Talk presented at Grafana & Friends Stockholm meetup. RSVP here.

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Time for another Grafana & Friends Meetup, together with the Stockholm Apache Kafka® and Kong/Stockholm communities, hosted by Magello 🎉

📕 Agenda
17:00 – 17:25: Drop-in, food/drink-grabbing and mingle
17:25 – 17:30: Introductions
17:30 – 18:00: Talk 1
18:00 – 18:20: Mingle
18:20 – 18:50: Talk 2
18:50 – 20:00: Mingle

1️⃣ “Beyond API Management: Building AI-Enabled Event Streams with Kong Event Gateway, Kafka and MCP” by Johannes Brännström, Staff Solutions Engineer at Kong
In the era of LLMs and real-time data, the gateway’s role has shifted from a passive “traffic cop” to an active platform enabler. In this session, we’ll move beyond the basics and live-build a real-time, event-driven chat system. We’ll show you how to:

• Architect the Backbone: Use Kafka for high-throughput event streaming.
• Secure the Flow: Implement robust Auth/Z using Kong to protect your event streams.
• Give AI “Hands”: Integrate the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to allow a chatbot to perform actions, like fetching Konnect metrics or generating memes, directly from the stream.
• Simplify the Complexity: See how Kong isn’t just another layer of friction, but a tool that makes orchestrating these complex, multi-protocol systems significantly easier.

2️⃣ “Visualizing Your Data Lake with Grafana”, Imma Valls, Staff Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs.
In this brief talk, we’ll walk through how to get started with Grafana’s open source platform to explore and understand your data lake. We’ll cover how to connect to your data, no matter where it lives. How to craft queries that turn raw information into clear, compelling visualizations, and finally, set up alerts and annotations so you’re always in the know when something important changes in your data lake.

📍Location
Magello office: Västgötagatan 2, 118 27 Stockholm | https://maps.app.goo.gl/FPhEqLjttBHEneEt8
Take the stairs to the left after entering the building. If anyone is late, dial “Patrik Magello Group” on the door phone.

Food
There will be vegan/vegetarian food, and beverages at the event; if you have any allergies or other food preferences, please let us know at least 48 hours before the event!

Photo and video
We may take photos and record videos during the event. If you prefer not to be captured on camera, please inform the photographer when arriving.
If you feel sick, stay at home.

We are looking forward to seeing you 🎉!

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_grafana-observability-techcommunity-activity-7434902714863656960-F8DN

Talk presented at Open Lakehouse and AI in Brussels. RSVP here

The OSA Community is proud to host the Open Lakehouse and AI event in Brussels!

​​As real-time databases integrate more closely with data lakes to reduce storage costs and unlock data for AI and advanced analytics, data infrastructure is evolving fast. Join us to hear from leading experts as they share practical solutions and lessons learned in building open, scalable, and high-performance data platforms.

​Food and beverages will be provided!

​​​​Speakers

• ​​Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity
• ​​Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran
• ​​Imma Valls, Senior Developer Advocate @ Grafana
• ​Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio

​​Agenda

• ​​6:00 pm – Check-in and networking
• ​​6:15 – 8:00 pm – Talks
• ​​8:00 – 9:00 pm – Networking

​​Description of the Talks

​​Building a Foundation for AI with ClickHouse® and Apache Iceberg Storage

​​Speaker: Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity

​​Abstract: AI applications need data. Lots of it. Altinity’s Project Antalya is adapting open source ClickHouse® to introduce separation of compute and storage on shared Iceberg table data. The result: fast, cheap, flexible query that extends the life of real-time analytic applications and lays the foundation for handling new AI use cases on the same datasets. We cover architecture, performance results, roadmap, and how to get started yourself.  

​​

​​Iceberg for Agents: Elevating Lakehouse Data Into AI-Ready Context

​​Speaker: Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran

​​Abstract: AI agents fail in production because even though they’re stuffed with data, they’re starved for context. Better LLM models aren’t the problem. The bottleneck is the data stack: fragmented silos, inconsistent definitions, and logic hidden in tribal knowledge. Agents need structured, reliable, and interpretable context—not just data access.

​​In this session, we’ll show how Apache Iceberg becomes the backbone of AI-ready pipelines. You’ll learn how to elevate your Iceberg implementation from a storage format to a live context layer that powers structured retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), schema-aware agents, and autonomous reasoning grounded in truth.

​​What we’ll cover:

• ​​Iceberg Foundations for AI – from ACID to Time Travel
• ​​From Rows to Relationships – The role of the semantic layer
• ​​Structured RAG in Practice – Fully open source

​​The session includes a live demo of a fully open-source Structured RAG stack built on Apache Iceberg, featuring semantic query translation, hybrid retrieval, and governed agent reasoning. Expect architecture diagrams, real code, and practical guidance.

