talk-data.com

Hey everyone, hope you can join us for this user group. We will kick off with a rundown of the latest Microsoft security news, then have two awesome speaker sessions, ending with prizes and giveaways.

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Times below in UTC/UK.

• 1800-1815 -- Kick off and latest Microsoft security news
• 1815-1900 -- Fabio Bonolo - The EU AI Act 2024: How Copilot and ChatGPT Fare
• 1900-1915 -- Break/over run
• 1915-2000 -- Per-Torben Sørensen & Åsne (Aasne) Holtklimpen - Urgent Access Without Security Compromise!
• 2000 -- Packt + ENow giveaways - books + vouchers

*** Please note that sessions are NOT recorded. ***

Welcome to the PyData Berlin January meetup!

Please provide your first and last name, current role and organization name for the registration because this is required for the venue's entry policy. If you cannot attend, please cancel your spot so others are able to join as the space is limited.

We would like to welcome you all starting from 18:45. There will be food and drinks. The talks begin around 19.30 and the doors will close at 19:30. Make sure to arrive on time!

Please provide your first and last name for the registration because this is required for the venue's entry policy. If you cannot attend, please cancel your spot so others are able to join as the space is limited.

Host: Google is excited to welcome you to this month's version of PyData. ************************************************************************** The Lineup for the evening

Talk 1: Vector Streaming: Memory-efficient Indexing to VectorDB Abstract: Embedding creation is mostly done synchronously; a lot of time is wasted while the chunks are being created, as chunking is not a compute-heavy operation. As the chunks are being made, passing them to the embedding model would be efficient. This problem further intensifies with late interaction embeddings like CoLBert or ColPali. The solution is to create an asynchronous chunking and embedding task. We can effectively spawn threads to handle this task using Rust's concurrency patterns and thread safety. This is done using Rust's MPSC (Multi-producer Single Consumer) module, which passes messages between threads. Thus, this creates a stream of chunks passed into the embedding thread with a buffer. Once the buffer is complete, it embeds the chunks and sends the embeddings back to the main thread, where they are sent to the vector database. This ensures no time is wasted on a single operation and no bottlenecks. Moreover, only the chunks and embeddings in the buffer are stored in the system memory. They are erased from the memory once moved to the vector database. All this is then bound into Python using pyo3 and maturin, so it's easily accessible from Python, but the core is still asynchronous with Rust.

Speaker: Sonam Pankaj Bio: Sonam is the Generative AI Evangelist at Articul8. She is also the co-creator of EmbedAnything, a Rust-based library that streamlines ingestion, inference, and indexing and provides you blazing speed in your genAI pipeline. She has previously worked as an AI researcher at Saama and has worked in clinical trials. Her work has been published in the ACL Anthology, and she is passionate about speaking at developer conferences and mentoring the tech community.

Talk 2: Fine-Tuning SLMs like Phi-3x-Vision: Insights from Scene Analysis in ADAS Abstract: Fine-tuning AI models isn’t just for big research labs—it’s a powerful way to address specific real-world problems and improve model performance. In this talk, Amit will discuss the key aspects of fine-tuning small language models (SLMs) like Phi-3x-vision and how one can setup fine-tuning workflow using Hugging Face libraries. He’ll outline key considerations, approaches, essential components, and tools that simplify the process. Using an Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) use case, he will demonstrate how fine-tuning helped improve anomaly detection in road scene analytics. The session will cover practical challenges, lessons learned, and broader takeaways—providing a clear understanding of how fine-tuning can be applied across different domains. Whether you’re a data scientist, ML engineer, developer, or just curious about AI customization, this talk will offer valuable insights into making models more effective for specialized tasks.

Speaker: Amit Tyagi Bio: Amit is a Lead Applied Scientist at Microsoft Healthcare and Life Sciences, leading the EU expansion of DAX Copilot. He focuses on developing and optimizing AI models for healthcare, ensuring they align with regulatory and operational needs in the region. Before this, he worked in the customer-facing Enterprise team on various AI-driven solutions, including an autonomous driving project where he fine-tuned vision and language models for scene analytics. He also contributed to AI projects in forecasting, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) chatbots, and other domain-specific SLM fine-tuning efforts.

