Zahhar Kirillov
EPAM Switzerland, Delivery Manager
Schaffhausen, Switzerland
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During 20+ years spent in ICT industry, I had a privilege to wear all possible hats, acting as a software developer, UX designer, university lecturer, startup entrepreneur, CIO and finally as a delivery manager at S&P500 engineering company. Creating software is my biggest passion. I stay hands-on by delivering PoC and MVP to clients, diving into all aspects of modern technology, be it cloud computing, blockchain or AI. Originally from Estonia, since 2016 I live in Switzerland and in free time I enjoy doing yoga and snowboarding.
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Vibe coding
As a manager and citizen developer, I've witnessed the power (and perils) of vibe-coding firsthand. This session explores how non-professional developers approach problem-solving and code creation with the help of AI. Is it a recipe for disaster or a surprisingly agile approach? Let's see vibe-coding in action (get ready for some cringe) and discuss tooling & approaches.
Vector, Semantic, Hybrid: overview of retrieval approaches in Azure AI Search
When architecting search systems, I have seen teams focusing on vector search only, and not considering semantic search anymore, thinking it is a legacy obsolete technology. Let's take a look at those two approaches implemented in Azure AI Search, and elaborate when one or another makes more sense, and if Hybrid approach, that combines benefits of both, could be a winning strategy.
Solving real-world VRPs with Python
Let's forget AI for a while and come to basics: Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) are at the heart of logistics, supply chain, and delivery optimization. In this session I will provide overview of typical VRPs and demonstrate solving one real-world VRP I faced recently using Python libraries like ortools and pyvrp. Attendees will learn how to model real-life use-cases and visualize result – a optimal route.
Key Takeaways:
1. Overview and comparison of Python-based VRP solvers.
2. Techniques to handle real-world constraints and scalability.
3. Working with maps, coordinates and distances.
Talk is totally fine for all who already forgot the math class (like me :)
OCR vs LLM: what is the best fit for your use-case?
In this session, we’ll explore the strengths and limitations of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Large Language Models (LLMs) for document processing and understanding. Focusing on Azure’s offerings, we’ll compare Azure Document AI (OCR) vs Azure OpenAI (LLM) to help you determine which solution best aligns with your specific use-case. Whether you’re extracting structured data, analyzing unstructured text, or building intelligent document workflows, this talk will provide practical insights to guide your decision-making process.
Is cloud computing that expensive? Case of legacy RoR app migration from VPS to Azure.
Cloud computing is often perceived as costly, but is it really? In this talk, we’ll explore the financial and operational implications of migrating a legacy Ruby on Rails (RoR) application from a traditional VPS (Virtual Private Server) setup to Microsoft Azure. We’ll break down the cost considerations, including compute, storage, and scalability, and compare them to the maintenance overhead of a VPS. You’ll learn how Azure services like Azure Linux VM, Azure Database for MySQL, and Azure BlobStorage can optimize performance and reduce long-term costs. By the end of this session, you’ll have a clear understanding of whether cloud computing is a cost-effective solution for your (legacy) applications.
Going Multi-Modal: Integrating Voice, Text and Images in Azure AI RAG Applications
Multimedia processing is a very exciting and forward-looking area in Generative AI. As an engineer, I was keen to understand how to build more sophisticated, feature-rich and user-friendly applications by integrating different data types - images, audio and text. We will take a look into business use-cases that require multimedia processing in RAG applications and how they could be supported by Azure AI toolset.
Hardening RAG System Against Hallucinations
When building a RAG system, one must take into account risk of hallucinations. In this talk I will share my experience identifying sources of hallucinations and provide proven hardening strategies that help to identify and mitigate risk of hallucinations in RAG application developed with Azure stack (OpenAI, AI Search and Document Intelligence as key components).
From Zero to Production-Ready AI App in 90 Minutes
Rapid Prototyping Workshop: we will build an AI RAG app with Python and Streamlit, integrating Document AI, AI Search and OpenAI components, and deploy it as a WebApp to Azure.
From manager to Product builder: how GenAI helped me to ship the entire product in a week
Everybody is writing about how easy it was to leverage various AI-assistants and agents to develop and app as a non-engineer. One does it in a day, while another - in under 2 hours. I tried it myself several times and best result I got: a week of time. Am I just slow, lazy and silly? Probably. However, probably the real reason that GenAI tools alone are not sufficient to become uberproductive. What are the other factors that limit your productivity, and how to unlock your performance with GenAI tools? Let's explore it together!
Extension development for Azure DevOps: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Azure DevOps is a critical tool for many engineers. Recently I got involved into proprietary extension development that utilizes AI to simplify and streamline team daily work. As a result I did a deep dive into API and approaches, learning limitations as well as exciting features of this Micosoft product. My session on extension development could be valuable for those deeply invested in the Azure DevOps ecosystem and wanting to customize it to even better suit their user patterns and scenarios.
Deploying & operating Streamlit web app in Azure
Since GenAI epoch started, Streamlit quickly became one of the most popular framework for building AI applications, but how do you effectively deploy and operate such apps in a cloud environment? In this session, we’ll walk through the steps to deploy a Streamlit web app on Azure, covering key services like App Service Plan and WebApp, KeyVault and Application Insights. We’ll also discuss best practices for scaling, monitoring, and maintaining your app in production. Whether you’re a GenAI practitioner, Cloud Engineer or developer, this talk will equip you with the knowledge to bring your Streamlit apps to production in the cloud.
