Prologue
A journey that started in the year 2015 reached its fifth year of glory - a global learning conference focused on the Microsoft Data Platform. Yet again, the community-driven conference focused on Data, Advanced Analytics & AI, the theme being "Empowering Data & AI Transformation".

DPS 2019 was a six-day global learning & networking event conceptualized and executed by the DataPlatformGeeks community from August 19 to 24. Beyond doubt, the summit was a grand success with participation from 325+ companies, 912+ delegates per day from 21 countries. The summit was held at Radisson BLU in the silicon city of India, Bengaluru. The keynote for DPS 2019 was delivered by Gayle Sheppard, CVP, Microsoft Azure Data.

The Pre-Cons of DPS 2019 (full-day training classes) were scheduled from August 19 to 21. Seventeen full-day training sessions were delivered.

DPS 2019 hosted multiple Executive Round Tables for senior industry leaders. The round tables were led by Microsoft Leadership Team from Redmond including Gayle Sheppard and Anand Raman. As a special feature, DPS 2019 organized multiple Technical Round Tables, each led by a senior technology expert from Microsoft or the industry. The icing on the cake for DPS 2019 delegates was the Women-In-Technology (WIT) Round-Table, which was led by Gayle Sheppard and supported by Robin Cerka, Chief of Staff, Azure Data, Microsoft Redmond.

DPS 2019 hosted some of the biggest Microsoft customers & partners from the region comprising of largest system integrators of the world, big government institutions, organizations from key verticals including BFSI, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, utility, energy, etc, software houses, ISVs, captive units of large MNCs and key startups. DPS 2019 also witnessed a strong presence of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML) community.

Data Platform Summit 2019 owes its success to the community, speakers, delegates, volunteers, knowledge partners, & DPG team members. Special thanks to Microsoft US & India for their constant support to DataPlatformGeeks community efforts.

DPS 2019 Group Photo – A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words

Team DPS

A 45-member team including 30 volunteers pulled off DPS 2019. One of the DPS delegates gave feedback: “DPS 2019 was meticulously executed”. This is the true representation of the hard work and tenacity put in by the DataPlatformGeeks Team.

Team DPG

Amit Bansal

Manohar Punna

Sandip Pani

Surbhi Agarwal

Vijay Reddy

Avanish Panchal

Prince Rastogi

Team eDominer

Amit Bansal

Dr. Deepti Pillai

Satya Ramesh

Rohit Reddy

Mamita Sinha

Mahua Mitra

Aarthi Nambiar

Ashwathy

Sonal Baadkar

Bindu Srinivasa

Aman Sharma

DPS 2019 Technology Coverage

DPS 2019 covered many innovations, technologies & subjects from Microsoft Data & Artificial Intelligence stack. A few mentions: SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB, Database for MySQL, Database for PostgreSQL, Database for Maria DB, SQL Data Warehouse, Azure Databricks, Azure Data Lake, HDInsight, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Catalog, Microsoft’s Analytics Platform, etc. The technology stack was divided into the following tracks:

• Data Science (including Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence)

• Business Intelligence & Analytics

• Cloud, IoT & NoSQL

• Big Data & VLDBs

• Database Administration

• Database Development

• Open Source

Learning @ DPS 2019

Data Platform Summit Team designed a detailed set of learning options for the delegates ensuring a world-class learning experience, catering to all levels of experience and expertise.

Learning Options:

Pre-Conference Training Classes

Daily keynotes

Round-Tables – Executive & Technical

Break-Out Sessions with Q&A

Interactive Open - Talk Sessions

Chalk -Talk Sessions with whiteboarding

Scheduled Interactions with experts

Ask-The-Expert Zone

EXECUTIVE/MVP/MCM/RD/WIT Round Tables

DPS Keynote delivered by Gayle Sheppard (CVP, Azure Data)

MVP Roundtable hosted by Gayle Sheppard (CVP, Azure Data)

Breakout Session in progress

Pre-Conference Training Classes @ DPS 2019 (August 19, 20 & 21)

A DPS Pre-Conference Training class is an in-depth, day-long, demo-packed classroom training delivered by a globally renowned expert. Pre-Cons are aligned to conference tracks and cover a wide range of topics under Microsoft Azure Data, Analytics & AI stack.

