WIT Newsletter March 2026
Hello Data Platform WIT –
Sometimes it’s hard to stay focused with so much going on in the world. We know a lot of people are struggling with the news these days and we want to acknowledge that.
One of the bright spots from the year so far was our meetup with Juliana Smith in January. She had a great session on “Uncovering the Secrets of Dashboard Design”. This is one of those sessions that is always relevant and great to see how to make sure your designing useable dashboards.
Another bright spot was Chrissie LeMaire who presented a session for us in February. Her session, “I Rebuilt My Website In a Day (And You Can Too!)”, was relevant for so many of us who have blogs or websites, or maybe even considering setting one up, by showing us how she used AI to help solve the practical problems of building her sites.
If you missed either of these, you can still watch it, along with all our past meetups, on our YouTube channel.
March is going to be busy!
Our next session is on March 10th with Sheena Yap Chan talking about “Breaking Barriers: Empowering Women in AI, Embedded Vision, and Tech Leadership”. We’re looking forward to hearing what Sheena has to say and learning from her. We hope you will join us by RSVP’ing here.
If you didn’t know, March is International Women’s Month, with March 8th being International Women’s Day. Keep your eyes peeled on our socials, BlueSky & LinkedIn, throughout the month, as we have some inspiration coming from members of our community. Each day, we’ve asked someone to share a quote with us, which we’ll repost. We hope you’ll join us in sharing these quotes as we inspire, support, and encourage each other. You can find these by following us on BlueSky or keeping an eye out for the #DATAWIT hashtag.
If you are at FABCON/SQLCON in Atlanta, Kristy and Deborah will be in the community lounge at the end of Wednesday (Day 1) at 5:30pm. We’d love to connect with you in person while there. It will be a great way to kick off the conference. Please make sure you come by and say hello!
As always, we want to do more to help support our Data Platform WIT community. If there is something we can do to help support you and your efforts, please reach out. We’re in this together!
Deborah, Tracy, & Kristy
| Speaker | Session Title |
| Allison Baker | Transforming Business with Databricks: Real-World Customer Success Stories and AI Innovations |
| Amy Kauppila | From Avoidance to Advantage: The Power of Embracing What you Dread |
| Armelle LE GUELTE | Structured Meets Generative: The Future of Reliable AI in Healthcare. |
| Barkha Herman | Iceberg Ahead: Navigating the Future of Data Lakes Without Sinking |
| Cassandra Cardases | Death by Delivery: How Ineffective Storytelling Is Killing Your Deliverables |
| Cecilia Brusatori | From Zero to SQL: A Hands-On Query Writing 1-day Workshop |
| Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, or Both? Building Analytics Solutions | |
| Elizabeth Wade | Unlocking Data Simplicity: Empowering Business & IT with Sigma |
| Emma Supica | Unscripted Data: Improvising your Data Story |
| Gilma Adunas-Rivas | Predictive Analytics for a Healthier Tomorrow: Forecasting Hospital Readmissions using Claims Data |
| Kiersten Stokes | Building an Open Data Lakehouse with Presto and Apache Iceberg |
| Kristyna Ferris | Microsoft Fabric: Ask the Experts |
| Modern Data Warehousing with Microsoft Fabric: Patterns, Practices, and Pitfalls | |
| Navigating the Database Landscape in 2026: The Fight for Control | |
| Legare Kerrison | Structuring the Unstructured: Advanced Document Parsing for AI Workflows |
| Lena Winfree | AI in Action: How Higher Ed and Agentic AI Are Shaping Tomorrow’s Workforce |
