4 Meetups and a Conference: The Road to Current 2024

If you know me, you know that I’m always looking for any excuse to bring the data streaming community together. We’ve just had a string of incredible Kafka Summits this spring––check out the recordings if you missed them––and Current 2024 is coming up fast at the end of the summer.

But why wait? I want more data streaming content. You want more data streaming content. So let’s make it happen.

Announcing a Bay Area Summer Meetup Series

This summer, we’d like to cordially invite everyone to join us in the Bay Area for a series of four meetups leading up to Current. 

Here’s what’s special about these meetups and what you need to know:

The speakers

First of all, you’ll recognize the speakers from the Current 2024 agenda. Every one of these summer meetups is a sort of mini celebration of Current, so who better to speak than those who will be presenting at Current this year?

Each meetup speaker will present on a topic related to (but not quite the same as) their session at Current. So you shouldn’t treat these meetups as a substitute for Current but rather an extension––bonus content! This is a great opportunity to meet with these folks ahead of the conference and pick their brains.

The best part? We’re announcing all of our speakers right here, right now. So you’ll already know exactly who you can expect to see this summer.

The ambiance

What makes these meetups particularly interesting? We’re switching things up a bit and taking the meetups outside to the rooftop of Confluent’s Mountain View office. Come early to network and enjoy corn hole, bocce, and other outdoor activities. We’ll have plenty of seating but feel free to bring a picnic blanket and take in the presentations from the lawn. 

You can expect a menu of summer-themed bites and beverages (no standard meetup-pizza at these events) and exclusive summer meetup swag!

The raffle

If the speakers and summer vibes aren’t enough to draw you to the meetups, we’ll also be hosting a raffle. All attendees are automatically entered to win a complimentary ticket to Current 2024 in Austin. And you’ll just have to attend to see what other raffle items we have in store.

The dates

Now, the information you’re here for. We’re hosting a total of four meetups, each themed around a slightly different part of the Apache Kafka®, Apache Flink®, and  data streaming world. Check out the meetup page for more details. The overall meetup theme as based on the title is decided, and topics will be added as the speakers decide on them.

• May 30th: Apache Kafka and Internals

  • Justine Olshan, Confluent

  • Andy Han, Uber

• June 27th: Apache Kafka Ecosystem, Kafka Streams, and Kafka Connect

  • Sophie Blee-Goldman, Responsive

  • Greg Harris, Aiven

  • Afzal Mazhar, Confluent

• July 25th: Apache Flink® and Stream Processing

  • Sharon Xie, Decodable

  • David Anderson, Confluent

• August 22nd: Data Streaming and Analytics

  • Elijah Meeks, Confluent

  • Tim Berglund, StarTree

Get moving!

Between these 4 meetups and Current 2024, you have five reasons to dive into real time this summer. So what are you waiting for? Head over to the meetup pages and sign up for any (all?) of our summer meetup series, and start getting excited for Current 2024.

We hope to see you there!