It began as an open-source project incubated by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and today it has become one of the hottest startups in the tech world, with a $28 billion valuation and a highly anticipated initial public offering in the works.

Databricks Inc. was founded in 2013 as an AI and data analytics company that pioneered the concept of “lakehouse architecture” for data in the cloud. It takes massive amounts of enterprise data, applies machine learning and data science, and comes up with valuable predictive business solutions.

The co-founder and chief executive of Databricks, Ali Ghodsi (pictured), will join prominent venture capitalist Katie Drucker of Madrona Venture Group and Jeff Barr, vice president and chief evangelist at Amazon Web Services Inc., for the keynote session of The AWS Startup Showcase: The Next Big Things in AI, Security & Life Sciences digital event on June 16. (* Disclosure below.)

Blazing new trails

Presented by AWS and theCUBE, a number of inventive startups will share their solutions in the fields of security, AI and life sciences. This will be an opportunity for members of the tech community to join the conversation and hear how startups in the AWS ecosystem are making technical advances and building use case in areas such as AI transparency and accountability, automated data security, and healthcare personalization.

Participants in the AWS startup ecosystem are provided with a major platform on which to build a business. The public cloud giant offers access to the firm’s marketplace and its over 300,000 active customers. AWS also provides its own experts to answer technical questions and offer advice in starting and growing a company in the cloud native world.

“Part of why we enjoy working with AWS and are really focused on building the partnership together is that it creates awareness of what could be and what possibilities exist,” David Hatfield, chief executive of Lacework Inc., said during an interview with theCUBE. “All we want is a shot.”

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Startup Showcase: The Next Big Things in AI, Security & Life Sciences event. Neither AWS, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE