Empowering Users: Driving Adoption Using Low-Code with Fabric - with Laura Graham-Brown

LIVESTREAM DATE/TIME 📅

January 23rd, 2026 - 9:30AM (Pacific Time)

DESCRIPTION 📄

Microsoft Fabric and the Power Platform give business users low-code entry points to build solutions that solve real problems fast. These solutions may not always align with long-term architectural ideals or developer preferences, but they drive adoption, unblock teams, and often succeed where more “perfect” solutions stall.

In this session, we’ll explore how Fabric and Power Platform can work together to empower users while still keeping IT sane. Examples include lightweight databases backing Power Apps for small teams, or semantic models feeding automations that deliver insights directly to sales teams.

The focus is not on replacing professional development practices, but on enabling business developers to build responsibly, in ways that IT can support rather than clean up later. Expect practical examples, a realistic view of trade-offs, and a few short demos showing how low-code solutions can deliver value quickly without becoming tomorrow’s problem.

GUEST BIO 👤

Laura GB has spent over 30 years training and consulting with business developers, helping them design and own the solutions they build. Her work sits at the intersection of low-code development, governance, and practical enablement, with a strong focus on empowering users to build safely in ways IT can support.

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(Livestream Replay) Demystifying Copilot in Microsoft Fabric - with Kerry Kolosko & Kurt Buhler

DESCRIPTION 📄

Are you curious about Copilot in Microsoft Fabric but unsure where to start? Join us for an in-depth livestream with Reid Havens, Kerry Kolosko, and Kurt Buhler, as we demystify Copilot and dive into what it can (and can’t) do for you.

In this session, we’ll cover:

• The different types of Copilot in Fabric and how they work

• Key features, limitations, and practical use cases for both small businesses and large enterprises

• Honest discussions on whether Copilot’s cost is justified and how it fits into Microsoft’s vision for Fabric We’ll also touch on challenges like missing functionalities in Fabric, the steep learning curve, and whether Copilot is a distraction or a game-changer for organizations. Expect real talk, practical advice, and insights into what the future might hold.

This is a must-watch for data professionals, tech leaders, and anyone curious about AI-driven tools in Microsoft Fabric. Stick around for the live Q&A—bring your toughest questions!

GUEST BIO (Kerry Kolosko)👤

Kerry Kolosko is a data visualization consultant hailing from Adelaide, South Australia. With several years experience in a variety of roles across a diverse range of industries, along with a background in psychology and a passion for the arts, Kerry brings a considered and creative edge to BI and data visualization. Also a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and an avid blogger, she shares her designs and design tips at her website (link below).

GUEST BIO (Kurt Buhler)👤

Kurt Buhler is a Power BI data goblin, speaker, and consultant. Kurt discovered his passion for working with & analyzing data during his doctoral research in Biomedical Sciences. Since then, he has worked as a consultant and bridge-builder between IT & Business in organizations to derive value from their data using actionable visuals and solutions. He advocates a design-thinking, user-centric approach to data projects to ensure solutions meet business needs and improve effectiveness. He's a lover of cats, tabletop roleplaying games, and all things Power BI & data related.

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(Livestream Replay) Introduction to Fabric Studio - with Gerhard Brueckl

DESCRIPTION 📄

In this session I will give you an introduction to the Visual Studio Code extension "Fabric Studio" which allows you to manage your Fabric environment directly from within VSCode. Leveraging the Fabric REST APIs you can easily browse through Fabric items and run various tasks. For not so common API calls there is also the ability to user VSCode notebooks offering intelli-sense and auto-complete from all existing API calls. It further allows you to modify existing items like semantic models, notebooks, pipelines, etc. in the VSCode IDE and publish your changes back to the Fabric service. It also features a OneLake browser to inspect the output of your operations.

GUEST BIO 👤

Gerhard has been working with the Microsoft Data Platform for almost 20 years. From building traditional BI/DWH solution on the MSSQL server stack to designing and implementing whole data platforms hosted in the Microsoft Azure cloud. He is also familiar with OSS technologies in that area like Hadoop, Spark and Delta Lakes. When not working on customer projects, Gerhard is an active member in the community and shares his knowledge in his blog or when speaking at conferences and meet-ups.

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Blog
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(Livestream Replay) Power BI Automation With Semantic Link - Sandeep Pawar

DESCRIPTION 📄

Semantic Link in Microsoft Fabric offers a new way to access the data and semantic information contained in a semantic model. This allows data scientists, data engineers and data analysts to preserve and re-use the business and domain knowledge in creating enterprise solutions.

In this session, Sandeep will give you an overview of Semantic Link and provide practical use cases to use Semantic Link in your development workflow to automate common Power BI tasks, optimize the semantic models and also monitor/manage the tenant. He will also show Semantic Link Labs, an open-source Python library with hundreds of useful utilities.

GUEST BIO 👤

Sandeep is a Sr Power BI Architect at Hitachi Solutions America where he helps organizations build enterprise analytics solutions using Microsoft data stack. He blogs about Data Engineering, Data Science and Power BI at fabric.guru

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