5 Can’t Miss Talks at Spark Summit East 2017

If you haven’t been to a Spark Summit yet, you are missing out on the biggest gathering of Apache Spark experts and enthusiasts in the world. 2017’s first Spark Summit kicks off on February 7th in Boston where more than 1,500 engineers, analysts, scientists, and business professionals will gather for three days of in-depth learning and networking. With over 100 sessions across six tracks, one can feel a bit overwhelmed by all the great content to consume.

Here are five talks featuring a star-studded lineup of technology leaders and innovators in the world of big data and Apache Spark you definitely want to add to your must-watch list:

1. What to Expect for Big Data and Apache Spark in 2017 - You don’t want to be late for the first talk of the conference as Matei Zaharia, the creator of the Spark project and Co-founder/Chief Technologist at Databricks. Matei will take the stage to share his thoughts on what the future holds for Big Data and Apache Spark in 2017.
2. Production-Ready Structured Streaming - Earlier this year, we published the findings from our annual Spark Survey revealing streaming analytics as one of the fastest growing areas for Spark with an increase of 57% in streaming production use cases. This talk, featuring Spark PMC member and project committer Michael Armbrust, as he discusses the various aspects of Structured Streaming, the new streaming API initially released in Spark 2.0, and the measurable strides made in Spark 2.1 to ensure production readiness.
3. Virtualizing Analytics with Apache Spark - In his keynote, Ali Ghodsi, CEO and Co-founder of Databricks, will walk us through the demand for Virtual Analytics, where the complexities of disparate data and technology silos have been abstracted away, coupled with a powerful range of analytics and processing horsepower, all in one unified data platform.
4. Using Apache Spark for Intelligent Services - Salesforce is developing Einstein, an artificial intelligence (AI) capability built into the core of the Salesforce Platform. Alexis Roos, a Senior Engineering Manager at Salesforce, will share how this tech giant is leveraging Spark and Databricks to scale data science and engineering to make this possible.
5. Big Data meets Learning Science - Another not-to-miss talk at Spark Summit East is by Alfred Essa, VP of Research and Data Science at McGraw-Hill Education. This talk focuses on McGraw-Hill’s efforts to leverage data science to deliver a high-quality personalized education experience with Apache Spark and Databricks, that is accessible and affordable by all.

There are plenty of other compelling talks and sessions that might pique your interest. Check out the full schedule to see what else Spark Summit East has to offer.

Register today with the discount code “DatabricksBT20” and receive 20% off your spot at the largest Spark event on the East Coast!