​​

​​Visualizing Your Data Lake with Grafana

​​Speaker: Imma Valls, Senior Software Engineer @ Grafana

​​Abstract: In this brief talk, we’ll walk through how to get started with Grafana’s open source platform to explore and understand your data lake. We’ll cover how to connect to your data—no matter where it lives—then craft queries that turn raw information into clear, compelling visualizations, and finally set up alerts and annotations so you’re always in the know when something important changes in your data lake.

​

​​The Open Data Lakehouse: Who Benefits?

​​Speaker: Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio

​​Abstract: Data Lakehouses have long benefited from open standards, with many established table formats and now emerging alternatives for the data catalog. But where does this leave the users, customers, and vendors? Who sees the benefits of these open technologies?

In this talk I will delve into the Open Data Lakehouse, the analytics platform that delivers industry-leading performance on open software standards. We will delve into the technical details of Apache Iceberg and Apache Polaris, what they deliver for modern data analytics, and who is impacted by these ground-breaking collaborations.

Location

Commons Hub Brussels

Rue de la Madeleine 51, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/osa-con_open-lakehouse-and-ai-luma-activity-7422333186233376770-0VLu

Talk presented at Open Lakehouse and AI in Amsterdam. RSVP here

GitHub repo: https://github.com/sarahzinger/meetup-data-lake

The OSA Community is proud to host the Open Lakehouse and AI event in Amsterdam!

​​As real-time databases integrate more closely with data lakes to reduce storage costs and unlock data for AI and advanced analytics, data infrastructure is evolving fast. Join us to hear from leading experts as they share practical solutions and lessons learned in building open, scalable, and high-performance data platforms.

​Food and beverages will be provided!

​​Speakers

• ​Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity
• ​Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran
• ​Imma Valls, Senior Developer Advocate @ Grafana
• ​Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio

​Agenda

• ​6:00 pm – Check-in and networking
• ​6:15 – 8:00 pm – Talks
• ​8:00 – 9:00 pm – Networking

​Description of the Talks

​Building a Foundation for AI with ClickHouse® and Apache Iceberg Storage

​Speaker: Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity

​Abstract: AI applications need data. Lots of it. Altinity’s Project Antalya is adapting open source ClickHouse® to introduce separation of compute and storage on shared Iceberg table data. The result: fast, cheap, flexible query that extends the life of real-time analytic applications and lays the foundation for handling new AI use cases on the same datasets. We cover architecture, performance results, roadmap, and how to get started yourself.  

​Iceberg for Agents: Elevating Lakehouse Data Into AI-Ready Context

​Speaker: Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran

​Abstract: AI agents fail in production because even though they’re stuffed with data, they’re starved for context. Better LLM models aren’t the problem. The bottleneck is the data stack: fragmented silos, inconsistent definitions, and logic hidden in tribal knowledge. Agents need structured, reliable, and interpretable context—not just data access.

​In this session, we’ll show how Apache Iceberg becomes the backbone of AI-ready pipelines. You’ll learn how to elevate your Iceberg implementation from a storage format to a live context layer that powers structured retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), schema-aware agents, and autonomous reasoning grounded in truth.

​What we’ll cover:

• ​Iceberg Foundations for AI – from ACID to Time Travel
• ​From Rows to Relationships – The role of the semantic layer
• ​Structured RAG in Practice – Fully open source

​The session includes a live demo of a fully open-source Structured RAG stack built on Apache Iceberg, featuring semantic query translation, hybrid retrieval, and governed agent reasoning. Expect architecture diagrams, real code, and practical guidance.

​Visualizing Your Data Lake with Grafana

​Speaker: Imma Valls, Senior Developer Advocate @ Grafana

​Abstract: In this brief talk, we’ll walk through how to get started with Grafana’s open source platform to explore and understand your data lake. We’ll cover how to connect to your data—no matter where it lives—then craft queries that turn raw information into clear, compelling visualizations, and finally set up alerts and annotations so you’re always in the know when something important changes in your data lake.

​The Open Data Lakehouse: Who Benefits?

​Speaker: Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio

​Abstract: Data Lakehouses have long benefited from open standards, with many established table formats and now emerging alternatives for the data catalog. But where does this leave the users, customers, and vendors? Who sees the benefits of these open technologies?

In this talk I will delve into the Open Data Lakehouse, the analytics platform that delivers industry-leading performance on open software standards. We will delve into the technical details of Apache Iceberg and Apache Polaris, what they deliver for modern data analytics, and who is impacted by these ground-breaking collaborations.

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/osa-con_open-lakehouse-and-ai-luma-activity-7422333186233376770-0VLu
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/osa-con_amsterdamtech-openlakehouse-ai-activity-7422862881454637056-6JOp