Deploying to the clouds: Choose your cloud adventure starring Terraform.

One of the main advantages of Terraform is its ability to deploy resources to different cloud providers. In this interactive talk, we will walk through the basics of Terraform including variables, parameters and modules. We will then embark on an adventure where YOU get to choose the path! At the end of the adventure we will have an application deployed to Azure, AWS or Google Cloud. Whether you are contemplating migrating your resources or you have resources in different cloud providers you will leave this talk knowing what Terraform can do for you.

This will be an interactive presentation where I will ask the audience to choose which platform they want the application to be deployed to. If time permits I will also show the application being deployed to the other 2 platforms.

Build your own AI sidekick with Azure AI and .NET

Are you a budding super hero or super villain* but you feel like you're lacking that AI companion to help you reach that next level? Have you ever wanted to see what AI can do to help your daily life? Do you have an interesting application that would just be so much better with a little artificial intelligence? Don't fear, because of course there's a PreCompiler for that.

In this half-day workshop we'll take a starter C# application and progressively expand it by adding speech, vision, language, and decision-making capabilities with Azure AI services, plus a healthy sprinkling of large language models and OpenAI.

By the time we're done, you'll have a better understanding of what AI can do and see how easy it is to integrate it into your applications. You'll also be that much closer to super hero / super villain* status with a modular personal AI companion of your very own to continue extending after CodeMash is over.

* CodeMash does not endorse acts of villainy including but not limited to taking over the world and/or the Kalahari.

Automated resource deployment with Bicep and Terraform

This workshop is a hands-on exercise that will walk you through the process of deploying the resources needed to run an application in the cloud using Bicep and Terraform.

The concepts reviewed during the workshop include the following:

Variables.
Parameters.
Modules.
Deployment pipelines.

At the end of this workshop, attendees will have a working application deployed to the cloud and can use the skills learned to deploy their cloud resources in a consistent and automated fashion.

Automated information extraction with Azure AI Document Intelligence

In today's digital age, data extraction is an essential part of many businesses' processes. However, manually extracting data from forms and documents can be a time-consuming and error-prone task. That’s where tools like Azure Document Intelligence come in; by integrating machine learning technology into a cloud service Azure Document Intelligence allows you to extract key-value pairs and tables from structured and semi-structured forms and documents.
In this talk, we will explore the out of the box models that Azure Document Intelligence offers, we will then walk through the process of creating a custom model and will finish by putting it all together in a demo application. Whether you are new to Azure Document Intelligence or looking to optimize your current data extraction workflows, this presentation will provide you with the knowledge and resources to get started and streamline your data extraction processes.

Letters to Santa: Automating text extraction with Azure Cognitive Services.

Christmas is a busy time of the year and no one knows that better than Santa and his elves. Between reading letters, making toys and preparing to deliver them they have their hands full! So what if we could help them save some time by processing everyone's letters in an automated fashion? In this talk, I will show you how Santa could use Azure Cognitive Services to extract the text in the letters and store them electronically for easy access. One less thing for Santa and his elves to worry about!

One config to rule them all! An introduction to Azure App Configuration.

You have an environment working properly when suddenly you start seeing weird behavior, you troubleshoot the issue and find out that someone accidentally checked in their local settings file. If you’ve run into this scenario or you are looking for options to manage your configurations this talk is for you! Whether you have a .NET, Java, Python or Node.js application Azure App Configuration allows you to access and store your configuration values in the cloud. In this demo-heavy talk, you will learn how Azure App Configuration can help you avoid the previous scenario and what other benefits it can bring to your configuration management process.

ARM, Bicep, knees and toes! Infrastructure as code for beginners.

Infrastructure as code allows you to deploy consistent and stable environments in an automated fashion eliminating the need for manual configuration. Tools like ARM, Bicep and Terraform are used to build templates that make these deployments possible, but the syntax of some of them can make it challenging to get started. In this talk, we will explore the differences between these tools and how you can deploy resources using each of them. By the end of this talk you’ll be ready to create your own templates and deploy your resources to the cloud.

Managing configurations in the cloud with Azure App Configuration.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: You have an environment working properly when suddenly you start seeing weird behavior, you troubleshoot the issue and find out that someone accidentally checked in their local settings file. In this demo-heavy talk, you will learn how Azure App Configuration can help you avoid this scenario and what other benefits it can bring to your configuration management process.

AI for developers: Making your application smarter with Azure AI Services.

Do you want to add AI capabilities to your application but find the prospect of creating your own models overwhelming? Azure AI services are a great alternative that allows you to bring AI to your application without the extra work. In this talk, we will explore the APIs available and some scenarios they can be applied to; we will then look at a demo application that uses some of these services so you can see how easy it is to integrate them. You will leave this talk confident you can add AI capabilities to your application without having to train a flexible and performant machine learning model.

Cognitive Services! Assemble… Bringing machine learning to your application without the hassle.

Your boss has heard about machine learning and wants you to explore ways to add it to your application(s). You have no experience so you start to worry; do you need to build, train and deploy your own model? What if there was a team of APIs that could fight the battle for you? In this talk, we will explore Azure Cognitive Services and how you can integrate them into your application. You will leave this talk confident that you can add machine learning to your application without the hassle of building your own model.

Attack of the killer bots! An introduction to Bot Framework Composer

Having chatbots handling the first user interaction is very common in many sites nowadays and their usage is only expected to increase in the next few years. From a development perspective, chatbot development presents a unique set of challenges that can result in a steep learning curve for new developers. With chatbots delivering large ROI for companies and creating disruptions in multiple sectors they offer a great opportunity for developers to bring added value to an organization.
In this presentation, we will explore how Microsoft’s Bot Framework Composer aims to tackle some of the development challenges while creating a more collaborative environment. We will look at how developing with Composer compares with developing a chatbot without a UI, how language understanding is integrated into the environment and what a basic chatbot looks like. If you’ve been considering a chatbot development project I hope this session will make the process appear less daunting and if not, maybe this will inspire you to look for opportunities to use them.