Marko is a machine learning and computer vision specialist with experience in both academia and industry. He graduated and then taught several artificial intelligence courses at University of Novi Sad, Serbia for 5 years. Later, Marko went through the rich start-up scene in Zurich, Switzerland for a couple of years, where he developed state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms. His focus was on recognition, detection, segmentation and visual search, while also working closely with customers (B2B). Finally, Marko spent a couple of years at Apple in Cupertino, California as a machine learning engineer. At Apple, Marko was a part of a huge cross-team and cross-functional effort of developing high-end computer vision models, which have to work at unprecedented scale of billions of devices across the world.

‘Architecting Sustainable Software Ecosystems for Precision Agriculture’

Precision Agriculture (PA) represents the application of modern information and communication technologies (ICT) into agriculture to increase production and economic returns, often also to reduce the impact on the environment. On the one hand, PA builds on adopting advanced technology such as cloud computing, remote sensing, data-driven farming, big data analytics, and the internet of things (IoT). On the other hand, it relies on multiple systems integrated into a so-called software ecosystem. In a software ecosystem, each system is often interdependent on the other interconnected systems in the ecosystem and co-evolves in the same environment.

The software ecosystem can be structured and operated in multiple different ways. Therefore, a key challenge is to design a sustainable software ecosystem that meets the stakeholders' concerns. Several aspects impact the sustainability of the software ecosystem, among which the proper software architecture design plays an important role.

The software architecture defines the gross level, systemic structure of the system, and is important for understanding the system, analyzing the design decisions and guiding the development process. The software architecture also defines the boundaries of the system and the controlled evolution of the system.

This talk will discuss the challenges of designing software ecosystems for precision agriculture. Several key topics will be described, including (1) precision agriculture, (2) software ecosystem, (3) system of systems (4) architecture design. Further, important lessons learned and the future will be presented.

Often these 2 words - Data Governance - sound confusing, mystical, dry and even boring. Yet Data Governance jobs in the market the last few years are really popular and in high demand. So what is this thing? Why is Data Governance even necessary? What does it mean? What can it do for a company?

I want to share more insights into the Data Governance world, to explain what it is and share some real life stories from my experience. I want to share why I believe this can be an exciting job for many of you.

People have not changed, but the way we see data has. Data has always been there, and it has always been important; however nowadays when there is so much more that we can do with it, the interest and attention for it has just exploded. Whilst I also am excited about the new shiny tools, I strongly believe and know that the data that goes into them, still needs lots and lots of our care and attention.

Input – Mishmash – Output – Business Decisions is in short the whole process, and the quality and reliability of the input is what I choose to focus on.
I get inspired if I can ignite interest in people about Data Governance. It often needs to be demystified, it is not such a scary monster after all! I have worked in this field for several multinational Companies across Fashion, Pharma, Chemicals, Automotive, and FMCG industries, across both very federated and aligned IT landscapes, various maturity levels, across multiple data domains.

After 8 years and multiple projects, I have repeatedly landed on the same old truth: Data Governance is not a tool implementation. Data Governance is about people, and it has no end date.

To share my love for data, I am a regular speaker at various conferences for Data Management practices. I want to share real examples of what worked, and what failed, and learn from each other. The rest we can google. 🙂