| Sarah Peters | From Concert Hall to Code Review, Symphony to Software |
| Sireesha Pulipati | Modern Data Engineering on BigQuery: From Pipelines to Intelligence |
| Tessa Burg | From Insights to Impact: Rewiring How Data Teams Lead Innovation That Drives Growth |
| Valerie Kroll | Stop Shipping Dashboards. Start Driving Outcomes. |
| The Analyst’s Most Valuable Data: Human Ideas |
Data Saturday Chicago 2026 – March 14
| Speaker | Session Title |
| Breanna Hansen | Window Functions in SQL |
| Courtney Woolum | Reworking Indexes to Support an Evolving Application |
| Deborah Melkin | Women in Tech (WIT) Panel |
| Kristyna Ferris | Decoding Fabric Licensing |
| Sammie Walker Herrera | Strengthen Your Speaking Skills |
| Sarah Peters | From Concert Hall to Code Review, Symphony to Software |
Fab Con 2026/SQL Con – March 16-20
| Speaker | Session Title |
| Adi Regev | Empowering Fabric administrators: securing, scaling, and sustaining your data estate |
| Alicia Li | Build Trustworthy Real-Time AI Applications with Eventstream in Real-Time Intelligence |
| Anita Ambalavanan | Delivering Insights Where Your Users Work |
| Anna Gebler | Unifying Data Discovery: A Real-World Implementation of Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog |
| Anna Hoffman | Build AI-Ready applications with SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric |
| CORENOTE: The Roadmap for Microsoft SQL: Ground to Cloud to Fabric | |
| SQL database in Fabric: The unified database for AI apps and analytics | |
| Anu Venkataraman | Beyond Monitoring: AI-Driven Spark Optimization in Microsoft Fabric |
| Engineering Excellence with Fabric Spark – Test, Model, Predict, and Scale | |
| Carly Newsome | AI Answers, Done Right: When to use Power BI Copilot vs. Fabric Data Agents |
| Deborah Melkin | Change Tracking in SQL Server 2025: Exploring Change Event Streaming vs CDC |
| Dipti Borkar | CORENOTE: OneLake, the unified data lake for the era of AI |
| Redefining Enterprise Planning for the Era of AI | |
| Elizabeth Oldag | A data lake built for scale: a deep dive into OneLake performance, APIs, and diagnostics |
| Emily Lisa | Agentic Development in Power BI for the Non-Developer |
| Emily Tehrani | Fabric Under the Hood: Performance-Driven Architecture for Data Warehouse & Lakehouse SQL |
| Erin Stellato | SQL Copilots Unveiled: Architecture, Workflows, and Use Cases |
| SSMS 22 Unlocked: Features You’ve Been Waiting For | |
| Women in Data: Leading the Way | |
| Ginger Grant | Securing all of your OneLake data |
| Harleen Kaur | What’s New and What’s Next for Power BI Visuals |
| Heidi Hasting | Building Scalable Real-Time Solutions using Event-Driven Architectures with Microsoft Fabric |
| Leveraging Governance inside your Microsoft Fabric Tenant and Workspace | |
| Jacinda Eng | What’s New and What’s Next for Power BI Visuals |
| Jes Chapman | Busy is a Four-Letter Word |
| Hyperscale – the SQL Database for All Workloads | |
| Karen Lopez | Ignite Governance Insights Across Databases, Lakes, and Models |
| Kim Manis | CORENOTE: Maximizing developer experiences in Microsoft Fabric |
| Designing for the Right User: Why Personas Are the Secret to Better Power BI Reports | |
| Kristyna Ferris | Decoding Fabric Licensing |
| Modern Data Warehousing in Microsoft Fabric | |
| Lada Hill | Chat with Your Data: Discover the Future of Data Insights with Power BI Copilot |
| Lauren Faber | Chat with Your Data: Discover the Future of Data Insights with Power BI Copilot |
| Lenore Flower | Make Managed Self-Service BI Work for You with Power BI and Purview (the BI Mullet Approach) |
| Make your Power BI Desktop report print-ready (in one hour or less) | |
| Leslie Welch | Power Query Escape Room |
