talk-data.com

VS Code has enterprise features built for IT. You need to keep it secure, consistent, and compliant—while developers just need it to run. Learn how to deploy VS Code at scale, enforce policies for extensions, updates, and telemetry, and protect environments without blocking productivity. We’ll also cover practical steps to scale AI—using instructions, prompt templates, and extension policies that raise Copilot effectiveness and keep your org aligned.

Delivered in a silent stage breakout.

Hands-On : MCP (Model Context Protocol) Bootcamp Date: 27th September 2025, 9 AM to 12.30 PM Eastern Time Level: Beginners/Intermediate Registration Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hands-on-mcp-model-context-protocol-bootcamp-tickets-1583073859529?aff=oddtdtcreator Who Should Attend? This hands-on workshop is for developers, senior software engineers, IT pros, architects, IT managers, citizen developers, product managers, IT leaders, enterprise architects, chief analytics officers, CIOs, CTOs, and other decision-makers who want to learn how to seamlessly integrate AI applications and agents into Azure AI Foundry and Microsoft Copilot Studio using the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Experience with C#, Python, or JavaScript is helpful but not required—no prior AI knowledge needed. And while this isn’t a data & analytics-focused session, data scientists, data stewards, and tech-savvy data protection officers will also find it super valuable. Description: MCP is an open protocol that standardizes how applications provide context to LLMs. Think of MCP like a USB-C port for AI applications. Just as USB-C gives you a universal way to connect devices to different peripherals and accessories, MCP gives AI models a standardized way to connect to data sources and tools. Why MCP?MCP makes it easier to build agents and complex workflows on top of LLMs. Since LLMs often need to integrate with data and tools, MCP provides:

• A growing list of pre-built integrations your LLM can plug into directly
• The flexibility to switch between LLM providers and vendors
• Best practices for keeping your data secure within your infrastructure

In this half-day, hands-on virtual workshop, Microsoft AI and Business Applications MVP and Microsoft Certified Trainer Prashant G Bhoyar will show you how to use MCP with Azure AI Foundry and Copilot Studio to build powerful AI Agents. Here’s what we’ll cover in detail:

• What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP)?
• How to build an MCP server?
• How to integrate AI applications and agents into Azure AI Foundry and Microsoft Copilot Studio using MCP?
• How does MCP connect directly to existing knowledge servers and APIs, so actions and knowledge can be automatically added and updated within your agents?
• How MCP integration simplifies agent building, reduces maintenance, and leverages enterprise-grade security and governance (like Virtual Network integration, Data Loss Prevention policies, and multiple authentication methods)?
• Best practices for real-world use cases

By the end of this bootcamp, you'll be ready to use MCP to create enterprise-grade agents. The labs will feature a mix of Python, C#, and low-code/no-code UI tools—so even if you don't want to write code, you're covered. Workshop Resources: You’ll get access to Microsoft Copilot, Azure, and Azure OpenAI services (a $500 value) for the hands-on labs. If you already have your own Microsoft Copilot or Azure subscription, you can use that instead. Attendee Workstation Requirements Bring your own computer (Windows or Mac) with:

• Camera, speakers, microphone, and a reliable internet connection (tablets won’t work for this workshop)
• A modern browser: Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, or Safari
• Access to www.azure.com and https://copilot.microsoft.com
• Nice to have: the ability to run C# 10 or Python code using Visual Studio 2022, VS Code 1.66+, Visual Studio for Mac, Rider, or a similar IDE.

Hands-On: Prompt Engineering Online Bootcamp Date: 06 September 2025, 9 AM to 12.30 PM Eastern Time Level: Beginners/Intermediate Registration Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hands-on-prompt-engineering-bootcamp-tickets-1443819937299?aff=oddtdtcreator Who Should Attend? This hands-on workshop is for developers, senior software engineers, IT pros, architects, IT managers, citizen developers, technology product managers, IT leaders, enterprise architects, chief analytics officers, chief information officers, chief technology officers, and decision-makers who want to learn how prompt engineering can help bring AI into next-gen apps and agents. Experience with C#, Python, or JavaScript is helpful but not required. No prior knowledge of AI is necessary. While this isn’t a data & analytics-focused session, data scientists, data stewards, and tech-savvy data protection officers will also find it super valuable. Description: The rise of generative AI, led by ChatGPT and other large language models, has sparked serious interest across industries and leadership teams. Models like OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, GPT-4o, and GPT-4.5 rely heavily on the quality of the prompts they're given. The better the prompt, the better the output. That makes prompt engineering a must-have skill. In this half-day virtual hands-on workshop, Microsoft AI and Business Applications MVP and Microsoft Certified Trainer, Prashant G Bhoyar, will cover these topics in detail:

• What is Prompt Engineering? Learn how prompts work, why they matter, and what affects their performance.
• Advanced Prompting Techniques:
• Few-shot prompting (use examples to get better answers)
• Chain-of-thought prompting (step-by-step reasoning)
• Instruction fine-tuning (force the model to follow your rules)
• Persona-based prompting (get responses in specific roles)
• Multi-step prompting (refine results through iteration)
• Debugging & Refining AI Responses
• How to fine-tune prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and other tools
• Automating prompts with APIs and workflows
• Working with reasoning models like o3
• Best practices for real-world use

By the end of this bootcamp, you'll be ready to create clear, powerful prompts that unlock the full potential of generative AI in your projects. The labs will feature a mix of Python, C#, and low-code/no-code UI tools, so even if you don't want to write code, you're covered. Workshop Resources: You’ll get access to Microsoft Copilot, Azure, and Azure OpenAI services (worth $500) for hands-on labs. If you already have your own Microsoft Copilot or Azure subscription, you’re welcome to use that too. Attendee Workstation Requirements: You must have your own computer (Windows or Mac) with:

• Camera, speakers, microphone, and a reliable internet connection. Tablets will not work for this workshop.
• A modern browser (Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, or Safari).
• Access to www.azure.com and https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com.
• Nice to have is the ability to run C# 10 or Python code, using Visual Studio 2022, VSCode 1.66+, Visual Studio for Mac, Rider, or a similar IDE.

2 Days Hands-On Online Workshop: Azure AI Foundry and Copilot Studio Bootcamp Date: 29-30 May 2025, 9 AM to 5 PM Central Time Level: Beginners/Intermediate Registration Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hands-on-azure-ai-foundry-and-copilot-studio-bootcamp-tickets-1267311596099?aff=oddtdtcreator Who Should Attend? This hands-on workshop is open to developers, senior software engineers, IT pros, architects, IT managers, citizen developers, technology product managers, IT leaders, enterprise architects, chief analytics officers, chief information officers, chief technology officers, and decision-makers interested in learning how AI Agents and Generative AI can help infuse artificial intelligence into next-generation apps and agents. Experience with C#, Python, or JavaScript is helpful but not required. You don't need prior knowledge of AI either. Although this isn't a data & analytics-focused workshop, data scientists, data stewards, and technically-minded data protection officers will also find it very valuable Description: With ChatGPT and other large language models, generative AI has captured the attention of global consumers, enterprises, and C-suite executives. AI has a significant role in the enterprise space and is evolving rapidly. Without understanding the concepts behind these advanced technologies, developers and administrators might find it challenging to assess the true impact of emerging tools and solutions. An AI agent is a powerful companion capable of managing a variety of interactions and tasks—from handling complex conversations to autonomously deciding the best actions based on instructions and context. Agents coordinate language models along with instructions, context, knowledge sources, topics, actions, inputs, and triggers to achieve your desired outcomes. Copilot Studio is a graphical, low-code tool designed for creating agents, including building automations with Power Automate and extending Microsoft 365 Copilot with your own enterprise data and scenarios. One standout feature of Copilot Studio is its ability to connect to other data sources through either prebuilt or custom plugins, as well as integration with Azure AI Foundry. This flexibility allows users to easily build sophisticated logic, ensuring that agent experiences are both powerful and intuitive. Azure AI Foundry is a unified AI platform that includes the Azure AI Foundry portal (formerly Azure AI Studio) and the Azure AI Foundry SDK—a unified SDK featuring pre-built app templates. This SDK gives developers easy access to popular models through a single interface, simplifies the integration of Azure AI into applications, and helps evaluate, debug, and improve application quality and safety throughout development, testing, and production. In this two-day virtual hands-on workshop, Microsoft AI and Business Applications MVP and Microsoft Certified Trainer, Prashant G Bhoyar, will cover these topics in detail:

1. What are multimodal GenAI applications?
2. What are AI agents?
3. What are autonomous agents?
4. What are custom Copilots?
5. Introduction to Copilot Studio: Learn to create agents, build automations with Power Automate, and extend Microsoft 365 Copilot using enterprise data. Discover how to use prebuilt and custom plugins alongside Azure AI Foundry for powerful, intuitive agent experiences.
6. Azure AI Foundry: An in-depth overview of Azure AI Foundry.
7. Azure OpenAI Services: Explore these services, their architecture, and their role in the broader AI ecosystem.
8. Using models from DeepSeek, Llama, Hugging Face, and other open-source models via Azure AI Foundry.
9. Prompt engineering: An in-depth look at creating effective prompts, understanding their importance, and the factors influencing their performance.
10. Use cases and common architectures: Hands-on labs demonstrating real-world implementations.
11. How to evaluate use cases and determine ROI.
12. Azure OpenAI Service embedding models.
13. Customizing Azure OpenAI Services: Configuration to deployment tailored to specific business needs.
14. Deep dive into Azure OpenAI Services: A detailed look at popular models like o1, GPT, Ada, and DALL-E, discussing their unique features and ideal use cases.
15. Using Azure OpenAI Service to access company data.
16. Azure AI Services overview: Language, Speech, and Vision services and their real-world applications.
17. Conversational AI: Design, train, and refine AI capable of human-like interactions.
18. Azure AI Search: Creating advanced search experiences.
19. Document Intelligence Service: Extracting key-value pairs and table data from documents using machine learning.
20. Azure AI Agent Service: Feature-rich managed capabilities combining models, data, tools, and services for automating complex business processes.
21. Semantic Kernel: An open-source SDK for combining AI services (OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Hugging Face) with programming languages like C# and Python to create advanced AI applications.
22. Model Context Protocol ( MCP )
23. Responsible AI: Ethics and responsible practices in AI use.
24. Enterprise-level applications, Custom Copilots, and AI agents: Learn to develop scalable, multimodal applications using Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry, emphasizing industry requirements and best practices.