There were sixteen Pre-Conference Training Classes spread across three days from August 19 to August 21.

DPS 2019 Pre-Cons:

19 Aug - Power BI Service Reporting and Dashboarding End-to-End By Reid Havens & Siva Harinath

19 Aug - Architecting a Modern Analytics Solution – Start To Finish By Joey D’Antoni

19 Aug - Building Machine Learning Solutions with Azure Machine Learning By Ginger Grant

19 Aug - Azure Infrastructure By Denny Cherry

19 Aug - Practical SQL Server Performance Troubleshooting & Tuning By Amit Bansal

20 Aug - Power BI Desktop Data Modeling End-to-End By Peter Myers & Siva Harinath

20 Aug - Automation, Builds & Containers For DevOps – The ABCD’s Of Deploying Scalable Database Solutions By Hamish Watson

20 Aug - Developing Your First Artificial Intelligence (AI) Application By Anupama Natarajan

20 Aug - Evolving Your Data Platform For The Cloud By John Q. Martin

20 Aug - Supervised and unsupervised Machine Learning with Python By Damian Widera

21 Aug - Deploying And Managing Your SQL Server Data Platform With Powershell And DSC By John Q. Martin

21 Aug - Building Data Science Solutions Using Azure Data Bricks By Ginger Grant

21 Aug - Back to The Future: Modernizing Your ETL Solution in The Cloud with SSIS in Azure Data Factory By Sandy Winarko

21 Aug - App in a Day using Microsoft Power Platform By Siva Harinath

21 Aug - Deploying & Maintaining SQL Server on Linux Platform By Joey D’Antoni

21 Aug - HADR – SQL Server & Azure By Denny Cherry

Pre-Con Group Photographs

DPS Keynotes (August 22, 23 & 24)

For the first time in the history of Data Platform Summit, DPS keynote was delivered by a woman technology leader. Gayle Sheppard, Corporate Vice President, Azure Data, from Microsoft Redmond delivered a mind-blowing one-hour session on “The Future of Data”. Gayle began the keynote by emphasizing that 100k Microsoft employees are working with 17 million partners to serve 7 Billion people on this planet. She shared the customer story of Paychex and its Flex Time App showing how 13 million people are on Azure today. Gayle was accompanied by senior product team members from Azure Data Team including Sanjay Mishra and Rony Chaterjee who demoed the latest innovations on Azure Data. Gayle Sheppard in her keynote briefly described the roadmap for products like SQL Edge, SQL Hyperscale, Azure Cosmos DB and Azure AI. Gayle also invited Monish Darda of Icertis on stage to talk about his experience working with Microsoft. Icertis is a Microsoft customer which is also the 2019 Forrester CLM Leader of the year. In her one-hour keynote, Gayle spoke about Open Relational Databases like PostgreSQL and MariaDB too. The house-full keynote was so well appreciated by delegates

Day two keynote of DPS 2019 was delivered by Anand Raman, Product Manager, Azure AI, Microsoft Redmond. He was accompanied by his senior team members, Mercy Peter and Tulasi Menon. Anand Raman and his team spoke at large about Microsoft’s first brush with AI in the year 1995 and how Azure AI today is dominating the major chunk of projects at Microsoft. This was followed by some mind-blowing demos based on Azure AI.

Day three keynote of DPS 2019 was again a history-making episode with Dr. Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India, delivering a thought-provoking session on Digital Transformation. Dr. Rohini Srivathsa spoke about the “Convergence of Digital & Physical Worlds – Business Opportunities with AI, IoT & Mixed Reality". In her one-hour long keynote, Dr. Rohini enlightened the audience about Microsoft India’s work on Azure AI, Azure Cognitive Services, Bot Development, Machine Learning on Azure, DevOps, MLOps with Machine Learning and Azure IoT Edge.