| Marthe Moengen | Securing Your Data Estate with Purview |
| Meagan Longoria | Mirroring for SQL Server in Fabric: Inside the Replication Process |
| Monica Calleja | Intelligent analytics in real-world scenarios |
| Power BI Mastery: End-to-End Analytics for Pro Developers | |
| Monica Morehouse (Rathbun) | Mastering SQL Server Performance & Optimization Strategies |
| SQL Server Sleuthing: Unmasking SQL Server Performance Issues | |
| Turn It On: The Power of Query Store for Rapid Performance Tuning | |
| Nellie Gustafsson | CORENOTE: The Future of AI in Microsoft Fabric: Data Agents and Beyond |
| Nina Arora-Rowland | Agentic Data Engineering on Microsoft Fabric: Building Adaptive Pipelines |
| Pam Lahoud | SQL database in Fabric: Real-world Scenarios and Solutions |
| Paula Berenguel | Architecting Zero ETL: Real-Time Analytics from Azure Database for PostgreSQL using Fabric Mirroring |
| Pragati Jain | The Fabric Access Puzzle: Cracking Permission Problems with Confidence |
| Priya Sathy | Women in Data: Leading the Way |
| Rie Merritt | Women in Data: Leading the Way |
| Santhana Lakshmi Ponnurasan | Getting Started with Microsoft Fabric and Power BI: A Hands-On Workshop |
| Power BI in Higher Education: Real Use Cases from Enrollment to Graduation | |
| Sara Lammini Rodriguez | Intelligent analytics in real-world scenarios |
| Power BI Mastery: End-to-End Analytics for Pro Developers | |
| Sara Vredevoogd, | AI Answers, Done Right: When to use Power BI Copilot vs. Fabric Data Agents |
| Shabnam Watson | A Guide to Making the Most of your SQL Skills Using Microsoft Fabric |
| End-to-End Security for Data Warehousing in Microsoft Fabric | |
| Shubhangi Lal | Sharing Experiences: Unlocking More Value from Power BI with Microsoft Fabric |
| Stephanie Bruno | Getting Started with Microsoft Fabric and Power BI: A Hands-On Workshop |
| Sukhwant Kaur | SQL database in Fabric: Real-world Scenarios and Solutions |
| Surbhi Pokharna | Optimizing Workloads on Azure PostgreSQL Flexible Server: Best Practices for Speed & Scale |
| Tessa Kloster | CORENOTE: Trusted AI starts with Fabric: unified real-time intelligence and IQ context |
| Tori Pinheiro | Agentic Development in Power BI for the Non-Developer |
| Traci Sewell | Talking about mental health – For you and for them |
| Virginia Roman | Beyond Monitoring: AI-Driven Spark Optimization in Microsoft Fabric |
| Powering Data with AI Functions in Fabric | |
| Wangui McKelvey | Women in Data: Leading the Way |
SQL Saturday Atlanta 2026 – AI & BI – March 21
| Speaker | Session Title |
| Akshata Revankar | Power BI CI/CD Simplified: GitHub & AzureDevops Automation |
| Anouk Gorris | Stop Firefighting: Build a Semantic Layer Ready for AI |
| Anupama Natarajan | The Big Picture Session: Fabric IQ + Ontology + Data Agents (and how they fit together) |
| Belinda Allen | AI-Ready: Preparing for and Using AI in Power BI and Microsoft Fabric |
| Elayne Jones | Build Your First Agent in Copilot Studio |
| Erin Dempster | Introduction to Automated Deployments with Azure DevOps |
| Jackie Kiadii | Making Sense Microsoft Copilot in BI |
| Kristyna Ferris | The Fellowship of the Star Schema: Transforming OLTP Data for Power BI |
| Lenore Flower | Race Against the Clock: Power BI Reports to Print-Ready in 50 Minutes |
| Leslie Welch | It’s Only a Model – Demystifying Row Level Security in Power BI |
| Mala Mahadevan | Demystifying vector search in SQL 2025 |
| Mou Rakshit | Avanade, Intelligent Data Platform Data Engineering Thought leadership |
| Pragati Jain | Stop Polling, Start Reacting: Optimising Fabric Efficiency with Event-Driven Pipelines |
| Santhana Lakshmi Ponnurasan | Power BI’s Built-In Features: Real-Time Hacks in Action |