By the end of the workshop, you'll have practical experience building next-generation multimodal applications, Custom Copilots, and AI Agents using Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry. Workshop Resources: Access to Copilot Studio, Azure, and Azure OpenAI services (valued at USD 500) will be provided for hands-on labs, allowing you to build enterprise-grade multimodal applications and agents. However, you're encouraged to use your own Copilot Studio and Azure subscriptions if available. Attendee Workstation Requirements: You must bring your own computer (Windows or Mac) with:

• Camera, speakers, microphone, and a reliable internet connection. Tablets will not work for this workshop.
• A modern browser (Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, or Safari).
• Access to www.azure.com and https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com.
• Nice to have is the ability to run C# 10 or Python code, using Visual Studio 2022, VSCode 1.66+, Visual Studio for Mac, Rider, or similar IDE.

Join Dona Sarkar, Chris Huntingford and Pierre Roman as they share some of their favorite copilot use cases for IT Pros. Demos include:

• Exploring Copilot in Azure: Expert Insights
• Advanced Features of Copilot in Azure: In-depth Guide
• Using Purview to Secure Copilot Data

Join Dona Sarkar, Chris Huntingford and Pierre Roman as they share some of their favorite copilot use cases for IT Pros. Demos include:

• Exploring Copilot in Azure: Expert Insights
• Advanced Features of Copilot in Azure: In-depth Guide
• Using Purview to Secure Copilot Data

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.

Hardly any day goes without mention of Copilot - Generative AI assistant from Microsoft! M365UK is proud to host all sessions on Copilot from field experiences to experimental learning! Join us online for free on Microsoft Teams and bring your questions!

Agenda (UK Time): 16:00-16:10 - Welcome & Introductions

16:10-17:00 - The real ROI of Copilot (for Microsoft 365) - Pieter Op De Beéck MVP (Belgium) "$30" ... What's the first thing you hear when talking about Copilot for Microsoft 365's pricing? Right ... "What is its ROI?" (Return on Investment). Don't be fooled by some finance-magicians out there. It is not just a simple 'back of the napkin' calculation that will answer this question. It is much more complicated than that! I was one of the lucky ones to use Copilot since August 2023. Based on personal experiences and a many discussion with (potential) customers, today, I will take you through a very good approach to calculate the ROI of Copilot for Microsoft 365. Is it worth it? Let's find out!

17:00-17:10 - Break

17:10-18:00 - Custom Copilots in Microsoft 365 - The Options - Simon Doy MVP (UK) The Microsoft Copilots are hot stuff right now! In particular, Copilot for Microsoft 365. However, the real value is delivering Custom Copilots that provide specific workplace capabilities, hooking into work systems and more. There are lots of options but how do you know which one to go for? In this talk, we discuss the terminology, disseminate the options, be brutally honest about what is working and what is not right now, and talk about the pros and cons of each. There will be some demos and hopefully, I can fit in all in time for questions too!

18:00 - Finish

Speaker Profiles: Pieter Op De Beéck MVP, Trusted Advisor (Microsoft 365), The Flow Consulting, Belgium I'm a consulting professional with over 17 years of relevant experience in the field of information management. I'm truly passionate about bridging the gap between IT and business, and gain energy-boosts from translating business requirements into technical solutions. "Hands-on" is my middle name as I love trying out new technical possibilities, particularly in the Microsoft 365 domain. I try not to hold back bringing newly, gained knowledge and experience to the table and spread myfindings with 'the community' - you can decide for yourself whether or not this label suits you. 😎

Simon Doy MVP, Founder, iThink 365, UK With a background as a Microsoft 365 / Azure Solution Architect, Simon has been organising the Leeds-based M365 North User Group since September 2014. A proud core member of the Maturity Model for Microsoft 365 since July 2020 he has been helping businesses and consultants understand the true value and impact that Microsoft 365 can have on businesses. Hooked on SharePoint in July 2006. Since then he has been building large-scale solutions using SharePoint and Microsoft 365 for customers in the Finance, Healthcare, Government and Entertainment industries. Recently he has been struggling to stay in his lane and loves, Development, consulting, and a bit of IT Pro too.