Lightning talks There will be slots for 2-3 Lightning Talks (3-5 Minutes for each) between the two main talks. Kindly let us know if you would like to present something :)

*** NumFOCUS Code of Conduct THE SHORT VERSION Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down others. Behave professionally. Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for NumFOCUS. All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. NumFOCUS is dedicated to providing a harassment-free community for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of community members in any form. Thank you for helping make this a welcoming, friendly community for all. If you haven't yet, please read the detailed version here: https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct ***

Hi everyone! Join us in hearing from our great speakers about GitOps, DevOps, platform engineering, the latest Pulumi innovations on Pulumi Copilot (AI), Insights 2.0, and ESC for centralized secrets Management and orchestration.

6:00 - Doors open \| Grab some food and drinks and network 6:30 - Quo Vadis Pulumi? Exploring the Latest Innovations: Pulumi Insights 2.0, Copilot, and ESC with Engin Diri 7:00 - AI-Powered DevOps: Streamlining Automation and Collaboration for Platform Engineers with Muna Mohamed 7:30 - Streamline Your Infrastructure Deployment with GitOps and Pulumi Operator with Sam Cogan 8:00 - Open Q&A 8:30 - Meet the speakers, socialize, and enjoy the space, snacks, and drinks until 9 PM

The Sessions:

Streamline Your Infrastructure Deployment with GitOps and Pulumi Operator \| By Sam Cogan, Director of Solutions Architecture at Willis Towers Watson Are you tired of managing infrastructure deployments through a tedious and error-prone process? It's time to switch to GitOps and Pulumi Operator. GitOps has transformed the application deployment process, and with Pulumi Operator, you can now apply the same principles to your infrastructure. Sam will demonstrate how you can define your infrastructure in Git, and have Pulumi automatically reconcile it into deployed infrastructure. Say goodbye to the pain of manual infrastructure deployments and say hello to GitOps and Pulumi Operator!

AI-Powered DevOps: Streamlining Automation and Collaboration for Platform Engineers \| by Muna Mohamed, Ecosystem Solutions Architect at GitLab This session explores how integrated AI can transform DevOps workflows by enhancing automation, providing intelligent insights, and strengthening security across the development lifecycle. Platform engineers will discover how AI-driven features within DevOps platforms can streamline CI/CD, optimize testing, enforce compliance, and improve team collaboration. The session will focus on how AI reduces operational complexity, boosts code quality, and enables faster, more reliable deployments—empowering teams to adopt more efficient and future-ready DevOps practices.

Quo Vadis Pulumi? Exploring the Latest Innovations: Pulumi Insights 2.0\, Copilot\, and ESC \| By Engin Diri, Customer Experience Architect at Pulumi Discover the latest Pulumi features, including Pulumi Insights 2.0, the AI-powered Pulumi Copilot, and secret management with Pulumi ESC (Environments, Secrets, and Configuration), and learn how to use them effectively.

Please confirm your attendance at https://info.pulumi.com/pug-meetup/roadshow-london

See you there!

We're excited to invite you to our Exclusive "Microsoft Copilot Studio Day" workshop! It is a beginner-level training designed for everyone to learn how to respond rapidly to your customers and employees at scale, using next-generation conversational assistants. 📅 Date: Nov 21, 2024 ⏰ Time: 9:00 AM-5:00 PM (EST) 📍 Register Here: https://bit.ly/4hfSexH Agenda of the session

• Connect and transform data from a variety of data sources.
• Define business rules and KPIs.
• Explore data with powerful interactive visuals.
• Build stunning reports.
• Share your dashboards with your team & business partners and publish them on the web.

"Don't miss out—this is a live session only, with no recordings available, so be sure to join us in real-time!"

We're excited to invite you to our Exclusive "Microsoft Copilot Studio Day" workshop! It is a beginner-level training designed for everyone to learn how to respond rapidly to your customers and employees at scale, using next-generation conversational assistants. 📅 Date: Nov 21, 2024 ⏰ Time: 9:00 AM-5:00 PM (EST) 📍 Register Here: https://bit.ly/4hfSexH Agenda of the session

• Connect and transform data from a variety of data sources.
• Define business rules and KPIs.
• Explore data with powerful interactive visuals.
• Build stunning reports.
• Share your dashboards with your team & business partners and publish them on the web.

"Don't miss out—this is a live session only, with no recordings available, so be sure to join us in real-time!"

Everyone is excited about AI and the impact it can have on data and analytics, and in Power BI that promise is being delivered on with Copilot. In this session you'll learn everything you need to know about Copilot for Power BI: what it is, what it can and cannot do, how much it costs, and how to tune it.

Agenda :

• 4.45 to 5.00 PM EDT: Food and Networking
• 5.00 to 6.30 PM EDT: Technical Talk "Build Your Own Agent With Microsoft Copilot Studio"

Hello Everyone! Please join us for our October 08th edition of the MeetUp. Please note this is an in-person meeting and light refreshments/food will be provided.

Title: Build Your Own Agent With Microsoft Copilot Studio

Location : The meeting will be hosted in the Applied Information Sciences ( AIS ) office in Reston, at 11440 Commerce Park Dr # 600 · Reston, VA. The location is also right off the Silver Line metro's Wiehle-Reston Metro Station.

Parking: The parking is paid and can be validated at the AIS office reception.

We will meet in Room Lake Anne/Newport.

We hope to see you all there!!!!

This is a place for online attendees. Check out the other one for an in-person meeting in Chilworth.

Link to the Teams Meeting: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZDlmZTIyNmUtNmYyMS00ZDI1LWE1NzItZmMyZTk0M2U5ZmQ2%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22ecbebdab-1287-47b8-8709-694ffe8697d1%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22a901008d-8ba1-459d-b8fa-3eccacfccadf%22%7d

Agenda

18:00: Welcome and Intros

Gosia Borzęcka - To Bot or Not to Bot: Why You Should(n’t) Build with Copilot Studio

pizza/networking

Gosia Borzęcka - To Bot or Not to Bot: Why You Should(n’t) Build with Copilot Studio You’ve been tasked with creating a bot for your company, and now everyone’s talking about Copilot Studio. But is it really the right tool for you? In this session, we’ll explore the ins and outs of Copilot Studio, breaking down the benefits and the potential drawbacks. From streamlining workflows to knowing when to seek alternative solutions, you’ll walk away with a clear understanding of when—and why—you should (or shouldn’t) build your next bot with Copilot Studio.

Gosia Borzęcka is a Microsoft AI MVP and AI Engineer at Avanade. She is a full-stack .NET and React developer with Office 365 experience. For the last two years, she has been interested in AI and Machine Learning (and Python!), and during her day job, she helped customers bring AI and ML models into the Modern Workplace. Gosia is also an international speaker, co-leader of NottsDevWorksop, and co-leader of AI 42, where she organized a few AI/Office 365 Bootcamps and AI/ML-focused meetings.

*** A massive thanks to our sponsor Spectrum IT. Without them, we could not host this event for free. Spectrum IT kindly provided funding for the room, pizza and a £20 Amazon Voucher for in-person attendees. ***

This is a place for an in-person meeting in Chilworth.

!!!!! ATTENTION Since September, we've been having meetups at Spectrum IT's office - Gamma House, Enterprise Rd, Chilworth, Southampton SO16 7NS https://maps.app.goo.gl/66tL8HfgFnoiQEh66

Agenda

18:00: Welcome and Intros

Gosia Borzęcka - To Bot or Not to Bot: Why You Should(n’t) Build with Copilot Studio

pizza/networking

Gosia Borzęcka - To Bot or Not to Bot: Why You Should(n’t) Build with Copilot Studio You’ve been tasked with creating a bot for your company, and now everyone’s talking about Copilot Studio. But is it really the right tool for you? In this session, we’ll explore the ins and outs of Copilot Studio, breaking down the benefits and the potential drawbacks. From streamlining workflows to knowing when to seek alternative solutions, you’ll walk away with a clear understanding of when—and why—you should (or shouldn’t) build your next bot with Copilot Studio.

Gosia Borzęcka is a Microsoft AI MVP and AI Engineer at Avanade. She is a full-stack .NET and React developer with Office 365 experience. For the last two years, she has been interested in AI and Machine Learning (and Python!), and during her day job, she helped customers bring AI and ML models into the Modern Workplace. Gosia is also an international speaker, co-leader of NottsDevWorksop, and co-leader of AI 42, where she organized a few AI/Office 365 Bootcamps and AI/ML-focused meetings.

*** A massive thanks to our sponsor Spectrum IT. Without them, we could not host this event for free. Spectrum IT kindly provided funding for the room, pizza and a £20 Amazon Voucher for in-person attendees. ***

Not sure where to start with Microsoft Copilot? Want to sharpen your prompting skills? Join Dona Sarkar, Dan Wahlin and Sandra Ahlgrimm as they share some of their favorite copilot use cases and walk you through them step by step!

Not sure where to start with Microsoft Copilot? Want to sharpen your prompting skills? Join Dona Sarkar, Dan Wahlin and Sandra Ahlgrimm as they share some of their favorite copilot use cases and walk you through them step by step!

This is a place for an in-person meeting in Chilworth. Check out the other one for a virtual meetup on MS Teams.

!!!!! ATTENTION Since September, we've been having meetups at Spectrum IT's office - Gamma House, Enterprise Rd, Chilworth, Southampton SO16 7NS https://maps.app.goo.gl/66tL8HfgFnoiQEh66

Agenda

18:00: Welcome and Intros Mikey Bronowski - You get a copilot! Everyone gets a copilot!

pizza/networking

Raffle

Session details: 1. Mikey Bronowski - You get a copilot! Everyone gets a copilot! Discover the synergy between AI and everyday tools in this engaging session. With a focus on ChatGPT's innovations and the practical utility of Copilot across GitHub, Azure SQL, and Excel, we'll guide you through optimizing these advanced AI functionalities to elevate your work and simplify complex tasks.

*** A massive thanks to our sponsor Spectrum IT. Without them, we would not be able to host this event for free. Spectrum IT kindly provided funding for the room, pizza and a £20 Amazon Voucher for in-person attendees. ***

This is a place for online attendees. Check out the other one for an in-person meeting in Chilworth.

Link to the Teams Meetup: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_M2M1Yzk2YjAtNGM2MS00M2M0LWFkMTMtYzA1ZWYzOWQ1ZTg0%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22ecbebdab-1287-47b8-8709-694ffe8697d1%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22a901008d-8ba1-459d-b8fa-3eccacfccadf%22%7d

Agenda

18:00: Welcome and Intros Mikey Bronowski - You get a copilot! Everyone gets a copilot!

pizza/networking

Raffle

Session details:

1. Mikey Bronowski - You get a copilot! Everyone gets a copilot! Discover the synergy between AI and everyday tools in this engaging session. With a focus on ChatGPT's innovations and the practical utility of Copilot across GitHub, Azure SQL, and Excel, we'll guide you through optimizing these advanced AI functionalities to elevate your work and simplify complex tasks.

*** A massive thanks to our sponsor Spectrum IT. Without them, we would not be able to host this event for free. Spectrum IT kindly provided funding for the room, pizza and a £20 Amazon Voucher for in-person attendees. ***

Reactor Series: Spotlight on Applications Innovation & AI Session #4 | AKS: Accelerating Application Development with Azure Kubernetes Service Day: 19.03.2024 Time: 16:30 UTC

About the Series: The "Spotlight on Applications Innovation & AI" webinar series is designed to delve deep into the latest trends, tools, and techniques in the realm of applications innovation and artificial intelligence (AI). Each session brings together industry experts, thought leaders, and practitioners to explore various facets of innovation in application development, highlighting emerging technologies, best practices, and real-world use cases.

About the Session: In this session titled "AKS: Accelerating Application Development with Azure Kubernetes Service," attendees will dive into the world of cloud-native application development using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). From understanding cloud-native architecture principles to hands-on demos of building intelligent applications with AKS and GitHub Copilot, this session offers a comprehensive exploration of modern application development practices.

Who Should Attend: Developers, DevOps engineers, cloud architects, and anyone interested in cloud-native application development, Kubernetes, and containerization should attend this session. Whether you're new to cloud-native architecture or seeking to enhance your skills, this session caters to individuals at various levels of expertise.

By attending this session, you will:

Gain a deeper understanding of cloud-native architecture principles and practices. Learn how to leverage Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for building intelligent applications. Explore the capabilities of GitHub Copilot in streamlining development workflows. Discover best practices for containerization and deployment with AKS. Have the opportunity to engage with industry experts and ask questions about cloud-native development.

