Public speaking & meetups on Sam Debruyn

From Flat to Sparkling: Monitoring Data Quality with Soda in Microsoft Fabric

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

After loading all of your data into OneLake, you might be wondering how to ensure its quality. In this session, we’ll explore and demonstrate how Soda can help you monitor data quality with automated data testing and alerting, write and monitor data contracts, and browse data quality metrics in a user-friendly dashboard. Soda is an open-source CLI tool where I recently contributed support for Microsoft Fabric. It’s available for Lakehouses and Data Warehouses and comes with an easy and git-controlled YAML syntax to monitor all aspects of data quality.

From Fabric to Fantastic: How dbt Makes Your Lakehouses and Warehouses Shine

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Website | Schedule

Unlock the full potential of your Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse or Lakehouse. This session dives into dbt, a tool that streamlines SQL development within Fabric. It lowers the barrier of entry into the world of data analytics to everyone who ever wrote a line of SQL. Learn how dbt empowers data teams with functionalities like data documentation, automated testing, and data lineage for reliable and insightful analytics.

From Fabric to Fantastic: How dbt Makes Your Lakehouses and Warehouses Shine

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Meetup

Unlock the full potential of your Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse or Lakehouse. In this session, analytics engineers can learn from the top contributor to dbt-fabric what Microsoft Fabric is all about and how dbt is the perfect tool to build data transformations on Microsoft Fabric. We’ll cover the basics of Microsoft Fabric, how to connect dbt Cloud with Microsoft Fabric, and how to build our first Hello Fabric project.

Belgium dbt Meetup 14

Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the fourteenth edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup took place at BeCentral in the Brussels Central Station.

From Lock-In to Openness: The Shift in Data Platforms

Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Website | Tickets | Agenda

Take a look at the marketing of any modern data platform and you’ll notice a common theme — they all emphasize their openness. But what does that really mean? What happened to the good old days of vendor lock-in? And how “open” are these platforms, really?

dbt fundamentals: an introduction to dbt in 2026 (workshop)

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Website | Tickets | Agenda

New to dbt? This hands-on tutorial is your launchpad. Starting from scratch, you’ll set up your first dbt project in dbt Platform’s Studio IDE against Microsoft Fabric, with no local setup required. By the end of the session, you’ll understand what dbt is, why it has become the backbone of modern analytics engineering, and how it fits into the broader data transformation landscape. You’ll work through the core building blocks of dbt: models, sources, seeds, and Jinja templating, before moving into macros, documentation, and testing. Every concept is reinforced with practical exercises, so you leave with working code. Whether you’re a data analyst or an engineer stepping into the analytics space, this tutorial gives you the foundation to hit the ground running on your first real dbt project.

Fabric Capacities: The Administrator's Guide

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Details & registration

Fabric Capacities are deceptively simple to provision — but one runaway query can throttle your entire organization. This session is the administrator’s deep dive into bursting, smoothing, overage debt, throttling, and the governance levers that keep workloads in check. We cover monitoring with the Capacity Metrics App and Real-Time Hub, cost optimization with reservations and autoscale billing, Spark and SQL Database governance, and practical sizing workflows to go from proof of concept to scaled adoption.

Hardening Fabric Warehouse Security

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tickets | Session

Learn how to secure Fabric Data Warehouse from the ground up. This session covers end-to-end practices—from secure connectivity and authentication to auditing, monitoring, and governance—highlighting new features that strengthen compliance, visibility, and trust at scale.

Thread by Thread: Lessons from Migrating to Fabric

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tickets | Schedule

Guest on Bright Signal podcast: Should Startups Bet on Microsoft Fabric? - Fabric Data Days Edition

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This podcast was formerly known as the Monkey Patching podcast, but it has been rebranded as the Bright Signal podcast.

Episode page

In this episode, I discuss Microsoft Fabric with the hosts of the Bright Signal podcast. We cover a range of topics, including the features and capabilities of Microsoft Fabric, its suitability for startups, integration with other tools, getting started with the platform, AI capabilities, challenges and limitations, cost and pricing structure, data storage and management, machine learning and AI integration, best practices for data transformation, the future of data engineering skills, and community resources for Microsoft Fabric.

Belgium dbt Meetup 13 - co-hosted with the Belgium Snowflake User Group

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I helped organizing the revival edition of the Belgium Snowflake User Group, in collaboration with Snowflake and Telenet. We made it a co-hosted dbt meetup, with presentations from Telenet, Snowflake, and dbt Labs.

SQL Resurgence: Unleashing data potential with dbt

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The largest Microsoft Fabric community event in Belgium

Thread by Thread: Lessons from Migrating to Fabric

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The largest Microsoft Fabric community event in Belgium

Agenda | Tickets

Belgium dbt Meetup 12

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the twelfth edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by IBA in Louvain-La-Neuve.

Fabric Capacities: Divide and Conquer

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

More information | Session details | Tickets

SQL Resurgence: Unleashing data potential with dbt

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tickets & registration | Schedule

Guest on DataTopics podcast: SQLBits Unfiltered - dbt in Fabric, MLOps in Action & Copilot in Question

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Listen here

I was a guest on the DataTopics podcast, where we discussed all the news from SQLBits .

We discussed the current state of Microsoft Fabric, dbt, MLOps, and Copilot.

Belgium dbt Meetup 11

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I co-organized the eleventh edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by Port of Antwerp in Antwerp.

From Fabric to Fantastic: How dbt Makes Your Lakehouses and Warehouses Shine

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

More information | Session details | Tickets | Agenda

Fabric Capacities: Divide and Conquer

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Details

A single Fabric Capacity is easy to set up. But what about the risk of a single user taking down your entire data estate with a poorly written query? In this session, we’ll explore how to split and configure Fabric Capacities for different workloads. Autoscaling, auto pause, bursting, smoothing, monitoring, and more, we’ll cover it all. By the end of this talk, you’re ready to build a scalable and robust design Fabric Workspace and Capacity design for the entire organization.

Fabric Capacities: Divide and Conquer

Wed, 28 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

More information | Session details | Tickets

Fabric Fortresses: Setting Up Microsoft Fabric for Your Enterprise Needs

Wed, 28 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

More information | Session details | Tickets

Join us to master Microsoft Fabric for enterprise-level challenges. Learn how to integrate private networking, manage resilience and disaster recovery, ensure seamless access control and configure vigilant monitoring to safeguard your data architecture. We’ll use Workspace Identity, Private Endpoints, and go through all the different ways to provide or restrict access to your data. By the end of this talk, you’ll be ready to build a robust and secure data platform on Microsoft Fabric.

Belgium dbt Meetup 10

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the tenth edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by Dataminded in Leuven.

Fabric Capacities: Divide and Conquer

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

More information | Tickets | Agenda

From Flat to Sparkling: Monitoring Data Quality with Soda in Microsoft Fabric

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Free registration | Agenda

After loading all of your data into OneLake, you might be wondering how to ensure its quality. In this session, we’ll explore and demonstrate how Soda can help you monitor data quality with automated data testing and alerting, write and monitor data contracts, and browse data quality metrics in a user-friendly dashboard.

Belgium dbt Meetup 9

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the ninth edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by Lighthouse in Ghent.

71st Data Science Leuven Meetup

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

details

Host of the 71st Data Science Leuven Meetup.

Talks:

Jiri De Jonghe: AdversLLM: a Practical Guide to Governance, Maturity and Risk Assessment for LLM-based Applications
Bram Steurtewagen: The Good, the Bad and the Algorithm
Sander Reumers (Comfort Energy) & Senne Van Hemelen (AE): Fueling insights with AI: how to use data for ROI and customer satisfaction

Fabric Fortresses: Setting Up Microsoft Fabric for Your Enterprise Needs

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

More information, schedule, and tickets

Join us to master Microsoft Fabric for enterprise-level challenges. Learn how to integrate private networking, manage resilience and disaster recovery, ensure seamless access control and configure vigilant monitoring to safeguard your data architecture. We’ll use Workspace Identity, Private Endpoints, and go through all the different ways to provide or restrict access to your data. By the end of this talk, you’ll be ready to build a robust and secure data platform on Microsoft Fabric.

