Data Summit / rvatech

Register for DataSummit '21

Join the technology community on September 16, 2021, as we come full circle with our first in-person conference since Data Summit '20!

Get back into live events + explore a day of incredible presentations given by a diverse line-up of expert data thought-leaders!

Purchase Your Conference Pass

About

Tech is continuously evolving and innovating, making it essential to stay ahead of the curve. So join the Richmond Data community on September 16th, as we come together to exchange ideas, explore data career opportunities + advance your technology skillset!

Date

September 16, 2021

Location

The Virginia War Memorial

621 S Belvidere St, Richmond, VA 23220

Schedule

8:30 AM | Networking + Sponsor Exhibition

Welcoming remarks by rvatech/Data Summit Chair, Lori Jennnings + introduction of our Emcee, Vida Williams

9 AM | Keynote Abhijit Bose

Running time: 9:05 – 10 AM

“Machine Learning at Capital One – An Overview of the Advancements of Machine Learning at Capital One”

10:15 AM | Data Career + Growth Panel

Running time: 10:15 – 11 AM

In this panel discussion, you will hear from real folks who are hiring right now, what they are seeking, what is holding back candidates, and ideas on how to optimize your search.

Moderated by Todd Dube | Cloud Solutions Architect at CarMax

Featured Panelists:

Reginald Leonard II | Associate Director of Career Connections and Community Engagement at University of Virginia

Susan Gorney | Sr. Director Data Strategy & Technology at Altria

Rob Phillips | Director of Technology at CarMax

11 AM | 2020: COVID, Politics and Civil Unrest - What did it Mean for a Data Scientist?

Running time: 11:00 – 11:35 AM

Featured Speaker: Vida Williams | Chief Data Officer/Chief Diversity Officer at SingleStone

11:35 AM | Lunch + LIVE! Podcast with feat. guest David Der of Spring Oaks Capital

Running time: 11:35 AM – 1:00 PM

Hosted by Ford Prior with featured guest, David Der | Head of Engineering at Spring Oaks Capital

1 PM | Data Mesh - Scalable Data Architecture

Running time: 1:00 – 1:35 PM

Organizations have long leveraged centralized data teams to design and build analytic data solutions such as data lakes and data warehouses. As these data platforms expand in scope and usage, these centralized teams often reach a point where they can no longer keep pace with business needs.

Data Mesh is a new approach that directly addresses this challenge. It represents a paradigm shift away from legacy best practices and established enterprise data architecture frameworks, and towards federating data product development across business domains.

As part of this presentation, we aim to provide organizations with:

A fundamental understanding of Data Mesh concepts and value proposition
Benefits the Data Mesh has brought to Mission Lane
How to navigate the “people” aspect of making a shift to Data Mesh Architecture

Featured Speakers:

Rick Vasko | Data Architect at Impact Makers

Mike Carpenter | Data Steward + Reporting Specialist at Mission Lane

1:35 PM | VA's Consumer Data Protection Act - Following California Into the Privacy Frontier

Running time: 1:35 – 2:05 PM

Explore the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act. Discuss exemptions, tasks, security mandates
under the Act alongside the new rights that are unfolding for consumers under both Virginia’s CDPA
along with the myriad of other state laws percolating. This session will also delve deep into developing
a battle plan for future-proofing against the onslaught of new privacy regulations nationwide.

Featured Speaker: Beth Burgin Waller | Chair Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Practice at WOODS ROGERS

2:20 PM | Encrypted Traffic Analysis with Machine Learning: Cybersecurity for all Network Traffic

Running time: 2:20 – 2:55 PM

Featured Speaker: Andrew Fast | Chief Data Scientist & Co-founder at CounterFlow AI, Inc.

2:55 PM | Machine Learning in Production

Running time: 2:55 – 3:30 PM

Featured Speaker: Paul Hurlocker | Chief Technology Officer at Spring Oaks Capital

3:30 PM | Happy Hour + Networking

This is your must attend conference if you're a....

Student

This is the perfect opportunity for students, new graduates, or anyone interested in a data career.

Data Practitioner

Anyone who is interested in networking, learning new data applications/tools, and advancing their career by changing careers within the data field or exploring leadership roles.

Data, Tech, or Business Leader

Those who are interested in networking and hearing about innovative data applications and how to derive the most value out of data.

