PASS Data Community SUMMIT is November 8-12, 2021 . It is a free online conference and evolved from the original PASS summit. PASS Data Community Summit 2021 is the year’s largest gathering of Microsoft data platform professionals. Join this free online Summit and connect, share, and learn with 1000s of your peers from the global data platform community.
Microsoft Ignite is back for the second instalment this year. It is November 2–4, 2021 to explore the latest tools, training sessions, technical expertise, networking opportunities, and more. I like to think of Ignite as empowerment and innovation with end to end experiences. The four transformation curated themes
Want some more information and background about our November Conference on 12 November 2021. One of our organisers has written a great post explaining it here.
You can read it here as well
So, while there’s been all this stuff going on, a couple of data friends and I started a conference series and a user group both focused on Azure Synapse Analytics. Because, you know.. you can never have too many online conferences, training sessions, and presentations, right ?
We’ve probably all attended online lerns recently, been to meetings online, chatted with friends and family over new and sometimes unfamiliar apps like Teams and Zoom (yes, the nerds have been using them for a while, but collab apps just went *wild* recently).
But we (as in me and the aforementioned data friends) wanted to do something different. Something more…. interactive. More…. conversational. Less “I’ll sign up and download the recordings later, maybe“. And so, somewhat concietedly, we came up with ‘World Azure Synapse Day 2021’, where we can share, chat, learn, and laugh (maybe) to round out the year. A sort of retrospective on the future, if you like.
Full disclosure: we didn’t come up with the format ourselves. A few months back, a company called DataStax did something similar for the worldwide Apache Cassandra community where they had short talks from the engineering team, the sales people, their marketing. We’re aiming for something waaaayyyy less corporate, and more about you 
We just borrowed the good bits and left out the sales pitch.
So we’re doing three sessions on the day, timed to hopefully coincide with people’s availability in each of APAC, EMEA, and AMER time-zones. We hope it will feel a bit more like a meeting than a presentation, as there’ll be several short talks and interviews in each. The sessions will *not* be recorded (sorry, you’re going to have to be there to see it !) – it’s really important to us that each session flows and everyone can participate, and recording that doesn’t seem fair. We’re also not even publishing an agenda, just a schedule of who will be talking at each session – we want the speakers to speak for themselves in every way possible – so there’s no pressure on anyone to ‘get it right first time’, and each and every contribution is welcome.
If you want to attend (and we hope you do), please sign up to the MeetUp for Data Toboggan here. There’s also a code of conduct under the heading ‘Be Excellent To Each Other’ that we’d ask you to adhere to, but that’s all you have to do. If you want to have your voice heard, just submit some thoughts through Sessionize, and we’ll be in contact. And don’t hesitate to ask any question you like in the MeetUp group – we’ll make sure you get a response
Hope to see you at Data Toboggan – World Azure Synapse Day 2021 ! Until then, stay safe.
The Data Toboggan Team
The maximize the value of your data in the cloud: achieve unified data governance with Azure Purview digital event with Rohan Kumar, Corporate Vice President Azure Data and Mike Flasko, General Manager of Azure Data Governance Platform on 26 September 2021 was an exciting event. It enables the new reimagined agile data governance world to move forward.
The event explored Azure Purview, a unified data governance solution that gives you a holistic, up-to-date map of your entire data estate. The general availability of Azure Purview was announced bringing that improve automated governance to the fore.
Introduction to Azure Purview Microsoft Learn to start your learning journey.
Official Purview blog for updates
Billing for Azure Purview will start on 1st November 2021. Pricing
Announcements are detailed here
Customer Stories shared
The National AI Strategy was released in September 2021. It is a 10 year plan to transform and reshape our society.
The 3 aims are to
The document contains a roadmap and details of the pillars . It has 3 pillars
Pillar 1 Investing in the log term needs of the AI ecosystem
Pillar 2 Ensuring AI benefits all sectors and regions
Pillar 3 Governing AI effectively
Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO)
The CDDO has been created within the
Cabinet Office to consolidate the core policy and strategy responsibilities for
data foundations. They will work with partners to improve
government’s use and reuse of data to support data-driven innovation across the
public sector.
The UK's National AI Strategy
The Microsoft Research Summit is open to everyone! October 19 - 21, with over 150 sessions across 16 tracks, provides the global research community with an opportunity learn from experts pushing the frontiers of technology. Register now: https://aka.ms/AAdv93n The event will start in three broadcast regions (China Standard Time, British Summer Time, and Pacific Time). Microsoft say
For 30 years, our research community at Microsoft has worked across disciplines, institutions, and geographies to envision and realize the promise of new technologies for Microsoft and for society. Today, we’re inviting the global science and technology community to continue this exploration—because ensuring that future advancements benefit everyone is up to all of us.
Join us at the inaugural Microsoft Research Summit, streaming virtually across three time zones. You’ll have the opportunity to hear from science and technology leaders from around the world—people who are driving advances across the sciences and pushing the limits of technology toward achieving a meaningful impact on humanity.
They want to build a place where research thinks of sustainability, ethics, diversity and is inclusive of everyone. There are some really interesting topics under discussion.