Gyale Sheppard (CVP, Azure Data)

Dr. Rohini Srivatsa (National Technology Officer, Microsoft India)

Anand Raman (Product Head, AI Group)

Round-Tables of DPS 2019 (August 22 & 23)

DPS 2019 introduced a new learning and knowledge-transfer feature for its senior audience - both at executive level and technical leadership level. This new initiative was called “DPS Round Tables” which were closed-room discussions, and these were an instant hit with the audience. There were three types of round tables designed for the delegates:

Executive Round Tables for Executive Leadership and Organization Heads

Technology Round Tables for Technology Leaders

Women-In-Technology Round Table for women leaders in technology

Executive Round Tables

The following Executive Round Tables were organized at DPS 2019:

Executive Round Table for Data Leaders & Analytics Heads with Gayle Sheppard

Executive Round Table for Executive Leadership & Organizational Heads with Gayle Sheppard

AI Executive Round Table for AI Leaders & Heads with Anand Raman

Executive Round Table for Technology Heads with Sandeep Alur

Technology Round Tables

Microsoft Redmond Led Technical Round Tables (Multiples) Aug 22, 23 & 24 – For Senior Technology Leaders/Architects.

Azure SQL Round Table hosted by Ajay Jagannathan & Denzil Ribeiro

Power Platform Round Table hosted by Siva Harinath & Aviv Ezrachi (Microsoft Israel)

Azure Data Factory Round Table – Lift & Shift/Migration patterns Round Table hosted by Sandy Winarko (MS China)

Azure Data Factory Round Table – Big Data/Modern Data Warehouse patterns Round Table hosted by Abhishek Narain (MS China)

Data Migration Round Table hosted by Raj Pochiraju (Microsoft Redmond) & Mukesh Kumar (MS Redmond)

Open Source Databases on Azure Round Table hosted by Sunil Agarwal & Sunil Kamath (Microsoft Redmond)

Artificial Intelligence Round Table hosted by Anand Raman (Microsoft Redmond)

Sandeep Alur’s (Microsoft Technology Center India Head) Round Table for Technology Heads

Advanced Analytics Round Table hosted by Casey Karst & Shweta Gaur (Microsoft Redmond)

Industry Experts Led Technical Round Tables (Multiples) Aug 22, 23 & 24 – For Senior Technology Specialists.

Power BI Round Table hosted by Peter Myers & Reid Havens

Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence Round Table hosted by Ginger Grant

Azure SQL & Managed Instance Round Table hosted by John Martin & Martin Cairney

DevOps Round Table hosted by Hamish Watson

SQL Server Maintenance Round Table hosted by Ola Hallengren

Artificial Intelligence Round Table (1) hosted by Jen Stirrup

Artificial Intelligence Round Table (2) hosted by Damian Widera and Anupama Natarajan

SQL Server Round Table (1) by William Durkin & Ben Weissman

SQL Server Round Table (2) by Kevin Boles & Charley Hanania

Robotics (AI & IoT) Round Table hosted by Praveen Srivatsa

Summit Sessions (August 22, 23 & 24)

Majority of learning at Data Platform Summit is dominated by the summit sessions, which include the following types of learning delivery styles:

Breakout Sessions: Each edition of Data Platform Summit predominantly has many breakout sessions spread across the 3-days of the summit. A breakout session is a seventy five minute session delivered by a subject matter expert. At DPS 2019, there were a total of 77 breakout sessions.

Open-Talks: A concept adopted in the year 2016, at Open-Talks, delegates are encouraged to talk openly about their projects with the experts. The objective of an Open-Talk is to foster open discussion and exchange ideas. Open-Talks are typically 30 minutes free-flowing discussion on a specific topic. No laptops, no PPTs, no demos – only discussion and Q & A. Topics are pre-decided and discussions take place around those topics. The objective is to make the sessions more interactive & result oriented. At DPS 2019, there were a total of 15 Open-Talk sessions.

