Ines Montani

Selected Talks

About Me

Hi, I’m Ines.

I’m a software developer working on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing technologies, and the co-founder and CEO of Explosion. We’re the makers of spaCy, one of the leading open-source libraries for Natural Language Processing in Python, and Prodigy, a modern annotation tool for creating training data for machine learning models.

I believe in programming until four in the morning in my pyjamas instead of getting up early to attend conferences about productivity. I believe in making the best possible products instead of launching just for the sake of it because some startup advice blog told me so. I believe in rational planning, logical consequences and bullshit-free hard work instead of “following my dreams”. In short, I believe in doing things.

I grew up on the internet and started coding and designing websites at 11. After completing my degree in Communication Science, Media Studies and Linguistics, I spent four years working in media and sales, before founding Explosion. I live in Berlin and I occasionally speak at conferences and make videos. In 2020, I became a Fellow of the Python Software Foundation.

I’ve been featured in…

l’Opinion · IEEE Spectrum · Berliner Zeitung · GitHub Newsletter · InfoQ #1, #2, #3 · TalkPython #465, #351, #300, #297, #202 · Python Bytes #191, #139 · Vanishing Gradients · Learning From Machine Learning · Software Engineering Radio · Leading With Data · The Python Show · Teaching Python · KDnuggets 2021, 2020, 2019 · Rasa Chats · Snorkel ScienceTalks · Gradient Dissent · DevJourney · Practical AI · ZenML Pipeline Conversations · Console DevTools · Byte Into IT · SourceSort · Python-Podcast.de · TVP3 · Bayerischer Rundfunk · kulturnews · Zündfunk (Bayern 2) · Techtiefen · Mouse vs. Python · DataHack Radio · TWiML & AI · ARD-alpha · NLP Highlights · Spiegel Online · The Exponential View · O’Reilly Newsletter

I’ve given talks at…

EuroPython · PyCon Germany · PyCon India · PyCon Colombia · PyCon Italy · PyCon Lithuania · PyCon France · PyData London · PyData NYC · PyData Amsterdam · EuroSciPy · QCon · InfoQ Dev Summit · dotAI · DataHack Summit · InfoShare · Zündfunk Netzkongress · NAACL · Princeton University · and more

