Microsoft Foundry - Overview and Building Enterprise AI Use Cases

Welcome to the inaugural meetup for the Chicago Microsoft Foundry User Group! Below is the agenda for March 3rd, 2026:

Introduction to the Chicago Microsoft Foundry User Group

• With our inaugural event, we will have a quick introduction to the user group, discuss our purpose, and our focus on Microsoft Foundry
• Speaker: Jason Sears, Head of Engineering at Origin Digital

Overview of Microsoft Foundry

• David Giard will take us through an introduction to Microsoft Foundry, and discuss how the platform accelerates AI-driven solutions across industries.
• Speaker: David Giard is a former accountant and a former biochemist, who has been developing solutions using Microsoft technologies for over three decades. Currently, David helps companies solve hard technical problems in his role as a Microsoft Partner Solution Architect. David has been very active in the developer community, speaking at numerous major conferences, code camps, and user groups around the world; helping to lead user groups; and helping to organize conferences and other geek events. He is the host and producer of the mildly popular online TV shows "Technology and Friends" and "GCast". He is the co-author of the Wrox book Real World .NET, C#, and Silverlight. You can read his latest thoughts at davidgiard.com. His hobbies include video, photography, sports, and embarrassing his sons.

Leverage Microsoft Foundry in Practice to Realize AI Use Cases across the Enterprise

• Microsoft Foundry is much more than just an AI playground. In this talk, Chris Domino will discuss how Foundry can be leveraged in a modern cloud architecture and serve as the backbone for realizing AI use cases and workloads across the enterprise. There is a lot of value to be derived for both engineers and stakeholders when Foundry is viewed through an enterprise lens.
• For this example, we’ll focus on creating an HR Policies agent to enable employees to ask policies and procedures related questions and get answers in real time for content housed in SharePoint. We will also focus on an expertise finder within the enterprise to search for colleagues by skill.
• Within Foundry, we will connect an Azure AI Search tool, create agents, and orchestrate them together in a workflow. Finally, we’ll secure everything with an Entra ID app and interact with these agents and consume this workflow through an enterprise portal which serves as the landscape for AI use cases and workloads across the enterprise.
• Speaker: Chris Domino is a senior architect with over 20 years of experience in transforming complex business challenges into strategic opportunities using Microsoft's technology stack, including cloud, web, big data, and M365. Beyond architecture, design, and code, Chris’ enthusiasm for technology extends to thought leadership and mentorship. He has authored a book on code-first SharePoint architectures, delivered keynote presentations at industry conferences, contributed to open-source initiatives, and mentored emerging talent. Additionally, Chris has been commissioned by Microsoft in the past to collaborate with a team of subject matter experts to design, debate, and develop certification exam questions, ensuring rigorous standards and industry relevance.

We're looking forward to this initial meetup!

If you're interested in speaking at an upcoming meetup, please email me at jsears@origindigital.com.