Speakers
Santiago Valdarrama
Santiago Valdarrama is a Machine Learning Engineer with over two decades of experience building and scaling enterprise software and AI systems.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science (2004) and a Master’s in Machine Learning from Georgia Tech (2019).
Santiago leads one of the most recognized online AI/ML Engineering cohorts, where he teaches thousands of engineers how to design, deploy, and monitor real-world AI/ML systems. He also consults for startups and enterprise teams, advising on AI/ML architecture, workflows, and strategies to productize models.
Over the years, Santiago has led high-profile projects for companies like Disney, NextEra Energy, Cisco, IBM, Dell, and Boston Dynamics.
His writing and technical insights reach over 600,000 developers every day.
Kesha Williams
Kesha works at the intersection of AI architecture, engineering, and strategy, with more than 25 years of experience designing and delivering complex software and AI systems. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Keysoft, where she leads AI advisory, engineering, and enablement services that help organizations turn AI ambition into operational reality. An AWS Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hero, Kesha partners with enterprises and technology leaders to adopt AI responsibly, modernize engineering practices, and build AI systems developers can trust and sustain.
Lena Hall
Lena Hall is an expert in practical AI adoption, data engineering, cloud and pragmatic architecture, with extensive experience leading large, high-performing technical teams.
Lena is a Senior Director of Developer Relations at Akamai Technologies. She has 15+ years of deeply technical background as a solution architect, technical leader in large-scale data, analytics, machine learning, and cloud computing. Prior to Akamai, Lena worked as Head of Developer Experience, North America at Amazon Web Services and led Big Data Developer Relations at Microsoft. She is also a co-founder of Droid AI, helping people get real results from AI.
She frequently shares practical knowledge on her YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/@lena-hall) and LinkedIn (https://linkedin.com/in/lena-hall) and at industry conferences as an international keynote speaker.
Cole Medin
Tech leader leveraging AI to solve real business problems. Built and scaled AI solutions across multiple ventures - from custom agent architectures to enterprise RAG systems and local AI deployments.
Cole's biggest passion is teaching others how to leverage AI effectively. He runs a private AI community and a YouTube channel breaking down complex AI concepts into practical, hands-on guides and courses. His content spans both building AI agents and leveraging AI coding assistants in ways that truly scale.
