Atlassian

**Can R tame the LLM chaos? Let's find out. 🤖** Two talks. Two live demos. One evening that might change how you think about LLMs in R. Refreshments and networking from 18h00. **Agenda** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ \* 16h30 – 16h45 \| Welcome and News \- Handre Williams & Luis de Sousa \* 16h45 – 17h20 \| Handre Williams: **R as the orchestration + statistical validation layer for LLMs** LLMs are powerful but unreliable. R is rigorous but underestimated. This talk explores what happens when you combine the two — using R as the orchestration backbone and statistical validation layer for LLM workflows. Handre will show practical patterns for calling, chaining, and stress-testing LLMs from R, and how classical statistical tools can keep your models honest in production. Includes a live demo. \* 17h20 – 17h55 \| Luis de Sousa: **RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) in R** LLMs hallucinate. The fix? Give them better memory. This talk dives into Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) in R — combining DuckDB's vector search capabilities with R's data ecosystem to ground LLMs in domain-specific knowledge. Luis will show how to build a RAG pipeline from scratch, turning your own data into a knowledge base that makes LLMs actually useful in practice. Includes a live demo. \* 17h55 – 18h00 \| Wrap up\, questions & close \* 18h00 \| Refreshments & networking — continue the conversation in person **Details** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ When: 14 April 2026 @ 16h30 to 18h00 (GMT+2) Where: Microsoft Campus in Bryanston, South Africa Location: https://goo.gl/maps/4ffcC3N6T7S2 Keen to speak at a future event? Submit your session abstracts at https://sessionize.com/johannesburg-r-user-group/ **Stay connected** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ \* Website: https://www.rusergroup.co.za \* Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/joburg-r-users-group \* Twitter: https://twitter.com/JHBRUserGroup \* GitHub: https://github.com/rusergroupcoza \* WhatsApp: https://bit.ly/3CeDifS

**Can R tame the LLM chaos? Let's find out. 🤖** Two talks. Two live demos. One evening that might change how you think about LLMs in R. Refreshments and networking from 18h00. **Agenda** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ \* 16h30 – 16h45 \| Welcome and News \- Handre Williams & Luis de Sousa \* 16h45 – 17h20 \| Handre Williams: **R as the orchestration + statistical validation layer for LLMs** LLMs are powerful but unreliable. R is rigorous but underestimated. This talk explores what happens when you combine the two — using R as the orchestration backbone and statistical validation layer for LLM workflows. Handre will show practical patterns for calling, chaining, and stress-testing LLMs from R, and how classical statistical tools can keep your models honest in production. Includes a live demo. \* 17h20 – 17h55 \| Luis de Sousa: **RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) in R** LLMs hallucinate. The fix? Give them better memory. This talk dives into Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) in R — combining DuckDB's vector search capabilities with R's data ecosystem to ground LLMs in domain-specific knowledge. Luis will show how to build a RAG pipeline from scratch, turning your own data into a knowledge base that makes LLMs actually useful in practice. Includes a live demo. \* 17h55 – 18h00 \| Wrap up\, questions & close \* 18h00 \| Refreshments & networking — continue the conversation in person **Details** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ When: 14 April 2026 @ 16h30 to 18h00 (GMT+2) Where: Microsoft Campus in Bryanston, South Africa Location: https://goo.gl/maps/4ffcC3N6T7S2 Keen to speak at a future event? Submit your session abstracts at https://sessionize.com/johannesburg-r-user-group/ **Stay connected** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ \* Website: https://www.rusergroup.co.za \* Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/joburg-r-users-group \* Twitter: https://twitter.com/JHBRUserGroup \* GitHub: https://github.com/rusergroupcoza \* WhatsApp: https://bit.ly/3CeDifS

Christians in Tech is a community at the intersection of faith and technology. Our meetups are designed to spark meaningful conversations, promote knowledge sharing, and encourage growth—both in your career and your spiritual walk with God. Whether you're an experienced professional or just starting your tech journey, CIT welcomes you. Our Website [https://linktr.ee/citcbus](https://linktr.ee/citcbus) Sponsors and Partners * Improving (Venue Sponsor) * Bethel World Prayer Center (Fiscal Sponsor) * Fruits & Roots (Coffee Partner)

**Important time note:** Please plan on arriving between 5:30 and 6:00 as the elevators lock after 6 and you'll need to message us and we'll need to come get you. The building address is 4450 Bridge Park The entrance is 6620 Mooney St, Suite 400 You will need to scan your ID at the door to get a visitor badge. **Abstract** GitHub Copilot is powerful, but what if you could scale from a solo AI assistant to an entire team of specialized agents working in parallel? This session introduces Squad: an open-source framework for multi-agent orchestration that lets you define teams of AI agents with specific roles, responsibilities, and expertise. We'll progress from Copilot basics to the Copilot CLI, explore how Agents add autonomy, and see how Instructions and Skills let you customize agent behavior. Then, the climax: a live demo where a Squad team of 3 agents (Lead, Developer, Tester) stands up and builds a working application in real-time, showcasing true multi-agent collaboration. Whether you're new to AI or exploring how to scale your use of Copilot, this session will show you what's possible when agents work as a team. **YouTube Link** TBD

Ciao a tutt\*! Let's meet Monday at 6.30pm at the Upper Arlington Library (Tremont Branch) in **Meeting Room A** to speak in Italian for 1 hour.

Want to be a speaker? submit your talk to our Call for Presenters!!! https://sessionize.com/cbus-hug-2026/

The global Azure community is coming together again, and Columbus is officially on the map. View the session lineup and speakers at [Global Azure Columbus 2026](https://coazure.github.io/cbus-global-azure-2026/) On **Saturday, April 18, 2026**, the Azure Columbus Meetup, DevOps Meetup, and Code and Coffee Meetup are hosting our local edition of Global Azure 2026. This is a free, community-driven event packed with learning, networking, and all things Microsoft Azure. Whether you’re building modern cloud-native apps, experimenting with AI agents, deploying containers, automating infrastructure, or just beginning your Azure journey, this event is for you! **What to Expect** * Engaging technical sessions * Real-world Azure architecture & cloud-native patterns * AI, agents, automation, and modern DevOps * Food and drinks (because learning burns calories) * Time to connect with fellow engineers, architects, and cloud enthusiasts **Who Should Attend?** * Software engineers (any language, any stack) * Cloud architects * DevOps engineers * Data professionals * AI explorers * Platform builders * Anyone who loves solving hard problems with great tools If you build, deploy, automate, scale, monitor, or optimize in Azure, you’ll feel right at home. **Why Global Azure?** Global Azure is a worldwide community event where Azure user groups host learning sessions on the same day across the globe. It’s grassroots. It’s technical. It’s practical. And it’s powered by people who genuinely love sharing what they’ve learned. And yes, it’s free to attend!

Columbus Code & Coffee is an inclusive, informal co-working session. People of all skill levels attend, and we love it that way. Many people (optionally) bring projects to work on, and many other people (optionally) socialize the entire time. It's entirely up to you! **What to Expect at the Intro Circle** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ Near the beginning of the event (1:30 pm), we do a standup: * Organizer announcements, updates, and logistics Round 1 - (7 secs max): * Your name * What you're working on * What you can help others with Round 2: * Community events you wanna plug. If none, that's cool too. Round 3: * Job opportunities you're hiring for OR announce that you are looking for one. If none, that's cool. After the introduction circle, everything is self-organized! Feel free to work alone, pair up, attend one of our workshops/presentations, or mingle!