© Eugene Hyland
© Ema Discordant
© Eugene Hyland

Blog & Updates

Selected Talks

2025-04-10
Coming soon
data:unplugged · Münster (Germany)
2024-11-03
Reality is not an End-to-End Prediction Problem: Applied NLP in the Age of Generative AI
keynote
PyCon FR · Strasbourg (France)
2024-10-17
Accelerate your Career with Open-Source AI
discussion
dotAI · Paris (France)
2024-10-17
Reality is not an End-to-End Prediction Problem: Applied NLP in the Age of Generative AI
dotAI · Paris (France)
2024-10-09
Applied NLP with LLMs: Beyond Black-Box Monoliths
PyBerlin · Berlin (Germany)
2024-10-02
Taking LLMs out of the black box: A practical guide to human-in-the-loop distillation
O’Reilly Software Development Superstream
2024-09-26
Taking LLMs out of the black box: A practical guide to human-in-the-loop distillation
InfoQ Dev Summit · Munich (Germany)
2024-09-20
Applied NLP in the Age of Generative AI
keynote
PyData Amsterdam · Amsterdam (Netherlands)
2024-08-29
Beautiful Slides for Beginners
lightning talk
EuroSciPy · Szczecin (Poland)
2024-08-28
10 Years of Open Source: Navigating the Next AI Revolution
keynote
EuroSciPy · Szczecin (Poland)
2024-08-09
Applied NLP in the Age of Generative AI
keynote
DataHack Summit · Bengaluru (India)
2024-06-15
Taking LLMs out of the black box: A practical guide to human-in-the-loop distillation
PyData London · London (United Kingdom)
2024-06-12
Towards Structured Data: LLMs from Prototype to Production
U.S. Census Bureau: Center for Optimization and Data Science Seminar
2024-06-11
spaCy meets LLMs: Using Generative AI for Structured Data
Data+ML Community Meetup · Budapest (Hungary)
2024-06-11
Taking LLMs out of the black box: A practical guide to human-in-the-loop distillation
Budapest ML Forum · Budapest (Hungary)
2024-06-01
KI – Die künstlerische Intelligenz?
discussion
Immergut Festival · Neustrelitz (Germany)
2024-05-24
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
PyCon Italia · Florence (Italy)
2024-04-24
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
PyCon DE & PyData Berlin · Berlin (Germany)
2024-04-21
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: Behind the scenes
Open Source ML Mixer · Berlin (Germany)
2024-04-09
Connecting the Dots: Applying Generative AI
discussion
QCon · London (United Kingdom)
2024-04-08
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
QCon · London (United Kingdom)
2024-04-05
The AI Revolution Will Not Be Monopolized: How open-source beats economies of scale, even for LLMs
keynote
PyCon Lithuania · Vilnius (Lithuania)
2023-11-29
Incorporating LLMs into practical NLP workflows
PyBerlin · Berlin (Germany)
2023-11-01
Half hour of labeling power: Can we beat GPT?
tutorial
PyData NYC · New York (United States)
2023-09-21
Panel: Large Language Models
discussion
Big PyData BBQ · Heidelberg (Germany)
2023-09-21
Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production
Big PyData BBQ · Heidelberg (Germany)
2023-09-16
There are no bad labels, only happy accidents
tutorial
PyData Amsterdam · Amsterdam (Netherlands)
2023-07-19
Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production
keynote
EuroPython · Prague (Czech Republic)
2023-06-03
Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production
keynote
PyData London · London (United Kingdom)
2023-05-24
Welchen Einfluss hat generative KI auf die politische Meinungsbildung?
discussion
FZI Spot On: ChatGPT & Co. · Berlin (Germany)
2023-04-17
Incorporating LLMs into practical NLP workflows
PyCon DE & PyData Berlin · Berlin (Germany)
2022-12-08
How the Guardian uses AI to analyse articles
discussion
JournalismAI Festival
2022-05-12
Solutions for Advanced NLP for Diverse Languages
keynote
New Languages for NLP · Princeton (United States)
2021-06-17
Applied NLP Thinking
L3-AI
2021-06-10
What does “real-world NLP” look like and how can students get ready for it?
keynote
Teaching NLP (NAACL 2021)
2020-10-22
spaCy v3.0: Bringing State-of-the-art NLP from Prototype to Production
keynote
Global AI Live
2020-06-18
Designing Practical NLP Solutions
L3-AI
2020-02-08
The Future of NLP in Python
keynote
PyCon Colombia · Medellín (Colombia)
2019-11-09
Künstliche Intelligenz beyond the hype
Zündfunk Netzkongress · Munich (Germany)
2019-10-13
Let Them Write Code
keynote
PyCon India · Chennai (India)
2019-10-09
spaCy and the future of multi-lingual NLP
META Forum Award Ceremony · Brussels (Belgium)
2019-07-06
spaCy and Explosion: past, present and future
spaCy IRL · Berlin (Germany)
2019-05-09
Practical NLP transfer learning with spaCy and Prodigy
InfoShare · Gdańsk (Poland)
2019-01-28
Practical transfer learning for NLP with spaCy and Prodigy
Applied Machine Learning Days · Lausanne (Switzerland)
2018-11-22
The AI Revolution will not be Monopolized
Hack Talks · Helsinki (Finland)
2018-07-26
How to Ignore Most Startup Advice and Build a Decent Software Business
keynote
EuroPython · Edinburgh (Scotland)
2018-05-05
Teaching AI about Human Knowledge
PyDays · Vienna (Austria)
2018-04-14
Increasing Data Science Productivity: spaCy & Prodigy
San Francisco (United States)
2018-04-12
Rapid NLP Annotation Through Binary Decisions, Pattern Bootstrapping and Active Learning
TomTom Founders Festival · Charlottesville (United States)