Agenda:

16:30-16:40 - Introduction: Welcome to the "DevBoost for Developer Productivity" – Moria Dror, Regional Reactor PM, Microsoft

16:40-17:05 - Cloud Native 101: Tomorrow's Applications, Today - Amir Shengross, Senior Azure App Innovation Specialist, Microsoft

Join Amir Shengross in an exploration of cloud-native applications and how they are shaping the future of software development. Learn about the principles and practices of cloud-native architecture, and discover how cloud-native applications enable organizations to innovate faster, scale efficiently, and deliver superior user experiences.

17:05-17:35 - Hands-On Demo: Building Intelligent Applications with AKS, GitHub Copilot, and More - Marina Marenkov, Senior Cloud Solutions Architect, Microsoft Experience a dynamic hands-on demo as Marina Marenkov guides you through building intelligent applications with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), GitHub Copilot, and cutting-edge technologies. This interactive lab simulation features four tasks, including launching GitHub codespaces, integrating Dapr using GitHub Copilot, and deploying applications to Azure with Bicep.

*17:35-18:00 - Finding the Perfect Spot for Your Container - Daron Yondem, Tech Lead for Application Innovation - CEMA Region, Microsoft

Join Daron Yondem as they discuss the various considerations when choosing a container-based service. Explore different options available, understand the pros and cons of each, and learn how to make informed decisions based on your specific requirements.

Don't miss this opportunity to dive into the world of cloud-native application development with AKS. Join us for an informative session filled with practical demonstrations, expert insights, and valuable discussions. Whether you're new to cloud-native architecture or looking to enhance your skills, this session has something for everyone. See you there!

Visit Microsoft Learn to discover free AI learning courses - https://learn.microsoft.com/ai/?wt.mc_id=slidescontent_21634_webinar_reactor

Register to the Whole Series- https://developer.microsoft.com/reactor/series/S-1271?wt.mc_id=slidescontent_21634_webinar_reactor

If you signed up for this series, you probably won't want to miss this one either https://developer.microsoft.com/reactor/series/S-1273?wt.mc_id=slidescontent_21634_webinar_reactor

Welcome to our March 2024 Data & AI Meetup, We have two great sessions with Pizza and Networking between them.

GPT Unveiled: A Deep Dive into Models, Tools, and Responsible AI This session will explore the following:

• Intricate architecture and mechanics of GPT Models
• A comprehensive comparison across various models from distinct vendors, including open-source models, uncovering why specific models excel in particular scenarios.
• The different tools provided by OpenAI, such as Assistants & Function Calling, and how these innovations enhance solutions to new heights.
• Critical topic of Responsible AI and explore how Azure's content safety studio implements robust content filtering mechanisms to set secure boundaries for large language models.
• Enriched with live demonstrations and an understanding of common use cases that have been seen in the market.

Speaker: Nihal Mushtaq Amin Head of Artificial Intelligence, Coeo Reading, United Kingdom

As the Head of Artificial Intelligence at Coeo, Nihal is responsible for the organisations AI strategy and building out its Generative AI capabilities. He has unique experience working across different industries such as Retail, Telecom, Healthcare, and Financial Services harnessing the power of AI, OpenAI, and data services to deliver valuable business outcomes. In his previous role at Microsoft as Data & AI Cloud Solution Architect, Nihal was the OpenAI lead and made significant contributions to advancing the adoption of Generative AI across client organisations. By designing and delivering solutions using AI, Nihal bridged the gap between technical solutions and business value, driving successful results for clients.

Break for Pizza and Networking

Introduction to Vector Databases. Going beyond the usual ChatGPT response.

This session will focus on introducing the challenges of using ChatGPT, and discuss various approaches to overcome them, including fine-tuning the GPT model and using the Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) methodology. We will also discuss in detail the pros and cons of each approach. We will then discuss how to measure the results and how to pick an approach that would best suit based on the needs. Then we will dive deeper into a real-world example along with code and explore how to use vector embeddings and vector databases.

Speaker: Nanda Nainadurai Manager, Avanade Reading, United Kingdom

Nanda has over a decade of work experience in the IT industry and has worked with multiple Fortune 500+ organizations across various industries contributing to their data strategy and AI/ML initiatives. Nanda is passionate about cutting-edge technologies and loves to learn and share his knowledge with everyone. During his free time, he likes to walk along the greenways and read books - Sapiens by Yuval is his all-time favorite thus far, and aspires to learn a new skill every year. Over the years, he has learned to cook, and ice skate, and becoming a copilot is next on his list.

About the Event:

Join us for a 2-day virtual conference on March 6 & 7 to discover the latest services and features in Azure designed specifically for JavaScript developers. You'll hear directly from the experts behind the most sought-after cloud services for developers to learn cutting-edge cloud development techniques that can save you time and money, while providing your customers with the best experience possible.

Join us for our Cloud Skills Challenge at https://aka.ms/AzureJSDay-Challenge.

Who Should Attend:

This event is for everyone interested in learning about JavaScript in Azure and all the opportunities you can unlock, regardless of your level of experience with Azure or JavaScript!

Agenda:

DAY 1: BUILDING AN INTELLIGENT APP WITH JS: DEV TOOLS AND AI

9:00 - 9:10 Introduction and Setup (10m) - Natalia Venditto, Principal Product Owner JavaScript E2E DevEx; Dina Berry, Senior Content Developer Azure JavaScript DevEx

Welcome to the start of the day where we will go over the agenda and then get set up with forking the repo we will use for this event.

9:10 - 9:40 GitHub Copilot Can Do That? (30 m) - Burke Holland, Principal Cloud Advocate VS Code

It’s hard to go even a single day anymore without hearing the word “Copilot”. GitHub Copilot is the original Copilot and the most widely adopted AI tool in history. In this session, we’ll jump into GitHub Copilot and take a look at some of the astonishing things that it can do and how it can make your life as a developer exponentially easier and more enjoyable.

9:40 - 10:25 Building a versatile RAG Pattern chat bot with Azure OpenAI, LangChain (45m) - Wassim Chegham, Senior Software Engineer JavaScript Developer Advocacy; Natalia Venditto, Principal Product Owner JavaScript E2E DevEx; Lars Gyrup Brink Nielsen, Microsoft MVP

In this session we will walk you through the code of our popular JavaScript Azure OpenAI sample, from the backend services, to the frontend application, and even the schema that connects them seamlessly together: the Chat Application Protocol. Lars will also present the most cutting edge new features of Angular in its version 17, a favorite to build enterprise scale applications with!

10:25 - 10:45 LangChain.js + Azure: A Generative AI App Journey (20m) - Yohan Lasorsa, Senior JavaScript Developer Advocate

Discover the journey of building a generative AI application using LangChain.js and Azure. This talk will explore the development process from idea to production, focusing on a RAG-based approach for a Q&A system using YouTube video transcripts. We'll demonstrate how we built a local prototype using open-source models and Ollama, and its transition to Azure for production.

10:45 - 11:10 Extending Copilot for Microsoft 365 using JavaScript and TypeScript (25m) - Bob German, Principal Cloud Advocate Microsoft 365

You may have heard that Microsoft 365 now has an AI Copilot to help users do more within Microsoft 365. What you might not know is that you can extend Copilot to work with your business data and external content. In this session you’ll learn how to extend Copilot with plugins and Graph connectors written in JavaScript and TypeScript. We’ll examine the architecture, relevant Azure resources, and of course the code. All code will be made available so you can try it yourself. It’s easy – please join the session to get started!

11:10 – 11:30 Have a safe coffee chat with your documentation using Azure AI Services (20m) - Maya Shavin, Senior Software Engineer

Building a custom documentation assistant using AI has become achievable with the help of GPT, LangChain and other AI tools. But how can we control the content quality of the coffee chat made to our document assistant, from the user to the assistant’s response? What options do we have to enhance the content safety in our question-and-answer flow, while scaling our project to handle further scenarios? Join my talk and let’s find out.

11:30-11:40 Outro (10m)

DAY 2: BUILDING AN INTELLIGENT APP WITH JS: HOSTING AND INTEGRATIONS

9:00 - 9:10 Introduction (10m) – Natalia Venditto, Principal Product Owner JavaScript E2E DevEx,

Welcome to the start of day two where we will go over today’s agenda and recap yesterday’s event.

9:10 - 9:40 Crafting Future-proof Apps with JavaScript & Azure Cosmos DB (30m) - Sajeetharan Sinnathurai, Principal Product Manager Azure Cosmos DB

In this session, we'll discuss the developer experience of Cosmos DB with JavaScript, covering the latest additions to the SDK. Additionally, we'll explore Vercel integration for seamless deployment of JavaScript-based applications using templates.

9:40 - 10:00 Turn your database into GraphQL APIs with Azure Static Web Apps Database Connections (20m) - Thomas Gavin, Product Manager Azure Static Web Apps; Stacy Cashmore, MVP for Developer Technologies

Skip the boilerplate server code and use Static Web Apps Database Connections to directly access your database contents using a set of provided GraphQL APIs. In this session, we demo how you can quickly go from frontend to full-stack, saving results in a CosmosDB database using Database Connections and deploying to Azure Static Web Apps.

10:00 – 10:25 Build real-time web apps with Socket.IO and let Azure handle scalability, no more adapters (25m) - Ken Chen, Principal Software Eng Manager Azure Web PubSub and Azure SignalR; Kevin Guo, Senior Product manager Azure Web PubSub and Azure SignalR

Socket.IO is a popular open-source library among JavaScript developers for building real-time web apps. In this session, we are going to explore what we mean by “real-time” web apps and how Socket.IO library can help web developers build them. Also, we discuss a common challenge among Socket.IO developers – scaling out to multiple Socket.IO servers. Through a quick demo, we showcase how easy it is to leverage the recently introduced support for Socket.IO on Azure to offload scalability issue to a cloud service.

10:25 - 11:10 Playwright in Action: From Setup to Best Practices (45m) - Max Schmitt, Software Engineer Playwright; Stefan Judis, Playwright Ambassador

Dive into the essentials of end-to-end testing with Playwright in this engaging 45-minute session. A Playwright core contributor will guide you through a hands-on demo, demonstrating how to efficiently set up, execute automated tests and debug them in GitHub Actions. After that a Playwright ambassador will share the best practices and tips to optimize your testing workflow.

11:10 – 11:20 Outro (10m)

** This is a great chance to start or advance your journey towards improving your developer productivity and innovation. Join us for exciting sessions with insights, useful tips, and interactive discussions that will help you unlock your full potential as a JavaScript developer. We can't wait to see you there on March 6 & 7! **

Please register here for the meetup: Events \| Microsoft Reactor

About London Reactor Meetup Microsoft Reactor London Meetups are a community of like-minded engineers, developers, professionals and students, allowing you to connect with people, skills, and technology to enhance your career or personal learning. Our regular meetups are an opportunity to hear from leaders in the industry about challenges, tooling and best practices. If you are interested in speaking or want to suggest a talk you’ve heard before, please do let us know (no vendor / recruitment / sales pitches please).

DevOps meets AI

DevOps is inherently a cultural shift with a mass of technologies involved at many stages of the lifecycle. Over the past year we have seen a huge change in the AI sector and this developers, entrepreneurs and businesses are all stating to adopt this technology and make it a part of their everyday development. With this being the case, the DevOps lifecycle is going to pivot and change for everyone in one way or another so lets dive into how this is happening!

Agenda

6:30PM – 6:40PM: Welcome by Liam Hampton, Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft 6:40PM – 7:00PM: GitHub Copilot throughout the development lifecycle, Chris Reddington, Senior Manager, Developer Advocacy at GitHub 7:00PM – 7:20PM: LLMOps - Building Skills for the AI World, Aravind Putrevu, Dev GTM Advisor at SurrealDB 7:20PM – 7:50PM: Break 7:50PM – 8:15PM: TBC

Session Descriptions

GitHub Copilot throughout the development lifeycle

With decreasing budgets, growing backlogs, increasing responsibility and complexity, ensuring our engineering teams have a great development experience has never been more important. Join Chris, as he shows how GitHub Copilot can support you throughout your development lifecycle.

LLMOps - Building Skills for the AI World

We have all been through the DevOps wave that affected many platforms and technology. With Generative AI, most of the built workflows, automation and experiences are being revolutionised. Aravind will unravel the intricate relationship between LLMOps and traditional DevOps, highlighting the revolutionary impact of AI-enabled experiences on various aspects of DevOps including Observability (with a focus on the context of Logs, Metrics, and Traces in LLMs), FinOps, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and Security.