Chalk-Talks: The concept of Chalk-Talk was also introduced during SSGAS 2016. Needless to say, it became an instant hit with the audience. In this learning format, data experts illustrate the knowledge that they intend to share on a whiteboard. Essentially, this is whiteboarding. Like Open-Talks, Chalk-Talks are 30-minute sessions focusing on conceptual & architectural understanding. At DPS 2019, there were a total of 15 Chalk-Talk sessions.

Ask-The-Experts: DPS 2019 also gave the delegates an opportunity to ask open-ended questions to a panel of experts from Microsoft, MCM & MVP community. Delegates came in groups to discuss their project issues with Microsoft & industry experts.
Scheduled Interactions: DPS 2019 also offered its delegates an opportunity to spend exclusive time with select speakers, in a one-to-one discussion model.

Round Table Discussion @ DPS 2019

Chalk-Talk @ DPS 2019

Breakout Session @ DPS 2019

WIT Round Table @ DPS 2019

Open-Talk @ DPS 2019

Ask-The-Expert Zone @ DPS 2019

Testimonials

Great opportunity to meet and platform to interact with Industry best leaders, practitioners, product owners and to top it all great opportunity to learn directly from them! Definitely good take-away at the end of each conference! Keep up the good job DPS team!!

Sukin Raghunathan, Senior Manager - Software & Product Development at Omega Healthcare Management
Services

Excellent conference, and a great learning experience.

Lynnette Knox, Senior DBA /Data Integration at Denver Technology

Congratulations #DPS10 you made a grand success again. I really was wowed by DPS team efforts in fulling every Vow. Well enjoyed in the Journey of DPS 2019 with Incredible speaker sessions, interesting talks with participants and the world class hospitality. I felt awful for two things one is for missing second day and another thing missing to thank Amit in person. Thanks a Million to Amit and Whole DPS team for hosting a fantastic Platform. Wish all geeks will meet and rocks again in DPS2020!!!!!!!!

Aditya Kiran, Sr. Consultant, Tata Consultancy Services

A very well-organized event. Kudos to the organising team. You have created a great platform to understand the tools and techniques that are available or would be available on various Microsoft offerings.

Rajeev Rivankar, Group Manager and Lead Application Architect at Jeeves

Wonderful community to be part of, it is nice to have global conferences conducted by our own folks, pl keep it going for many more to benefit, specials kudos to organizing team. Thanks.

Vikrenth Ramamoorthy, Technical leader at iNautix Technologies

Excellent community event with loads of information sharing and gathering. Enjoyed all individual sessions and round table meetings with various technologists and Microsoft experts from Redmond. We should grow this community and bring more awareness about it to all our friends and colleagues....this is really helpful to get to know about the latest trending technologies, its applications and business use cases. Sessions with live hands-on topics can quickly remove the entry barriers in learning and implementing new technologies and it allows us to immediately use those technologies in our job without much training on it - I would say it is an amazing way of learning without struggling much! Never miss such opportunities....

Biju P K, Global Architect for Emerging Technologies | Innovation Leader, ABB

Participation @ DPS 2019

At Data Platform Summit 2019, there was an interesting blend of Data, AI & Advanced Analytics enthusiasts at various levels of experience. Most delegates participated in pre-cons as well as the regular 3-day summit. It was delighting to see that in most cases group of delegates were led by Team Leaders and Project Managers.

Profiles included Database Administrators, Engineers, Developers, Consultants, Analysts, Architects, Managers, Project Managers, Chief Architects, Chief Data Scientists, AVPs, VPs, CTOs.

Top Leaders @ DPS 2019

Societe Generale, Vice President

Societe Generale Global Solution Centre, Vice-President, FX - IT & OPERATIONS

SwissRe, Vice President

Unlimited Innovations India Pvt Ltd, Director - Business Analytics

TIBIL Solutions, Head - Technology

Inzite Global Data Science Pvt Ltd, Managing Director

Vantedge IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Director

Avantinfo, CEO

Visual BI India Ltd, Director Product Management

Amdocs, Director

Optimize Techno Services, Director

Intellify Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Director

Raj Barcode Systems Pvt Ltd, Director

EdLearnX Technologies Pvt. Ltd, CEO

Danfoss Industries India Pvt Ltd, Director

Prosys Infotech Pvt. Ltd, CEO

Prosys Infotech Pvt. Ltd, Director

Wells Fargo, Vice President

ESQ Management Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Director - Product Development

DIVA Infotech, CEO

Nielsen, VP

Nielsen, Director

Sonee Hardware Pvt Ltd, Head of IT

Network 18 Pvt Ltd, Vice President - Technology and Operations

Network 18 Pvt Ltd, General Manager Technology and Operations

Aon, Director – IT

FirstSource Solutions Limited, GM

Campus Management International Pvt Limited, Sr. VP of Engineering

Morgan Stanley, Vice president

GE Healthcare, Director

Times Professional Learning, Product Head - Data Sciences & AI

Melissa Data Corporation, Director - Key Accounts & Partners

Ruby Growth Advisory Private Limited, Director

Microsoft, Principal Group Program Manager

Microsoft, Director - Solution Sales

Microsoft, GM, Azure Engineering

Altimetrik, Head BFS Engineering

Affine Analytics, Vice President

Affine Analytics, Vice President Non US Business

Microsoft Corporation, Director, Azure, Data & AI

Nous Infosystems, Vice President, COC Strategies & Solutions

Scientific Games India Pvt Ltd, Director For Technology

Aon, Director IT

Allstate Solutions Private Limited, Head - Analytics

Flipkart, Head Decision Science

InMobi Director, Data Science

Swiss Re, Regional CIO

ORBCOMM Technologies India Pvt Ltd, VP India Operations

FirstSource Solutions Ltd, General Manager IT Software

Campus Management International Pvt Ltd, Senior Director - Global IT

Jeeves Information Systems, Director R&D

Sonata Software Limited, Client Services & Head Digital Competencies

Course5 Intelligence, Senior Vice President

HUL, Chief Data Officer

Hopscotch, Chief of data and products

Edvancer, Co-Founder

Starmark Software Pvt. Ltd, COO

EBay, Senior Director & Head, Global Analytics Center

ResolutAI, Vice President

Wells Fargo, SVP Process Excellence

Jigsaw Academy, AVP, Corporate Business

American Express, Vice President

Manipal Global, Head - Enterprise Marketing

Manthan Systems Pvt Ltd, Head of Engineering

IBM, Practice Leader -Cognitive & Analytics

JIGSAW ACADEMY, VICE PRESIDENT- SALES

Axonas Consulting and Business Services Pvt Ltd, CEO

Cognizant, Sr. Director – Marketing

Softline India, Director - Marketing (APAC)

Cognizant, Director, Predictive Analytics

LifeCell International Pvt. Ltd, Chief Digital Officer

Heuristix Digital Technologies Pvt. Ltd, VP - engineering

LifeCell International Pvt. Ltd, Managing Director

GreenPoint Global, CTO

SUTHERLAND GLOBAL, AVP - ITSE

Sutherland Global Services, Director - Infrastructure

Cognizant Technology Solutions, Director - Delivery Excellence

Cognizant, AI & Analytics Leader

Mphasis, Vice President

COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS, SENIOR DIRECTOR - DELIVERY EXCELLENCE

Future Group (Tathastu), Head Data Science

Future Group (Tathastu), Head Data engineering

Delegate Analysis

Majority of DPS 2019 delegates had experience level ranging from 6 to 15 years, followed by senior delegates with experience level ranging from 16 to 20+ years.

Developers were leading the pack, followed by DBAs, Data Scientists, Advisors and Architects.

DPS 2019 delegate profile consisted of a good mix of C-level leaders, Advisors and members of the technical staff including those in Development, Application Development, Architects, Data Scientists, Big Data & DBAs.

Alumni

Every year, DPS attracts past delegates in large numbers. At DPS, there are delegates who have attended all five years of the summit.

