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MDS Fest 3.0 - Call For Speakers

Applications are now open.

After a phenomenal MDS Fest 2.0, we're running it back for the third time.

Introducing MDS Fest 3.0 running May 5 - 9, 2025.

In our second year of the festival, we had over 1,500 attendees, 60+ sessions, and an average of 5 hours of content watched per attendee. This incredible reception from the community has fuelled our passion to deliver an even more remarkable experience this time.

Our call for speakers is currently open and will close at 11:59 PM EST on March 31, 2025. Please note that MDS Fest is a completely virtual conference. We will work with speakers to ensure speaking slots are within their timezone.

Check out our website, join our Slack community, or follow us on LinkedIn for updates.

Speaker Tracks

We want to showcasing an unparalleled lineup of diverse speakers across the most common challenges to solve in data today:

1. Data governance and strategy

2. Modern data architecture and engineering

3. Data quality

4. Leadership, skills development and career growth

6. Data storytelling

1️⃣ Data governance and strategy

This track explores how organizations can build scalable governance frameworks that balance compliance, security, and accessibility without slowing down innovation.

From metadata management and lineage to regulatory compliance (GDPR, CCPA, etc.) and security, these sessions will provide the strategies and tools needed to maintain high-quality, well-managed data at scale. Example topics: Data quality, regulatory compliance (GDPR, CCPA, etc.), governance frameworks, metadata management, lineage, security, privacy, AI governance, operationalizing data governance, scaling governance

2️⃣ Modern data architecture and engineering

The foundation of any great data strategy is a resilient and scalable architecture.

This track focuses on data pipelines, lakehouses, real-time processing, observability, and DataOps—giving teams the technical blueprints to build systems that are flexible, cost-effective, and governance-ready.

Example topics: Data pipelines, data warehousing, real-time data processing, data lakehouse strategies, and infrastructure best practices

3️⃣ Data quality

Untrustworthy data wastes your data team's limited resources and creates risk for the business. Most data quality solutions focus on alerting data teams to quality issues after something has gone wrong, but proactively identifying issues before they even happen can help data teams move more quickly and drive more trust with stakeholders. Showcase how you’ve optimized data quality for your business-critical pipelines.

Example topics: AI in data governance, machine learning in analytics, self-service BI, data democratization, and operationalizing AI/ML.

4️⃣ Leadership, skills development and career growth

Governance and engineering alone aren’t enough. Building and leading a great data team is just as critical. This track covers hiring, scaling, balancing governance with agility, and navigating leadership challenges in data teams.

Example topics: Data literacy, building & hiring data teams, managing change in governance initiatives, data literacy, data culture, career progression, mentorship

5️⃣ Data storytelling

A creative, open-ended track for showcasing unique perspectives and passion projects through data. These talks are a chance to share insights, experiments, and stories in a fun, informal setting.

Example topics: Anything goes! From visualizing historical events and analyzing movie box office trends to mapping internet culture, exploring niche technical insights, or uncovering the data behind everyday life—we welcome fresh takes and untold stories.

6️⃣ Open mic

Not sure where your talk fits? We still want to hear from you!