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On 9 and 10 October 2026, a team of six Dutch data professionals will organise Data Saturday Holland at Kinepolis Utrecht Jaarbeurs. The conference focuses on the Microsoft Data Platform and is expected to draw around five hundred attendees from the Dutch data and AI community.
Behind the event are André Kamman, Eelco Drost, Fabian Guttierez Ardts, Joost van Rossum, Lisa Hoving and Maaike Pot. Kamman is recognised as a Data Platform MVP. The team previously organised events through the Dutch PASS Chapter, the Dutch branch of the Professional Association for SQL Server, and builds on that established network of specialists.
Data Saturday Holland is part of the international Data Saturdays initiative, which facilitates community-driven data events through datasaturdays.com. The registration fee for the main conference is set at €25 excluding VAT, intended to cover a portion of costs.
The programme begins on Friday 9 October with so-called Deep Dives: in-depth three-hour workshops structured as two ninety-minute blocks with a thirty-minute break in between. This day is aimed at professionals who want to spend more time on a specific topic. Speakers delivering a Deep Dive session receive a fixed fee of €750 excluding VAT per workshop and are entitled to one hotel night of up to €175.
The main conference takes place on Saturday 10 October. Sessions run sixty minutes and cover a broad range of topics within the Microsoft Data Platform, including SQL Server, Databricks, Kubernetes, PowerShell, Data Factory, Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, AI, Data Science and PostgreSQL. The Call for Speakers closed on 31 May 2026.
Kinepolis Utrecht Jaarbeurs, located at Jaarbeursboulevard 300 in Utrecht, serves as the venue and also provides catering. The cinema complex's large theatre halls offer what the organisers describe as a 'Full Cinema Experience'. All spaces used are wheelchair accessible.
The agenda covers both technical depth and broader application themes. One confirmed speaker is Thijs Baan of Info Support, who will address the human side of AI in software engineering. The topic connects with a growing interest in how AI tools are changing the day-to-day working practices of developers and data engineers, beyond the technical implementation itself.
Info Support is also a partner of the event. Additional partners are involved alongside the company, although not all names have been made public. Those interested in attending or partnering can reach the organisation at datasaturdayholland@gmail.com.
With an expected attendance of around five hundred people, Data Saturday Holland is one of the larger community-driven data events in the Netherlands. Its broad thematic scope, spanning infrastructure and data platforms through to AI and data science, means professionals from multiple specialisms can find relevant sessions.
The event illustrates how the Dutch data community has been independently organising knowledge sharing for years, without relying on large commercial trade fairs. Comparable events abroad often cost attendees several hundred euros; here, professionals come together for €25 in a professional conference setting.
For founders working on data products or AI applications, and for investors looking to track the adoption of data platform technology in the Netherlands, the agenda offers a concrete picture of what is happening in practice at large and mid-sized organisations. The mix of topics, from established technology such as SQL Server to newer platforms like Microsoft Fabric and Databricks, shows that the Dutch market is broadly engaged in modernising data infrastructure. The fact that the organising team runs this as a volunteer project, with a limited but focused cost structure, fits a pattern visible across several European countries: technical communities that, without subsidies or major sponsors, organise knowledge exchange on a scale that policymakers and investors sometimes underestimate.
This article draws in part on the following sources.
Graduate Ventures has launched a second seed fund with a target size of €125 million, of which €100 million has already been committed. The fund focuses exclusively on founders from Dutch universities in AI, deep tech, healthcare and climate.
Meta's Superintelligence Lab launched Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, the company's first frontier models, on 12 October 2026. Access via the Meta Model API costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, the same rate as Claude Opus 5.5.
Delft-based deeptech company Perciv AI closed a €2.5 million seed round in December 2024, led by Day One Capital Ventures and Keen Venture Partners, with participation from Vinci Venture Capital. The company develops radar-based perception software for autonomous systems in automotive, robotics and aviation.
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