Data Summit '21 Speakers

Abhijit Bose

Managing Vice President Center for Machine Learning

Capital One

Learn More

Andrew Fast

Chief Data Scientist and Co-Founder

CounterFlow AI

Learn More

Rob Phillips

Director Of Technology

CarMax

Learn More

Paul Hurlocker

Chief Technology Officer

Spring Oaks Capital

Learn More

Todd Dube

Cloud Solutions Architect

CarMax

Learn More

Reginald Leonard II

Associate Director of Career Connections and Community Engagement

University of Virginia

Learn More

Vida Williams

Chief Data Officer/Chief Diversity Officer

SingleStone

Learn More

Susan Gorney

Sr. Director Data Strategy & Technology

Altria

Learn More

Beth Burgin Waller

Chair, Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Practice / Principal Attorney

Woods Rogers

Learn More

Rick Vasko

Data Architect

Impact Makers

Learn More

Mike Carpenter

Data Steward + Reporting Specialist

Mission Lane

Learn More

View the 2023 Agenda | Meet our Past Speakers | Learn about our Sponsors

RVA's leading Data Conference Returns March 30.

Join the technology community March 2023, for our next conference full of innovation, in-depth workshops, and incredible presentations given by a diverse line-up of expert speakers + thought leaders at rvatech/DataSummit. Get immersed in the world of Data & discover the trends, and innovations shaping the future of technology!

About the Event

Tech is continuously evolving and innovating, making it essential to stay ahead of the curve and explore the year’s trending technology. In 2023, artificial intelligence and data science are continuing to move from the realm of university research to be a critical part of a software developers’ toolkit and a key differentiator for forward-leaning companies.

Event Details

9:30 AM – 5:oo PM

Hosted at the Science Museum of Virginia – Dewey Gottwald Center

2301 W Leigh Street Richmond, VA 23220

Student Tickets

Discount Rate – The special discounted rate for student tickets is 25% off. That’s $50 off the regular ticket price!

Discount code: DATA23STUDENT

**All student tickets must provide a student .edu email address when registering**

Common Questions

Where exactly am I going?

The Dewey Gottwald Center is located behind the museum. Parking lot entrance is located off West Leigh Street or DMV Drive.

Where do I park?

Science Museum parking is ample and free. Spaces near the front of the building are designated for guests with mobility challenges. All other guests should park in the lot located directly behind the Science Museum off West Leigh Street or DMV Drive.

You may also view a detailed parking map here.

Conference Agenda

2023 Speakers

Keegan Hines

VP of Machine Learning

Arthur AI

Learn More

Danica Fine

Senior Developer Advocate

Confluent

Learn More

Kevin Feasel

Engineering Manager, Predictive Analytics

ChannelAdvisor

Learn More

Hala Nelson

Associate Professor of Mathematics at JMU

Author of "Essential Math for AI"

Learn More

Logan Selby

Co-Founder and President

DataShapes

Learn More

Shailvi Wakhlu

Head of Data | International Keynote Speaker | Angel Investor

Learn More

Lee Adcock

Director, Software Architecture

Capital One

Learn More

Mehul Garnara

Senior Engineering Manager, Sr. Lead Software Engineer

Capital One

Learn More

Ken Pfeil

Chief Data Officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia

Commonwealth of Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics

Learn More

Steven MacLauchlan

Head of Data

Ippon USA

Learn More

2023 Title Sponsors

2023 Conference Sponsors

This Event Is Currently Accepting Sponsors

Download Sponsor Details

Click Here to Contact Mary Case for Sponsorship Details

This Event Is Currently Accepting Proposals

Download Proposal Abstract

Click Here to Learn More

View the Agenda | Meet our Speakers | Learn about our Sponsors

RVA's leading Data Conference Returns March 2022.

Join the technology community March 2022, for our next conference full of innovation, in-depth workshops, and incredible presentations given by a diverse line-up of expert speakers + thought leaders at rvatech/DataSummit. Get immersed in the world of Data & discover the trends, and innovations shaping the future of technology!

About the Event

Tech is continuously evolving and innovating, making it essential to stay ahead of the curve and explore the year’s trending technology. In 2022, artificial intelligence and data science are continuing to move from the realm of university research to be a critical part of a software developers toolkit and a key differentiator for forward-leaning companies.

Schedule

9:30 AM – 5:oo PM

Student Tickets

Discount Rate – The special discounted rate for student tickets is 25% off. That’s $50 off the regular ticket price!

