Stop Rebuilding: Data Contracts for the Mess You Already Have
Hands-on Data & AI Leader
Actian
Jean-Georges “jgp” Perrin is a data passionate. As chair of the Linux Foundation’s Bitol project, Jean-Georges leads efforts to establish global standards for data, including the Open Data Contract Standard (ODCS), which fosters more reliable and efficient data ecosystems. He is the author of Implementing Data Mesh (O’Reilly), a pivotal resource for the data community, and Spark in Action, 2nd Edition (Manning), which empowers developers to harness the power of Apache Spark. He is currently a Senior Product Manager at Actian.
With over 25 years of IT expertise, Jean-Georges has earned titles such as Lifetime IBM Champion, PayPal Champion, and Data Mesh MVP, reflecting his contributions to data innovation. Passionate about sharing knowledge, he has spoken at over 150 international conferences and regularly shares insights through his blog at jgp.ai.
Outside his professional life, Jean-Georges enjoys exploring the scenic landscapes of Upstate New York and New England with his family, balancing his love for technology with a passion for nature and adventure.
Most data talk assumes you are starting fresh. You are not. You have three warehouses that disagree about what “customer” means, a lake that mirrors all three, and a dashboard from 2019 the CFO still trusts more than yours. The greenfield is a myth. Your landscape is a brownfield, and, I promise, that is fine.
This is a pragmatic playbook for using data contracts and data products to close the gap between the people who ship data and the people who needed it yesterday, with no rip-and-replace project and no pretending your stack is new.
We will work from the latest Open Data Contract Standard (ODCS v3.2.0), including its new context block for AI and semantic interoperability, so the same contracts that keep your humans honest also make your data legible to AI. Expect open standards from the Linux Foundation’s Bitol project, an adoption path you can start Monday, and zero slides telling you to “be data-driven.” Coffee and pizza encouraged. This is Detroit, after all.