From Flat to Sparkling: Monitoring Data Quality with Soda in Microsoft Fabric

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Tickets

After loading all of your data into OneLake, you might be wondering how to ensure its quality. In this session, we’ll explore and demonstrate how Soda can help you monitor data quality with automated data testing and alerting, write and monitor data contracts, and browse data quality metrics in a user-friendly dashboard.

Belgium dbt Meetup 8

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the eigth edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by DataSense in Hasselt.

Medallion for Data Mesh: Exploring Workspace, Capacity, and Domain Design in Microsoft Fabric

Sat, 19 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

More information

Designing a medallion architecture is more than just setting up a few Lakehouses and Data Warehouses. In this session, data architects and engineers learn how to design a medallion architecture with Fabric Workspaces, Capacities, and Domains. We’ll cover the segregation of responsibilities, granular access control, and how to pick and choose the right Capacities for every workload. By the end of this talk, you’ll be ready to design a scalable and secure data platform with Microsoft Fabric.

Medallion for Data Mesh: Exploring Workspace, Capacity, and Domain Design in Microsoft Fabric

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Tickets & registration | Schedule

Designing a medallion architecture is more than just setting up a few Lakehouses and Data Warehouses. In this session, data architects and engineers learn how to design a medallion architecture with Fabric Workspaces, Capacities, and Domains. We’ll cover the segregation of responsibilities, granular access control, and how to pick and choose the right Capacities for every workload. By the end of this talk, you’ll be ready to design a scalable and secure data platform with Microsoft Fabric.

Fabric Capacities: Divide and Conquer

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

More information | Tickets

A single Fabric Capacity is easy to set up. But what about the risk of a single user taking down your entire data estate with a poorly written query? In this session, we’ll explore how to split and configure Fabric Capacities for different workloads. Autoscaling, auto pause, bursting, smoothing, monitoring, and more, we’ll cover it all. By the end of this talk, you’re ready to build a scalable and robust design Fabric Workspace and Capacity design for the entire organization.

Medallion for Data Mesh: Exploring Workspace, Capacity, and Domain Design in Microsoft Fabric [EXTENDED TALK / DEEP-DIVE]

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

More information | Tickets

Designing a medallion architecture is more than just setting up a few Lakehouses and Data Warehouses. In this session, data architects and engineers learn how to design a medallion architecture with Fabric Workspaces, Capacities, and Domains. We’ll cover the segregation of responsibilities, granular access control, and how to pick and choose the right Capacities for every workload. By the end of this talk, you’ll be ready to design a scalable and secure data platform with Microsoft Fabric.

From Flat to Sparkling: Monitoring Data Quality with Soda in Microsoft Fabric

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Registration

After loading all of your data into OneLake, you might be wondering how to ensure its quality. In this session, we’ll explore and demonstrate how Soda can help you monitor data quality with automated data testing and alerting, write and monitor data contracts, and browse data quality metrics in a user-friendly dashboard.

SQL Resurgence: Unleashing Data Potential with dbt - session

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Tickets

Join us on an exhilarating exploration of the data landscape as we delve into the phenomenon that is dbt. It has taken the world by storm and is now the most popular data transformation tool. Let’s dive into this new era and witness the renaissance of SQL at the core of data analytics, bringing it back to those who know the data best.

SQL Resurgence: Unleashing Data Potential with dbt - workshop

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Information | Tickets

NL dbt meetup: From Fabric to Fantastic: How dbt Makes Your Lakehouses and Warehouses Shine

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On the 20th of September, I spoke at the NL dbt meetup .

From Fabric to Fantastic: How dbt Makes Your Lakehouses and Warehouses Shine

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I gave a session on dbt at the Microsoft Fabric Global Online Conference. If you want to learn more about Microsoft Fabric, get your ticket for this free online event: https://microsoftfabric.global/

Belgium dbt Meetup 7

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the seventh edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by DPG Media in Vilvoorde.

Medallion for Data Mesh: Exploring Workspace, Capacity, and Domain Design in Microsoft Fabric

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On June 20th I spoke at the Fabric Brussels meetup.

Event details

Belgium dbt Meetup 6

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the sixth edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by dataroots in Leuven.