Among the current delegates of DPS 2019, many were new to the summit and had never attended Data Platform Summit previous editions. The count of DPS alumni was not far behind.

When these delegates were asked, how they learned about Data Platform Summit 2019, majority said that they attended past conference had hence wanted to attend the summit. Another major chunk of delegates were DataPlatformGeeks members and had heard about the summit via its free community events across various Indian cities & webinars.

Geographic Distribution

DPS 2019 played host to delegates from 18 countries including India. It is important to note here that DPS promotion was only done in India, and the global delegates heard about DPS purely through word-of-mouth and DataPlatformGeeks webinars.

Apart from India, the next highest delegate sending countries included: USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

Industry Verticals and DPS Delegates

The IT industry was leading the brigade at DPS 2019, followed by Finance, Healthcare & Pharma, Engineering, Communications, Education, Consulting & Advisory, Manufacturing and E-commerce. Apart from these, there was a good response from companies catering to the following segments - BPO, Retail, Security, Lottery, Legal, HR Services and Professional services.

Company Sizes

DPS 2019 participating companies included large corporations, as well as startups.

Large companies dominated DPS 2019, whereas small companies and start-ups were also well represented.

Days Leading Up To DPS 2019

Data Platform Day events in Bangalore, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad & Kolkata

DataPlatformGeeks conducted free community learning events and webinars round-the-year. More than 9 cities in India were touched and 91+ countries participated in the webinars. Multiple topics under Azure Data stack were covered at each event. This was massive evangelism and knowledge sharing activity. DataPlatformGeeks (DPG) team organized 28 in-person events (Data Platform Day) in various parts of India in run up to DPS 2019, touching more than 12,500 Data & Analytics professionals. Close to 32 webinars were conducted with global and Indian data & analytics experts.

Webinars

DataPlatformGeeks Past Events: https://www.dataplatformgeeks.com/dataplatformgeeks-recent-past-events/

Epilogue

Data Platform Summit 2019 was a week-long learning & knowledge-sharing event with participation from 21 countries and close to 900 working professionals from the field of Data, AI & Advanced Analytics. Delegates gave extraordinary feedback and their words are embossed in the reader's minds. Data Platform Summit is the largest community-driven event of Asia focusing on Microsoft Data & AI Technologies. The summit offered more than 100 Breakout Sessions, Open-Talks & Chalk-Talks and deep dive pre-con sessions on SQL Server, Azure, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, BI & Analytics, Big Data & related technologies. In addition, executive and technical round tables were icing on the cake. DPS speakers included the world's best from Microsoft, industry experts and the global MVP community. Multiple tracks were: Data Science (including Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning), Database Administration, Database Development, Business Intelligence, Cloud & Big Data. The sessions scaled out on knowledge level from 200 through 400. The conference was for the Data/AI/Analytics community to learn new skills and technologies and enhance existing skills. The conference also hosted MCMs, MVPs and Microsoft experts from across the globe. Hundreds of attendees had the unique opportunity to network with their peers/colleagues, Microsoft experts, global speakers, and Knowledge Partners.

50+ speakers from across the globe were the stalwarts at Data Platform Summit 2019. As always, Azure Data Team from Redmond led by Gayle Sheppard was the highlight of the summit. Women-In-Technology Round Table was so well appreciated as participants discussed the much-needed diversity and inclusion topic. Special thanks to Microsoft, Altimetrik and eDominer for supporting DPS 2019.

