pusateri
Microsoft Certified Master, Data Platform MVP
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Eitan Blumin
The fastest DBA alive
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Jess Pomfret
SQL Server DBA, from the South of England
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Gianluca Sartori
@spaghettidba
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Tracy Boggiano
Database Superhero
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Milos Radivojevic
Principal Database Consultant at bwin
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Bent Nissen Froning
Data Platform MVP | Chief Architect
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Chris Adkin
SQL Server Solutions Architect for Pure Storage EMEA
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Rob Sewell
Be-Whiskered PowerShell Ninja
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Mihail Mateev
Senior Solution Architect at EPAM Systems, Soft Project, Owner
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Neil Hambly
DataMovements Founder, MCT and Regular Presenter
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Annette Allen
Organiser of things
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Laura Graham-Brown
MVP, Power Platform Consultant and Agony Aunt
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Sander Stad
Waypoint Analytical, PowerShell Underdog
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Glenn Berry
Glenn Berry, Principal Consultant
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Richard Douglas
I am paid in Starbucks Caramel Macchiato’s since Brexit
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Craig Porteous
Senior Data Engineer | Data Platform MVP @ Incremental Group
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Angela Henry
Data Platform MVP
#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!.