Building a JavaScript Virtual Assistant by Andrew Evans with CapTech Consulting

Presentation Abstract - Building a JavaScript Virtual Assistant

in 2020, Andrew Evans built a virtual assistant that he and his wife use regularly. It is hosted in AWS and uses Twilio to send and receive text messages. He also built other features with AWS that send reports like a daily weather forecast. In the process of building the virtual assistant, Andrew leveraged the serverless framework (serverless.com) for deployments and automating infrastructure with AWS. He built the virtual assistant with JavaScript (NodeJS) and the AWS SDKs for lambdas.
In this talk, Andrew will build a simple version of my virtual assistant and he will do the following:

1. Create a test account with Twilio to get a phone number

2. Scaffold a basic NodeJS API with the serverless framework including a hello world, and a way to store a "to do" list

3. Connect the endpoints of the API to the Twilio number

4. Show a live example of it working with his phone

5. Cover some "next steps" topics to include using AWS for scheduling messages, etc...

Throughout the talk, it will be (mostly) live code. Andrew will be walking through it all and building the virtual assistant piece by piece.

At the conclusion of the presentation, Andrew will provide a sample project with links for anyone to review the details and do a deeper dive into the material if they would like.

As always, the meeting is free.. Looking forward to seeing you!!

Gaelen