Maarten Grootendorst is a psychologist-turned-ML engineer at Google DeepMind, best known for creating BERTopic, KeyBERT, and PolyFuzz - open-source NLP tools with over 15 million combined downloads. Co-author of the Amazon #1 bestseller 'Hands-On Large Language Models' (O'Reilly, 2024) with Jay Alammar, he runs the 'Exploring Language Models' newsletter with 2M+ views and has taught 50,000+ students on DeepLearning.AI. His work bridges the worlds of psychology and AI, making complex language model internals accessible through strikingly visual guides.
Abdul Ahad is a data consultant and TEDx speaker based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, with over seven years of experience building data infrastructures for small and medium organisations across e-commerce, insurance, energy, and finance. He is the founder behind KYD Analytics and holds the philosophy of 'Bringing Data and Humans Together' - believing the human element matters more than the tool. In November 2024, he delivered a TEDxEindhoven talk titled 'Why aren't people voting anymore?' exploring how community bonds and incentivisation could revitalise democratic participation. A lifelong learner who codes, consults, and speaks on the stage.