Discount code: DATA22STUDENT

**All student tickets must provide a student .edu email address when registering**

Conference Registration

Purchase Your Tickets

Venue

Science Museum of Virginia – Dewey Gottwald Center

2301 W Leigh Street Richmond, VA 23220

Common Questions

Where exactly am I going?

The Dewey Gottwald Center is located behind the museum. Parking lot entrance located off of West Leigh Street or DMV Drive.

Where do I park?

You may also view a detailed parking map here.

Meet the Keynotes

Dr. Scott Penberthy

Director, Applied AI, Office of the CTO

at Google

Session: Thinking like Newton

Dr. Scott will share his perspective and personal experience on the journey from being a kid playing baseball and writing code in Midlothian Va, to the rise of AI and Machine Learning, its use in business and most recently the discovery of the source code to life. He’ll show how simple curiosities can lead to grand discoveries, often by making naive observations and asking what at first appear to be stupid questions. These are now leading to the vaccination of millions against terrible disease, the prevention of cancer, and soon perhaps a cure for gray hair.

Ovetta Sampson

V.P. Machine Learning Experience Design & Responsible Artificial Intelligence at Capital One

Dr. Timothy Haas

Professor of Statistics and Wildlife Conservation

Author at University of Wisconsin

Session: How Firms can Apply Data Science to Save Species

Ecosystem loss, extinctions and climate change are ongoing challenges to life on Earth, and coming up with a plan to tackle their effects requires an accurate picture of what’s happening where, and who is involved.

Prof Tim Haas, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, has taught and refined such models for years. In his latest paper, he lays out the case for a model unifying human behaviour, climate and ecosystem data, the computational power required to run it, and the credibility criteria any model should meet to prove its worth.

Conference Agenda

9:30 - 10 AM
Registration + Morning Networking

10 - 10:50 AM | Keynote - Dr. Timothy Haas
"How Firms can Apply Data Science to Save Species"

Speaker: Dr. Timothy Haas – Univ. of Wisconsin

10:50 - 11:20 AM | Keynote - Ovetta Sampson
V.P Machine Learning Experience Design & Responsible AI at Capital One

11:25 AM - 12:05 PM | Breakout Session #1
"Machine Learning Orchestration with Airflow"
Data Ethics Panel

Session: Machine Learning Orchestration with Airflow

Speaker: Dr. Santona Tuli – Astronomer

While more popular as a ETL and data engineering tool, Airflow is also extremely powerful at orchestrating machine learning pipelines. In this talk, I show how you can write complete end-to-end pipelines starting with retrieving raw data to serving ML predictions to end-users, entirely in Airflow.

A plethora of tools have flooded the field of data science, many of which have overlapping functionality. As a data scientist‚ especially as one from a traditionally disenfranchised background with limited resources‚ selecting and learning the right tools in order to maximize one’s competitiveness in the job market, can be intimidating and, possibly, challenging. In this talk, I will walk through an end-to-end data science workflow using only easily accessible open-source software (OSS). Many of these OSS in fact form the basis of the enterprise products that companies purchase as tools for their data professionals to use. Knowing the underlying software can give data scientists the competitive advantage of being tool-agnostic and quick at picking up new tools in an ever-evolving landscape. We will use OSS for data featurization, machine learning model training and serving as well as validation and visualization of results.

Session: Panel on Data Ethics

Speakers:

Abigail Byram – Data Engineer at SingleStone Consulting

Jodi Kuhn – Director, Office of Data Quality and Visualization at Commonwealth of Virginia

Zachary Knitter – Data Engineer, Office of Data Quality and Visualization at Commonwealth of Virginia

12:05 - 1 PM
Lunch Break + Networking
Live Data Privacy Podcast Session

Lunch provided by Groovin’ Gourmet

Live Podcast on Data Privacy and Governance

Featured Guests:

Marcus Thornton, Deputy Chief Data Officer – Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics

Souj Narasimhacharya, Senior Vice President of Engineering – Koalafi

Ford Prior, Principal Cloud Engineer – CarMax

1- 1:45 PM | Breakout Session #2
"From Model to Micro-service - ML Deployments At Scale"
"Achieving Data Acumen: Improving Workforce Literacy"

Session: From Model to Micro-service – ML Deployments At Scale

Speaker: Ed Shee, Head of Developer Relations at Seldon

Until recently, the data science / machine learning field has been pretty immature in it’s adoption of DevOps tools and processes. That’s now changing rapidly as engineering teams realise that, in order to gain any value from their ML models, they need to get them into production.