SQL Resurgence - Unleashing Data Potential with dbt

Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

details

Speakers:

Rik Pauwels, Tech Lead @ Devoteam - Client-side BI, a new wave in analytics?
Sam Debruyn, Tech Lead @ Dataroots - SQL Resurgence: Unleashing Data Potential with dbt
Lien Bosmans - A data engineer-friendly relational schema for object-centric process mining

Join us on an exhilarating exploration of the data landscape as we delve into the phenomenon that is dbt. It has taken the world by storm and is now the most popular data transformation tool. Let’s dive into this new era and witness the renaissance of SQL at the core of data analytics, bringing it back to those who know the data best. During this talk we’ll get to experience the first steps into dbt and be ready for our first dbt project.

Guest on DataTopics Unplugged podcast: Unraveling the Fabric of Data: Microsoft's Ecosystem and Beyond

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I was a guest on the DataTopics Unplugged podcast, where we discussed several data-related topics.

Show notes and download/listen links

Belgium dbt Meetup 5

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the fifth edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by Digital Hive in Hasselt.

63rd Data Science Leuven Meetup

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

details

Host of the 63rd Data Science Leuven Meetup.

Talks:

The principle of maximum entropy on very large networks (Juan Alvarado)
Simplify more complex tasks with LLMs (Dries Vereecken & Patrick Leonardy, Python Predictions)
Managing and Integrating Microsoft Dynamics 365 Table Structure using Azure Synapse (Dries Gielis, Datashift)

SQL Resurgence - Unleashing Data Potential with dbt on Databricks

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I spoke at the Databricks meetup on how you can use dbt with SQL on Databricks to unleash the full potential of your data. The event was held at Cegeka in Antwerp, Belgium.

Speakers:

Sam Debruyn (tech lead data & cloud @ dataroots)
Fabrice Deseyn (data architect & team lead @ Cegeka)

SQL Resurgence - Unleashing Data Potential with dbt

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

details

Speakers:

Sam Debruyn (tech lead data & cloud @ dataroots)
Martijn Bauters (head of data & digital @ Cerba Research)

Belgium dbt Meetup 4

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the fourth edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by Datashift in Mechelen.

Guest on DataTopics Unplugged podcast: OSS equals marketing?

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I was a guest on the DataTopics Unplugged podcast, where we discussed several data-related topics.

Show notes and download/listen links

Data Agility Unleashed: A Deep Dive into Microsoft Fabric's Features (dataroots Fabric Event)

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I was invited to speak at the dataroots Microsoft Fabric Event in Leuven, Belgium. The event was held at De Hoorn, an old brewery in the city center.

Speakers:

Sam Debruyn (tech lead data & cloud @ dataroots)
Jonas Tundo (CEO @ dataroots)
Priya Sathy (Partner Director of Products @ Microsoft)

Pictures:

Belgium dbt Meetup 3

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the third edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by Astrafy in Brussels.

MotherDuck meetup

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

Together with MotherDuck , I organized the first global MotherDuck meetup at dataroots!

Belgium dbt Meetup 2

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the second edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup . The meetup was hosted by OTA Insight in Ghent.

dbt & Fabric: better together

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I gave a talk at the Data Platform Next Step conference in Billund, Denmark. The conference was the first conference with sessions about Microsoft Fabric right after the launch of the public preview at Microsoft Build .

dbt is the new data transformation tool taking the world by storm. It lowers the barrier of entry into the world of data analytics to everyone who ever wrote a line of SQL. Did you know it integrates quite well with all Microsoft SQL products and even with Fabric? Join this session to follow in the footsteps of thousands of analytics engineers and fall in love with dbt. Learn more about how dbt works with Fabric and Azure SQL from the maintainer of the official dbt adapter! We’ll use Fabric and VS Code to build our first Hello Fabric project.

Can you feel the breeze? Data-aware scheduling and more new features in Airflow

Tue, 23 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

Remember when you last used Airflow? You might have been scratching your head a few times. Recently Airflow has picked up a steady pace of releases packed with lots of interesting new features. In this talk we’ll go over them and see how they individually contribute to a new way to use Airflow.

