Ten years of DSC Europe, and Hominis on the main stage
The Data Science Conference marked a decade in Belgrade: a masterclass on 19 November 2024, Hominis on the main stage the next morning, and a moderated panel that afternoon.
The Data Science Conference reached its tenth Belgrade edition in November 2024. Tarry Singh chairs it. Every screen in the building carried two lines that week: Change the world through data, and DSC Europe, celebrating a decade.
The lab worked the whole programme rather than a single slot. A masterclass ran on the morning of 19 November in a side room, delegates at laptops, the screen holding a diagram of an artificial neuron next to the biological one it copies. The round tables were still full that evening.
The main stage on 20 November took Hominis: Training Human-centric Large Language Models, billed on the title card to Narendra Patwardhan, CTO, under the dk mark. The slides were working slides. What counts as a human-centric foundation model. How to pick a dataset on permissiveness, source quality, multilinguality and coverage. Which attention variant to choose. What mixed precision saves on GPU memory. Post-hoc multimodality.
Singh moderated a panel later the same afternoon, in a room branded by the British Embassy Belgrade, eUprava and UNDP, with Srikanth Ramaswamy of Newcastle University, Dražen Orešćanin of Solvership and Jordi Vallverdú of ICREA. On the main stage a panel on building AI factories in Europe brought together Andrew van der Haar of the Fiber Carrier Association, Thomas Schmidt of Amber and Gauvain Grault of Eviden. A parallel track, AI:CSI, filled its own room for AI in cybersecurity and cyberintelligence.
The Data & AI Summit ran with Devoteam G Cloud, Deloitte, Informatika, Eviden, Dun & Bradstreet, Banca Intesa and Atomic Intelligence behind it. On 19 November the conference gave its AI Award for the Best AI Transformation Project, engraved with the date and the city. Marktechpost left its November issue on small language models on the chairs.
Conference photography by Branimir Nedeljkovic and Milos Markovic for DSC Europe, used with the conference's permission.
Tarry Singh talks with three delegates in the hotel foyer, holding the conference magazine 
The Hominis talk in progress, the slide asking what a human-centric foundation model is 
A full room for the AI:CSI track on AI in cybersecurity and cyberintelligence, MDS banners either side of the screen 
Four people stand together in front of the DSC Europe photo wall 
The hall from the back of the room during a panel, most seats taken 
A speaker on the main stage beside a screen carrying a QR code for the Marktechpost AI magazine, the audience seen from behind 
Eight people stand together in front of the DSC Europe wall 
A delegate holds up the glass DSC Europe and Marktechpost AI Award engraved The Best AI Transformation Project, November 19th, 2024, Belgrade 
A moderator stands to address three seated panellists, delegates in the foreground 
A speaker with a handheld microphone on stage in front of a DSC Europe screen 
The stage screen thanking the Data and AI Summit partners: Devoteam G Cloud, Deloitte, Informatika, Eviden, Dun and Bradstreet, Banca Intesa and Atomic Intelligence 
The stage screen carries the title card for Hominis: Training Human-centric Large Language Models, billed to Narendra Patwardhan, CTO, under the dk mark 
The host addresses the main hall with a handheld microphone in front of the Change the world through data backdrop 
Three panellists seated on stools on a small stage 
Four people on the main stage during a panel 
The host and three panellists on the main stage 
The moderator stands to put a question to the seated panel 
A wide view of the hall during a panel, the audience in the foreground 
Delegates at laptops in the masterclass room 
Round tables of delegates working, a screen lit behind them 
A speaker beside a screen on the DSC Europe stage, the slide headed Choosing the right 
Delegates watching a panel from the back rows 
Rows of delegates facing the stage 
A panel on stage seen from the side of the room 
Two speakers seated on stools on a small stage 
Tarry Singh speaking into a handheld microphone 
Tarry Singh with a microphone, close in 
The speaker beside a slide reading Choosing the right Attention Variant, comparing linear approximation, sparse and flash attention 
The speaker beside a slide reading Choosing a suitable Dataset, listing permissiveness, source quality, multilinguality and data coverage 
The speaker beside a slide headed Hominis Reserve 
The speaker beside a slide reading Making the most of your GPUs, on mixed precision 
The speaker beside a slide reading Post-hoc Multimodality 
Delegates seated in red chairs before the talk begins 
A speaker on the main stage 
The hall set with round tables in front of a lit screen 
A speaker on stage during an evening session 
A camera crew films an interview in the main hall 
An interview being recorded in front of the partner screen 
An interview being filmed beside the main stage 
An interviewer and subject in front of the main screen 
A speaker on the main stage seen over the heads of the audience 
The audience and the stage from the back of the hall 
A speaker in front of the Change the world through data screen 
A speaker beside the Marktechpost QR code slide 
Delegates seated in the audience, lanyards visible 
Two people stand in front of the DSC Europe photo wall 
Two delegates in front of the DSC Europe backdrop 
Two people photographed together at the DSC Europe branded wall 
Three delegates at the DSC Europe wall during an evening reception 
A group of four together at the venue late in the evening 
The host on stage with notes in hand in front of the DSC Europe backdrop
Main-stage talk, DSC Europe, Belgrade, 20 November 2024. Billed on the title card to Narendra Patwardhan, CTO.
Paper cited in the footnote of the stage slide as Patwardhan, Narendra, et al.
Side-room session taught from neural network fundamentals upward, delegates at laptops.
Print issue on small language models, distributed at DSC Europe. Cover lists Real AI among partners.
