(Daytime, In-person) Hands-on AI Workshop in CAMBRIDGE MA

SAVE THE DATE -- THIS EVENT IS HAPPENING FOR SURE.

• Registration opens Monday Jan 20 at 8:00 AM.
• Event is Friday Jan 31. Doors open at 9:00, workshop begins at 9:30.
• Sponsored by our friends at Cloud Construct.

You are invited to join Boston Azure AI for this is ALL-DAY, DURING-THE-WORKDAY, HANDS-ON coding workshop focused on Artificial Intelligence. Many concepts will be explained and explored. All coding exercises will be done with VS Code using C# and .NET against Azure OpenAI APIs using the Microsoft Semantic Kernel SDK.

FUN FACT: We operated as Boston Azure from Oct 2009 through Dec 2024. Starting in 2025 we are operating as Boston Azure AI. This is the first event under the new Boston Azure AI moniker.

Where: Microsoft NERD (1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA)

• Closest MBTA stop is Kendall on the Red Line
• There are many parking options available in the area
• One popular option is to park under the building at 1 Memorial Drive. Don't hold us to this, but we've been informed the cost for a weekday is $27
• Directions: https://www.microsoftnewengland.com/contact/
• Official entrance is on Memorial Drive side
• Other parking options might be available
• Government-issued ID is required by facility security staff before they admit you to the building.
• Once through security, take elevator to Floor M (one up from ground level) and we are in the Abigail Adams & Horace Mann conference rooms.
• Doors open at 9:00 AM (come for coffee or tea and to get settled), then event starts at 9:30 AM, and event goes until 4:00 PM
• Coffee and tea will be provided
• Lunch is made possible by our friends at Cloud Construct. We will communicate more about lunch details (which food) but note that we can't reasonably guarantee supporting any specific dietary requirements, so please pay attention to those communications.

Space is always limited for in-person workshops. If the event is full please do sign up for the wait list and we will do our best to accommodate as many as we reasonably can.

Event Details

Hello Boston Azure AI Community!

Join us at the Microsoft office in Cambridge MA on Friday January 31, 2025, 9:00-4:00 where we are offering a free, full-day, hands-on AI-focused workshop focused on using Azure OpenAI and the .NET version of Semantic Kernel.

Microsoft has kindly agreed to host this event. Microsoft facilities staff will verify each attendee via government-issued ID before you are admitted to the event. Accordingly, we need to have collected your accurate info ahead of time. Please provide this as part of registering for the event.

WORKSHOP CONTENTS ARE SUBJECT TO MODIFICATION BUT THE FOLLOWING DETAILS ARE INTENDED TO BE SUBSTANTIALLY ACCURATE

Workshop Learning Objectives

1. Understanding role and purpose of Semantic Kernel
2. Basics of setting up and using Semantic Kernel
3. Prompting techniques for your application to interact with LLMs
4. How to implement RAG and use memory
5. How to create and manage single and multi-agent systems

Workshop Outline
Understanding Semantic Kernel and how to use it

• Overview of the Semantic Kernel project
• Add it to an application
• Chat with an LLM
• Add chat history for better context

Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)

• Overview of RAG
• What is function calling
• Create functions/plugins in Sematic Kernel
• Add memory using a persistent data store
• Ways to improve RAG

Agent framework

• Overview of the Semantic Kernel Agent framework
• Creating your first agent
• Multiple agent orchestration

✅ ✳ Software Installation Requirements ✳

Please bring your dev laptop running Windows, Mac, or Linux with the following software already installed:

1. VS Code ➜ https://code.visualstudio.com/download

• You should be able to launch the VS Code IDE without errors
• All of the labs are basic console apps, trying to concentrate the lab focus on code, not tools. The labs assume VS Code. We do not plan to support separate labs configured for Visual Studio.

2. .NET 9 ➜ https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download

• Please be sure you can run "dotnet --version" and verify ahead of time that it indicates .NET 9 is running. For example, when I run the command as of this writing, it returns 9.0.100.
• ‼️ Pay attention to this. There are relevant improvements in .NET 9, so we have upgraded our labs to assume that. Much of the lab code will fail on .NET 8.

3. You will need access to Azure OpenAI and Azure SQL DB services. For simplicity, we will provide these for your use during the workshop, after which we will roll the keys so they will stop working.

• But you are also welcome to create your own resources and use them in the workshop. Since you are paying for them at this point, you can decide when to decommission associated resources. You will also need the skills to adjust the lab materials to use your own credentials.

3. You can expect we will recommend you install additional tools and VS Code or Visual Studio extensions as part of the workshop experience.

Looking forward to seeing you at the event!

Bill & Jason