Analytics Engineering Belgium Meetup 1

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Event details

I organized the first edition of the Analytics Engineering Belgium Meetup . The meetup was hosted by Ausy in Leuven.

Building & deploying Azure self-service data platforms for healthcare

Tue, 10 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I hosted this session of AZUG on Kubernetes and data platforms on Azure at the dataroots office in Leuven and gave a presentation.

Event details

Building & deploying Azure self-service data platforms for healthcare

Speakers: Sam Debruyn & Wout Olyslagers

Mediahuis: Why Dask and not Spark?

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Here I hosted this demonstration/interview during a lunch webinar at dataroots .

In this rootlabs session we will be joined by Paul-Armand Verhaegen and Joeri Rammelaere from Mediahuis. They will guide us through their setup of the data platform at Mediahuis.

The team chose Dask as the key component in their data platform to facilitate data scientists more easily. It will be interesting to hear them talk about the advantages which Dask offers compared to the more common setups using Apache Spark.

Tour de Tools #9 - Liquibase with Sam Debruyn

Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This talk was given during a lunch webinar at dataroots .

In this session, Sam Debruyn (aka Official Liquibase Fanboy, soon to be Legend) will demonstrate Liquibase – an open source database schema version controller . After an introduction on schema versioning and presentation of Liquibase, Sam will narrate us some stories from the trenches: how to optimally use the tool locally to avoid writing cumbersome XML, testing your transformations and integration with your automation tool.

Deploy a data lake on Azure in less than an hour

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This talk was given on multiple occasions:

During a lunch webinar at dataroots .
At Data Science Leuven (event details ).

A data lake is fundamental to a modern big data approach so it’s important to set it up the right way. But how can you do that without having to spend hours on research and then losing days configuring every component of the data lake? How can you gain a lot of time, while still deploying a fully functional data lake with all the necessary components?

James Montemagno on Euro Tour

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In 2019 James Montemagno, Microsoft’s Xamarin evangelist did a through Europe. I organized this event in Mechelen together with MADN and VISUG .

Event details

Serverless on Azure @ Tech Dive September 2019

Thu, 26 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On September 26th, 2019, I organized the RMDY Tech Dive in Edegem. This was a public event with several topics about web, cloud & mobile app development.

During this meetup, I did a talk about serverless on Azure. I explained what serverless is, what Azure Functions are and how you can use them to build your own serverless applications.

Continuous integration for Flutter

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

At the fourth Flutter Belgium meetup in Brussels, I gave a presentation about setting up continuous integration for Flutter apps using Bitrise.

Event details

Download slides

Tech Dive May 2019

Tue, 21 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On May 21st, 2019, I organized the RMDY Tech Dive in Edegem. This was a public event with several topics about web, cloud & mobile app development.

Event Details

Tech Dive March 2019

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On March 19th, 2019, I organized the RMDY Tech Dive in Edegem. This was a public event with several topics about web, cloud & mobile app development.

Event Details

Watch the video

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Tech Dive January 2019

Thu, 31 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On January 31st, 2019, I organized the RMDY Tech Dive in Edegem. This was a public event with several topics about web, cloud & mobile app development.

Event Details

Xamarin.Forms: The Now and Future & Building Fast Mobile Apps Fast

Thu, 04 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

On October 4th, 2018, I organized a Xamarin meetup in Edegem. I also gave a talk at this meetup about building mobile apps fast with MugenMvvmToolkit.

On this meetup I was joined by Microsoft’s own David Ortinau. He gave a talk about the current state and future of Xamarin.Forms.

Event details

Xamarin Dev Days 2017 Edegem

Sat, 18 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In 2017 I organized a local edition of the Xamarin Dev Days in Edegem. I organized the event, gave a technical talk and led the workshops. Developers from all over Belgium attended to learn about Xamarin.

Event details

Workshop: getting started with Xamarin

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In 2017 I gave a workshop (in Dutch) about getting started with Xamarin. The workshop was part of a series of workshops named Summer of Technology.

Beautiful Xamarin.Forms and Serious Tech talk

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In 2017 I hosted this edition of the Belgian Xamarin meetup group with 2 talks about Xamarin.Forms and Xamarin.Android.

Event details