In this talk, Ed will introduce the open source Seldon Core library and show how it simplifies the steps required to containerise, serve, log and monitor an ML model during deployment. Ed will demonstrate live how to build a model using popular machine learning tools, save and store the model artefact and then deploy it to Kubernetes to handle production traffic.

You will learn how to turn an ML model into a production microservice that handles REST/gRPC traffic and how to scale your deployment. You’ll also learn how to use complex model deployment techniques and how to monitor both the infrastructure and the models themselves, spotting drift and outliers as they take place.

Session: Achieving Data Acumen: Improving Workforce Literacy

Speaker: Peter Aiken – VCU & Anything Awesome

1:50- 2:25 PM | Breakout Session #3
"Sculpting Data for Machine Learning"
"Principles of Building Greenfield Data Platforms"

Session: Sculpting Data for Machine Learning

Speakers:

Jigyasa Grover, Machine Learning Engineer at Twitter

Rishabh Misra, Machine Learning Engineer at Twitter

In the contemporary world of machine learning algorithms – “data is the new oil”. For the state-of-the-art ML algorithms to work their magic it’s important to lay a strong foundation with access to relevant data. Volumes of crude data are available on the web nowadays, and all we need are the skills to identify and extract meaningful datasets. This talk aims to present the power of the most fundamental aspect of Machine Learning – Dataset Curation, which often does not get its due limelight. It will also walk the audience through the process of constructing good quality datasets as done in formal settings with a simple hands-on Pythonic example. The goal is to institute the importance of data, especially in its worthy format, and the spell it casts on fabricating smart learning algorithms.

Session: Principles of Building Greenfield Data Platforms

Speaker: Sam Portillo, Data Engineer at Ippon

2:30 - 3:15 PM | Breakout Session #4
"The Pre-cloud to Multi-Cloud journey with Cassandra on Kubernetes"
"Not-so-good-vibrations: Electric Grid Oscillations and Unearned Data Wisdom"

Session: The Pre-cloud to Multi-Cloud journey with Cassandra on Kubernetes

Speaker: Raghavan “Rags” Srinivas, Lead multi-cloud Developer Advocate at Datastax

Although some of today’s cloud properties, like elasticity, scalability, self-healing, durability, DR, etc. seemed revolutionary during the pre-cloud days, Cassandra had many of these properties already. With the ever growing popularity of Kubernetes, the k8ssandra open source project is intended to bring Cassandra’s advantages to the cloud and help simplify operations.

The biggest challenge in the Kubernetes world today is multi-cloud. Although it is easy to conceptualize, it is hard to implement. Attend this session for a quick overview of Cassandra, k8ssandra and Astra (DBaas). You will see how the worlds of Cassandra and Kubernetes on the cloud collide in a remarkably cohesive way to incorporate the best of both.

After attending this primarily demo driven session, attendees will walk away with a good understanding of the k8ssandra project and how it is evolving to support multi-region and multi-cloud. Along this journey we will look at one-off deployments on GKE, EKS including multi-cloud (GKE and EKS). On EKS, we leverage EKS Kubefed.

Session: Not-so-good-vibrations: Electric Grid Oscillations and Unearned Data Wisdom

Speaker: Kevin Jones, Manager – Electric Transmission Operations Engineering Support at Dominion Energy

This will be a fun and novel session that will expose participants to new flavors of data as well as electric grid use cases that address some of the more pernicious challenges of decarbonization. The talk will be grounded (no pun intended) for the practitioner audience by then exploring the perils of applying unearned wisdom on data-focused digital transformation through the lens of this unique set of use cases and data types. It will conclude by providing a (possible) alternative framework, as well as its contemporary significance and necessity, for the transfer and application of such wisdom.