Our Scrum Master is... AI
GenAI is showing great potential for automating many administrative tasks. We will examine ways in which GenAI can facilitate Scrum events and impact agile workflow, along with opportunities and challenges it presents for the future of agile project management.
This session reveals practical ways GenAI can take up the Scrum Master's mantle to drive team efficiency and effectiveness. We will explore questions raised by this evolution: how can AI-powered Scrum Master become even better version of Serval Leader, being able to serve even more teams, or, perhaps, become totally replaced by AI-Bot? What might be the repercussions of AI-project-led teams? Join us to find the answers together and let's discover the future of Agile Leadership and Scrum Master role!
Microsoft Clarity: a hidden gem among Web Analytics tools
Microsoft Clarity, a free-to-use analytics tool introduced in 2020, still remains a very niche software. In this short talk I will give you an overview of MS Clarity features and data integration possibilities, also share pro/cons and some lessons learned while using it.
Design Thinking with AI
Unlock your Creativity and avoid Blank Page Anxiety by leveraging AI tools in a whole new way.
This workshop will teach you how to work with AI like a Design Partner to find solutions that are both innovative and customer-centric. Whether you're a student or seasoned professional, you might consider joining this workshop to:
1) Understand how AI can change the way we think about problems and solutions.
2) Learn to guide AI tools in productive yet ethical way
3) Design better solutions for people by combining your creativity with AI power.
All necessary AI tools will be provided: no subscription required.
Combat vulnerabilities with MS Defender, Azure Policies and Azure DevOps integration
Vulnerability management (VuMa) is a key component of enterprise cyber security resilience. Apparently, in a race towards ultimate security VuMa represents runner Achilles of Zeno’s paradox.
(Short recap: Zeno argues that a swift runner like Achilles cannot overtake a slower moving tortoise with a head start, because the distance between them can be infinitely subdivided, implying Achilles would require an infinite number of steps to catch the tortoise)
To be able to overcome a tortoise and combat vulnerabilities in a timely manner, we introduced integration of MS Defender with ticketing system (Azure DevOps). Azure Logic App fetches remediation tasks from MS Defender, assesses risk and automatically assigns them to the right technical staff, managing priorities and workload.
We will tell a story how we built and how we operate VuMa in organization of our client with 3000+ workplaces and managed to achieve high level of satisfaction of end-users, technical staff, IT management and CISO.
BuDoBoK: must-have artefact to success complex projects
As a Project Manager accountable for success of multiple projects, I was looking how AI tools could help me to solve forever challenge: onboarding team members into (potentially new for some of them) business domain and making business domain knowledge (along with communication of recent updates and changes) available to all team members.
Thankfully, mass-availability of RAG [Retrieval Augmented Generation] feature in AI-tools allowed me to make a big step forward. Let me introduce a new artefact that I called "BuDoBoK" – Business Domain Body of Knowledge. Since the beginning of 2024 I made it mandatory in all knowledge-intence projects under my management.
In this talk I will explain what BuDoBoK is and what knowledge management problems it solves. Using as an example BuDoBoK I crafted for Swiss Insurance Industry I will show how to create, update and distribute it. Finally, I will demonstrate how business analysts, testers and developers can benefit from it during project lifecycle - by sharing practical prompts and tips.
As a RAG AI Tool Microsoft Copilot Studio will be utilized, unless more advanced tools come into play later this year before conference day.
Beyond the Default: Designing Corporate Power BI Theme
Recently my client asked me to design a Power BI Corporate Theme.
Something that initially looked as a task for a couple of unhurried weeks tuned into 2 month quest full of exploration of Power BI JSON format peculiarities and limitations, and ended up with delivery of comprehensive design system with templates, samples and tutorial for end-uses.
We discuss tools and approaches that help designers, naturally used to MacOS and Figma, to succeed with this type of assignments, and share learnings that, hopefully, will make road less bumpy for those of you who have it ahead.
Audience: BI Analysts, UI/UX Designers.
Product: MS Power BI
Anti-virus: ClamAV in VM vs Microsoft Defender for Storage
Back in 2019 client asked me to build an anti-virus feature in Azure to identify and eliminate any malware potentially uploaded by end-users. Back then we delivered this feature using ClamAV open-source antivirus software running in VM. In 2023, after Microsoft Defender for Storage became generally available in our target region, we compared it with ClamAV and decided to switch.
Now 1 year passed since we switched to Defender and it is time to compare both approaches and share experience and lessons learned from building, supporting and operating both approaches.
Seeking limits of Azure Document Intelligence while extracting data from complex documents
I spent several months working on data extraction from multi-page documents coming from insurance industry. Goal was to leverage built-in features of Azure Document Intelligence only. I will show samples of original files, explain options we tried and present outcome from most successful one, also sharing tips&tricks for those of you facing similar challenge.
Global Azure Greece 2024 User group Sessionize Event Upcoming
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Microsoft Learn Zero to Hero Community User group Sessionize Event
Global Azure Milano 2024 Sessionize Event
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