GDG Sydney Meetup March 2025

Name: GDG Sydney Meetup March 2025
Start: 2025-03-05T17:30:00+11:00
End: 2025-03-05T20:00:00+11:00
Location: Mantel Group Kasna

Hosted By

GDG G.

Details

GDG Cloud Sydney is back for a meetup this March! Join us for an evening of interesting technical talks.

Come Hire!
The meetup allocates 10 minutes to people seeking technical jobs or with open roles at their company.

This meetup is in the in-person format; there are no plans to stream the event*

Partners
This meetup is organised in partnership with Mantel Group. They harness technologies that transform business operations in the real world. With capabilities spanning Cloud, Data, Digital and Security, they merge emerging technologies with innovative design and industry expertise to enhance your business. With deep technical specialisation and as leading Amazon, Google and Microsoft cloud partners, the depth and breadth our solutions offer is unparalleled. Mantel Group is your partner for end-to-end digital transformation.

Ranked in Australia's top 10 Best Workplaces by Great Place To Work Australia for four years in a row, we are people-focused and uphold strong values. Our culture champions trust, empowerment, and diversity with a lean structure emphasizing collaboration, direct communication, and equity.

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"Dented Code teaches coding skills that you need to become a full stack developer and help you advance your career, pursue your dream job, or enjoy the freedom of life as a freelancer." - Learn more on their website.

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Programmable is the Australian software engineering conference. It celebrates fantastic developer content and focuses on human connection, bringing people together to create serendipitous interactions.

We will also give out two licenses from JetBrains 1-year subscription to any of JetBrains' IDEs with a raffle. You can use the 100% discount code on CLion, DataGrip, DataSpell, GoLand, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, PhpStorm, PyCharm, ReSharper, ReSharper C++, Rider, RubyMine, WebStorm, or dotUltimate.

Talks
Talk 1: Leveraging Google Gemini: Querying Databases with Natural Language - Utkrista KC

In this session, we'll explore how we can utilise Google Gemini to transform the way we interact with databases by enabling natural language queries. With Gemini's advanced AI capabilities, we can move beyond traditional database query languages like SQL and effortlessly retrieve insights using everyday language.

We'll dive into practical use cases of querying datasets with natural language, showing how this simplifies the process of gaining insights, even for non-technical users. You’ll also learn how to integrate Gemini with your database, its limitations, and the level of efficiency it provides.

About the speaker - Utkrista

Utkrista is a data software engineer with experience in building scalable solutions. Currently, she is working as a Data Engineer at Antler, Sydney. Utkrista brings a unique blend of product engineering and data expertise, allowing her to design solutions that not only meet technical requirements but also align with business objectives. With a passion for leveraging data to solve complex problems, she is actively involved in developing innovative solutions to help organisations make informed decisions.

Talk 2: Building Accurate and Reliable AI Systems by Grounding on Your Private Data - Yash Mehta

As AI systems become more integral to business operations, the challenge of ensuring accuracy and reliability has become increasingly critical. Large Language Models (LLMs) are powerful, but without being properly grounded, they can generate misleading or inaccurate responses. The solution lies in grounding AI models on trusted, private data sources that are unique to your organisation.

This talk will explore how you can leverage Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to build AI systems that are not only highly reliable but also customised to your specific business needs by anchoring them in your proprietary data. We will cover practical strategies and tools that ensure your AI solutions are both accurate and trustworthy, from retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to custom model training and secure data governance.

Event Schedule
5:30pm - Event doors open

6:00pm - Introduction and hiring connect for those hiring/wanting to be hired (5 mins for each group, and every individual gets 1 min max)

6:15pm - Talk 1: Leveraging Google Gemini: Querying Databases with Natural Language - Utkrista KC

7:00pm - Talk 2: Building Accurate and Reliable AI Systems by Grounding on Your Private Data - Yash Mehta

7:45pm - Raffle for the 2 JetBrains IDE licenses and 2 Programmable Conference ticket

8:15pm - Event end

Agenda

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Speakers

Utkrista KC - Antler (Data Engineer)

Yash Mehta - Vivanti (Consultant)

Yash is an seasoned technology consultant with a track record of successfully delivering large and complex projects, specialising in cutting edge technologies such AI & MLOps, real-time data processing, cloud architecture, and data engineering. With a deep understanding of Google Cloud Platform (GCP), he is recognised as one of the Google Cloud Champion Innovators in ANZ, specialising in C…

Hosts

Rohit Maharjan

Sajan Shrestha

Katharine Russell - Simply Wall St (Software Engineer)

Software Engineer and WTM Ambassador

Gary Lou - GDSC USYD (AI/ML Technical Lead)

Bachelor of Science (Data Science) and Bachelor of Laws at The University of Sydney.

Geshan Manandhar - Simply Wall St. (Sr. Software Engineer)

Geshan is a seasoned software engineer, with over 15 years of software engineering experience. Currently, in Sydney, Australia serving Simply Wall St. as a senior software engineer. He is a language-agnostic software engineer who believes the value provided to the business is more important than the choice of language or framework. With a keen interest in REST architecture, microservices, agil…

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Partners

Mantel Group (https://mantelgroup.com.au/)
Mantel Group harnesses technologies that transform business operations in the real world. With capabilities spanning Cloud, Data, Digital, and Security, they merge emerging technologies with innovative design and industry expertise to enhance your business. With deep technical specialisation and as leading Amazon, Google and Microsoft cloud partners, the depth and breadth our solutions offer is unparalleled. Mantel Group is your partner for end-to-end digital transformation.

Ranked in Australia's top 10 Best Workplaces by Great Place To Work Australia for four years in a row, we are people-focused and uphold strong values. Our culture champions trust, empowerment, and diversity, with a lean structure that emphasises collaboration, direct communication and equity.

JetBrains (https://www.jetbrains.com)
At JetBrains, code is our passion. Ever since we started, back in 2000, we have strived to make the strongest, most effective developer tools on earth. By automating routine checks and corrections, our tools speed up production, freeing developers to grow, discover and create.

Our Mission
We make professional software development a more productive and enjoyable experience.

Programmable (https://www.programmable.tech/)
Programmable is the Australian software engineering conference. The event celebrates fantastic developer content coupled with a focus on human connection; bringing people together to create serendipitous interactions.

Dented Code (https://dentedcode.com)
At Dented Code, we have developed an innovative coding Bootcamp approach to empower candidates with cutting-edge technology and skills to thrive in the Australian multi-billion digital economy. In 2021, Dented Code started transferring those programming skills to students through BootCamp courses, in-school workshops, community upskill initiatives as well as online tutorials. Through DetedCode’s BootCamp, students get equipped with in-demand coding and web development skills.

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Complete your event RSVP here: https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-cloud-sydney-presents-gdg-sydney-meetup-march-2025/.

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