3:20 - 3:55 PM | Keynote - Dr. Scott Penberthy - Director of Applied AI, Office of the CTO at Google
"Thinking like Newton"

Session: Thinking like Newton

Speaker: Dr. Scott Penberthy, Director of Applied AI, Office of the CTO at Google

2022 Speakers

Ovetta Sampson

Vice President Machine Learning Experience Design and Responsible Artificial Intelligence

Capital One

Learn More

Dr. Scott Penberthy

Director, Applied AI, Office of the CTO

Google

Learn More

Dr. Timothy Haas

Professor

University of Wisconsin

Learn More

Ed Shee

Head of Developer Relations

Seldon

Learn More

Dr. Santona Tuli

Staff Data Scientist

Astronomer

Learn More

Sam Portillo

Data Engineer

Ippon

Learn More

Peter Aiken

Associate Professor of Information Systems

VCU + Anything Awesome

Learn More

Abigail Byram

Data Engineer

SingleStone Consulting

Learn More

Jigyasa Grover

Machine Learning Engineer

Twitter

Learn More

Rishabh Misra

Machine Learning Engineer

Twitter

Learn More

Raghavan Srinivas

Lead multi-cloud Developer Advocate

Datastax

Learn More

Kevin Jones

Engineering Analytics & Modeling

Dominion Energy

Learn More

Marcus Thornton

Deputy Chief Data Officer

Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics

Learn More

Souj Narasimhacharya

Senior Vice President of Engineering

Koalafi

Learn More

Jodi Kuhn

Director, Office of Data Quality and Visualization

at Commonwealth of Virginia

Learn More

Zachary Knitter

Data Engineer, Office of Data Quality and Visualization

at Commonwealth of Virginia

Learn More

Title Sponsors

Conference Sponsors

Register For This Event

This Event Is Currently Accepting Proposals

Download Proposal Abstract

Click Here to Learn More

rvatech/Data Summit Series Happy Hour

Register For This Event

Click Here to Register

Register for DataSummit '21

Join the technology community on September 16, 2021, as we come full circle with our first in-person conference since Data Summit '20! Get back into live events + explore a day of incredible presentations given by a diverse line-up of expert data thought-leaders!

About

Tech is continuously evolving and innovating, making it essential to stay ahead of the curve. So join the Richmond Data community on September 16th, as we come together to exchange ideas, explore data career opportunities + advance your technology skillset!

Date

September 16, 2021

Location

The Virginia War Memorial

621 S Belvidere St, Richmond, VA 23220

Schedule

8:30 AM | Networking + Sponsor Exhibition

9 AM | Keynote Abhijit Bose

10:15 AM | Data Career + Growth Panel

11 AM | 2020: COVID, Politics and Civil Unrest - What did it Mean for a Data Scientist?

11:35 AM | Lunch + LIVE! Podcast with feat. guest David Der of Spring Oaks Capital

1 PM | Data Mesh - Scalable Data Architecture

1:35 PM | VA's Consumer Data Protection Act - Following California Into the Privacy Frontier

2:20 PM | Encrypted Traffic Analysis with Machine Learning: Cybersecurity for all Network Traffic

2:55 PM | Machine Learning in Production

3:30 PM | Happy Hour + Networking

This is your must attend conference if you're a....

Student

Data Practitioner

Data, Tech, or Business Leader

Data Summit '21 Speakers

Abhijit Bose

Andrew Fast

Rob Phillips

Paul Hurlocker

Todd Dube

Reginald Leonard II

Vida Williams

Susan Gorney

Beth Burgin Waller

Rick Vasko

Mike Carpenter

Title Sponsors

Conference Sponsors

Speak at the 2021 Data Summit

Submit Your Proposal

What We're Looking For

Past Speakers

Hilary Mason

Carlos Rivero

Adam Wenchel

Chris Peterson

Ranju Das

Renee M. P. Teate

Vida Williams

David Der

Rob Finnegan

Miriam Friedel, Ph.D

Ben Harden

Beth Waller

Keynote - Dr. Laurie Forlano

Keynote - Tim Powell

Renee Teate

Mentor - Gabriel Rushin

Mentor - Courtney Layman

Mentor - Kerry Jones

Mentor - Todd Dube

Mentor - Vida Williams

Mentor - Andrew Fast

Mentor - Paul Hurlocker

Mentor - David Der

Mentor - David Moxley

Mentor - Malcolm Charles

Mentor - Zach Anglin

Mentor - Dr. Miriam Friedel

Mentor - Julia Barnhart

Register For This Event

This Event Is Currently Accepting Proposals

2021 rvatech/Data Summit - Call for Speakers

rvatech/Data Virtual Kickoff

Register For This Event

Replay the Webinar

Date

Join the technology community on September 16, 2021, as we come full circle with our first in-person conference since Data Summit '20!

Get back into live events + explore a day of incredible presentations given by a diverse line-up of expert data thought-leaders!