It’s not just a conference—it’s a group hug wrapped in YAML. No fluff, no gatekeeping—just real talk from data practitioners sharing their learnings and strategies.
MDS Fest (May 5-9) is the largest free virtual forum of ideas and perspectives on modern data leadership from around the world. Not to be confused with MDR Fest, Lumon Industries' employee appreciation event for the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department.
This year, MDS Fest is highlighting 5 distinct stages and topics:
1. Data governance and strategy
This track explores how organizations can build scalable governance frameworks that balance compliance, security, and accessibility without slowing down innovation.
From metadata management and lineage to regulatory compliance (GDPR, CCPA, etc.) and security, these sessions will provide the strategies and tools needed to maintain high-quality, well-managed data at scale.
2. Modern data architecture and engineering
The foundation of any great data strategy is a resilient and scalable architecture.
This track focuses on data pipelines, lakehouses, real-time processing, observability, and DataOps—giving teams the technical blueprints to build systems that are flexible, cost-effective, and governance-ready.
3. Data quality
Untrustworthy data wastes your data team's limited resources and creates risk for the business. Most data quality solutions focus on alerting data teams to quality issues after something has gone wrong, but proactively identifying issues before they even happen can help data teams move more quickly and drive more trust with stakeholders. Showcase how you’ve optimized data quality for your business-critical pipelines.
4. Leadership, skills development and career growth
Governance and engineering alone aren’t enough. Building and leading a great data team is just as critical. This track covers hiring, scaling, balancing governance with agility, and navigating leadership challenges in data teams.
5. Data storytelling
A creative, open-ended track for showcasing unique perspectives and passion projects through data. These talks are a chance to share insights, experiments, and stories in a fun, informal setting.
Learn more here
“After spending three days at MDS Fest, I came back quoting data lineage like scripture and somehow made a Looker dashboard fun. I'm basically unstoppable now.”
“Went to MDS Fest for the free swag, left with a new job, three new best friends, and a slightly inappropriate crush on a data catalog.”
"MDS Fest is nerdy in the best, most contagious way possible. You’ll leave smarter, inspired, and possibly with a new best friend who also thinks dbt is kind of hot."
