AI Reasoning & Context Engineering

Explore brain-inspired AI and high-performance prompting at December’s First Monday Meetup. Andy Masters will introduce Hierarchical Reasoning Models—small, fast systems you can run locally—then Caelan Huntress will show you how to open and close the context windows. Drinks, demos, and practical takeaways included.
Meet up with your local AI community on the First Monday of December at EPIC Innovation:

5:30–6:00 pm — Drinks & Networking
6:00–6:45 pm — Hierarchical Reasoning Models — Andy Masters
6:45–7:30 pm — Context Engineering — Caelan Huntress
7:30–8:00 pm — Drinks & Open Q&A

This month’s First Monday Meetup dives into brain-inspired reasoning models and high-performance prompting. You’ll explore small, fast-learning AI models you can run locally, then level up your prompting skills through live demos and hands-on practice.

Hierarchical Reasoning Models - Andy Masters
Getting hands-on with HRMs (Hierarchical Reasoning Models). HRMs are small, fast-learning, and can tackle niche problems that frontier LLMs often fumble.
In this session, Andy will:

• Introduce HRMs and their inspiration from the brain’s fast/slow thinking systems
• Work through example “grid-style” problems like mazes and Sudoku puzzles
• Show how to run an HRM on your own machine—either through code or, for non-technical users, via Excel

Context Engineering — Caelan Huntress
Context Engineering is the discipline of preparing everything before the prompt — constructing the backstory, reference material, framing, and constraints that determine the quality of the model’s reasoning. Caelan will teach a practical, repeatable system for designing context that boosts accuracy, reduces hallucination, and anchors AI in your real-world scenario.

• Design context “warm-ups” that prime the model for your goals
• Apply a RAG to improve accuracy on complex tasks
• Structure context using immediate vs. persistent memory
• Manage noise, avoid context pollution, and understand why longer isn’t always better

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When: Monday, 2 December, 5:30–8:00 pm
Where: EPIC Innovation, Christchurch
Bring: Your laptop (optional, for hands-on exercises)

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Sponsored by Agentic Intelligence
Raise a glass to Agentic Intelligence for sponsoring the evening’s drinks, and to EPIC Innovation for hosting the event in their wonderful facility!