Gayle, along with Vineet Bansal (CEO, eDominer) & Amit Bansal (DPS Chairperson)

Annexure – 1: Speakers @ DPS 2019

Abhishek Narain - China

Ajay Jagannathan - USA

Alicia Moniz - USA

Amit Banerjee - USA

Amit Bansal - India

Anand Raman - USA

André Melancia - Portugal

Anupama Natarajan - New Zealand

Aviv Ezrachi - Israel

Ben Weissman - Germany

Casey Karst - USA

Charley Hanania - Switzerland

Damian Widera - Poland

Denny Cherry - USA

Denzil Ribeiro - USA

Devashish Salgaonkar - India

Gayle Sheppard - USA

Ginger Grant - USA

Gogula Aryalingam - Sri Lanka

Hamish Watson - New Zealand

Harsh Raj Thakur - India

Heidi Hasting - Australia

Hugo Kornelis - Netherlands

Janusz Rokicki - UK

Jennifer Stirrup - UK

Joey Dántoni - USA

John Q Martin - UK

Kanika Gera - USA

Kevin Boles - USA

Kranthi Kumar - India

Manik Jindal - India

Manohar Punna - Australia

Martin Cairney - Australia

Martin Catherall - Australia

Matt Gordon - USA

Mercy Ranjit - India

Mia Chang - Germany

Monica Rathbun - USA

Mukesh Kumar -USA

Muniraju Pulipalyam - India

Ola Hallengren - Sweden

Peter Myers -Australia

Praveen Srivatsa - India

Raj Pochiraju - USA

Reid Havens - USA

Rony Chatterjee - USA

Sandeep Alur - India

Sandip Pani - India

Sandy Winarko - China

Sanjay Mishra - USA

Shweta Gaur - India

Shweta Gupta - India

Siva Harinath - USA

Sunil Agarwal - USA

Sunil Kamath - USA

Tejas Shah - India

Tulasi Menon - India

Vijay Reddy - India

William Durkin - Germany

Annexure – 2: Historical Background

SQL community initiatives were started in 2004 by Amit Bansal. He travelled the length and breadth of India delivering free sessions on SQL Server. The organic growth led to the formation of SQLServerGeeks (SSG) in 2010 which gave a professional shape and structure to the community work. Under SSG, SQL Server Day events were most popular and saw a huge fan following. In 2015, SSG organized Asia’s First SQL Conference. 50+ speakers delivered 70+ sessions in 5 tracks across 3 days for 600+ attendees. SQLServerGeeks Annual Summit 2015.

Continuing the success, SQLServerGeeks Annual Summit 2016 (SSGAS 2016) witnessed a bigger and better conference. 3 days, 5 tracks, 70+ speakers, 130+ sessions, 800+ attendees – the learning event was a grand success and embarked its position as a signature tech event of India. While SQLServerGeeks (SSG) continued its focus on the SQL Community, Amit & his Team carved out a new community called DataPlatformGeeks (DPG), covering 30+ technologies in Microsoft Data Stack including Azure Data Services, ML, Cloud AI & Open Source Stack. And in parallel to SQL Server Day events, a new event was born under DataPlatformGeeks, titled Data Platform Day.

The third edition of Asia’s largest SQL conference was renamed to Data Platform Summit (DPS) where DataPlatformGeeks & SQLServerGeeks community was brought in together on single platform. DPS 2017 was Asia’s largest Data & Analytics Conference executed in Bangalore in the month of August 2017. 3 Days, 7 Tracks, 80+ Speakers, 200 Sessions, 300 Participating Companies and 900 unique attendees.

The fourth year, we broke many barriers. DPS was shifted to a five-star property with a world-class infrastructure, more Pre-Cons were added and summit sessions were highly curated. DPS 2018 set new standards for the industry to follow by making the conference sponsor-free. 0% Marketing, 100% Learning. The best from the industry & Microsoft joined us, and it was mind-blowing. Five days of non-stop learning, and our delegates wanted more. DPS 2018 was majestically executed and feedbacks from delegates were overwhelming. Rohan Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Azure Data Group, from Redmond along with his team delivered a marvelous keynote, much-awaited by the industry.

DataPlatformGeeks continues the journey of imparting free education around Data & Analytics in more than one ways. Data Platform Day events & webinars are more popular than ever before. With 295000+ subscribers, www.DataPlatformGeeks.com offers many free learning resources for the community.

SQLServerGeeks continues the journey of imparting free education around SQL Server. DataPlatformGeeks.com and SQLServerGeeks.com are community initiatives by Amit Bansal, supported by Microsoft & eDominer.