Serverless Toronto

The Gemini CLI brings Google's powerful AI models directly to your terminal - no context switching, no web UI required. But this isn't an intro session. Dan Dobrin returns to ServerlessTO to reveal production-ready patterns that move beyond basics: how to engineer AI memory, automate your entire development workflow, and orchestrate multi-agent systems - all from your command line.

Through hands-on demonstrations with MCP (Model Context Protocol) integrations and serverless deployments, you'll see how terminal-first AI workflows can transform everything from code reviews to production deployment. This is practical, production-ready implementation - not theoretical concepts.

What You'll Learn

• Ever wonder why AI assistants get confused or forget what you've told them? We dive into context engineering and understand short vs long-term memory
• What can I shift left in our work? Could it be code reviews, documentation, security, or building pipelines?
• Are there any tools available to us, any extensions we can leverage? Exploring the ecosystem
• MCP is all the rage - What is available to us when building and deploying a Serverless App
• Let's plan before we build - Following the path of analysis, planning, refinement, implementation and deployment
• Building multi-agent systems with Gemini CLI? Orchestrating multiple agents working together

Agenda

• 12:00 - 12:10 PM: Welcome and community updates
• 12:10 - 12:50 PM: Main presentation with live demonstrations
• 12:50 - 1:20 PM: Q&A and discussion
• 1:20 - 1:30 PM: Manning Publications raffle

About the Speaker
Dan Dobrin is an Enterprise Application Architect at Google Cloud with extensive experience in enterprise Java applications, cloud technologies and generative AI. He recently presented multiple sessions at Google Cloud Next '25, Spring IO 2025, focusing on Agentic AI, Spring AI, LangChain4j, Gemini Code Assist, Gemini CLI and Agentic RAG systems. Dan previously spoke at Serverless Toronto about High-Performance Java on Google Cloud Platform, and Building Agentic AI systems: A2A (Agent2Agent) & MCP Protocols & Serverless and is a frequent speaker at conferences. With a focus on practical, production-ready implementations, Dan brings real-world insights into cutting-edge technologies. His most recent work focuses on contributing to the Google GenAI SDK to Spring AI and Google Agent Development Kit.

Who Should Attend

• Developers and engineers building apps for serverless environments, who want to streamline their workflow, test prompts quickly, review code, analyze app security or integrate AI capabilities into their command-line tools and scripts
• DevOps and infrastructure teams who deploy to Serverless environments could benefit from automating tasks, generating scripts, or troubleshooting issues directly from the terminal without switching contexts to a web interface
• Data scientists and ML engineers who want a lightweight way to experiment with Gemini models, prototype AI features, or process data using AI without heavy IDE overhead
• Technical writers and documentation teams who need to generate, refine, or analyze content at scale and would benefit from scripting and automation capabilities that a CLI provides
• System administrators looking to leverage AI for log analysis, system diagnostics, or automating repetitive tasks directly from their terminal environment
• Power users and productivity enthusiasts who prefer keyboard-driven workflows and want to integrate AI assistance seamlessly into their existing terminal-based toolchains

The talk would be especially valuable for anyone who spends significant time in the terminal and wants to avoid context-switching to web UIs while maintaining access to powerful AI capabilities.

Homework (optional reading before the session):

Remember when web apps were plagued by SQL injection vulnerabilities everywhere? AI agents with MCP (Model Context Protocol) are repeating history. MCP lets LLMs connect to your databases, filesystems, APIs, and cloud services. Developers are shipping agents with zero authorization checks, treating AI outputs as trusted commands, and exposing sensitive data through poorly secured tool connections.

Vandana Verma, Vice Chair of the OWASP Global Board and Security Relations Leader at Snyk, will present security practices for MCP-powered agents in production.

What you'll learn:

• How OWASP LLM Top 10 risks manifest in MCP implementations
• Practical security patterns for tool authorization, data exposure, and prompt injection in MCP contexts
• Real-world attack scenarios and defenses

Homework (optional reading before the session):

For the first time, Brandy Old and Craig Elias are bringing their Founder Fridays session to Toronto. Since 2021, they’ve been running these free sessions across Alberta, helping hundreds of entrepreneurs figure out if their ideas are worth pursuing - before spending time and money building the wrong thing. They’ve worked alongside startup legends like Ash Maurya (Lean Canvas), David Bland (Testing Business Ideas), and Geoffrey Moore (Crossing the Chasm) to create practical frameworks that actually work.
This session helps you understand an idea’s ‘desirability’ so you can avoid spending time, effort, or money on an idea that nobody will want.

What You’ll Learn

• Validate that a problem is worth solving
• Determine a startup’s Ideal Client Profile (ICP)
• Know if a start-up should pause, pivot, or proceed
• Identify and test the assumptions that kill startups
• Differentiate from the three forms of competition every startup has
• Leverage the 11 questions every problem validation interview should ask
• Combine early adopters and trigger events to accelerate customer adoption
• Understand the six types of customer problems that increase the odds of success

This session combines concepts from startup experts like Ash Maurya, David Bland, Geoffrey Moore, Melissa Kaufman, Mike Raab, Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim with original concepts Craig and Brandy developed by helping hundreds of entrepreneurs validate their business ideas.

Who Should Attend

• Aspiring founders with ideas brewing
• Technical folks who can build anything but need business validation
• Early-stage entrepreneurs testing product-market fit
• Product managers evaluating new features
• Anyone wondering: “Should I quit my job for this idea?”

If you’ve been coming to Serverless Toronto for technical skills, this complements perfectly - you’ll learn what to build and why, not just how.

About Your Hosts

Brandy Old - Technology Development Advisor at Alberta Innovates

• Designed the Agility entrepreneurial incubator at U of Lethbridge, trained 200+ student entrepreneurs
• Certified IDEO Design Thinker & Lean Startup Coach
• TEDx speaker on embracing failure as a learning tool
• Master’s in Social Impact

Craig Elias - Technology Development Advisor at Alberta Innovates

• His first startup was funded by a Silicon Valley VC and named by Dow Jones as one of the 50 most promising companies in North America (within 24 months of launch!)
• Award-winning sales expert and author of SHiFT! (endorsed by Stephen M.R. Covey, Keith Ferrazzi, Tim Draper)
• 15-year track record as top-performing salesperson before becoming entrepreneur
• Now helps early-stage founders avoid the mistakes he learned the hard way

Together they run Founder Fridays, MVP Mondays, and teach entrepreneurship across Alberta using frameworks from world-class thought leaders.

Why This Matters

Canada needs more collaboration across provinces. While Ottawa works on interprovincial trade barriers, we’re proving knowledge flows freely. Alberta brings entrepreneurial frameworks and founder mindset. Ontario brings technical execution and AI-assisted development. Together we’re building Canada’s innovation ecosystem.

Want More? Join Founder Fridays Now