Data Mining

**Struggling with study or learning? You’re not alone.** This meetup suits people at all levels of study skill. Too many children, teenagers, and adults find studying difficult—not because they lack ability, but because they were never taught **how to learn**. This meetup introduces the basics of **Study Technology**—a practical, proven approach that shows how learning really works and how to overcome common study barriers. It applies to children, teens (and parents), teachers, and adults alike. You’ll discover simple, effective methods to improve understanding, confidence, and performance—whether at school, work, or online. Teachers and parents often see rapid improvements in both behaviour and results. Yes, it *is* possible to improve study performance—in just **five easy steps**. If you can’t attend in person, online options are available. **Join us and learn how to study effectively—once and for all.** See you at the meetup, **Pam** When learning clicks, confidence follows.

$29 per person for 2 hours of training (includes table hire) ## 🏓 MELBOURNE TABLE TENNIS COACHING @ MSAC Ready to seriously improve your table tennis — or finally start the right way? Join our **ongoing in-person group coaching sessions at MSAC**, where you’ll train in a structured but fun environment with players who come regularly, as well as new faces every week. Our sessions are designed for **both total beginners and advanced players.** You don’t need experience — and you won’t be bored if you already have it. ### What to expect * ✅ **10–15 players per session** * ✅ **2 experienced coaches on court** * ✅ **Structured drills + match play** * ✅ **Individual feedback based on your level and goals** * ✅ **A welcoming group that trains regularly** You’ll work on **technique, footwork, consistency, tactics, and real match situations** — not just hit balls randomly. We organise the group so everyone is challenged at the right level. ### Why people love these sessions * Ongoing training with a real community * Fast improvement, not just social play * A great way to **move, learn, and make friends** * Fun, supportive atmosphere with serious coaching behind it Whether your goal is to **learn from scratch, get fitter, sharpen your skills, or start competing**, this is a perfect place to train. ### What to bring * 🏓 **Bat/paddle** (if you have one — if not, we’ll provide it) * 👟 **Sports shoes (runners)** * 👕 **Comfortable sports clothes** * 💧 **Water bottle** * 🧴 **Small towel** Grab your paddle, bring your energy, and come hit with us at MSAC. Please send me an email to: p.tretinik@gmail.com to confirm attendance. This helps me to book enough table for a smooth session. NOTE: If this is not your first time coming to this meet up, the cost is $36 for the whole 2 hours.

**POINT COOK CUBAN SALSA & BACHATA** **DANCE CLASSES 2026** **🎉 - NOW OPEN -** **EVERY MONDAY** *(except on Public Holidays we are closed)* *\* No experience necessary* *\* No partner required* \* No dance experience necessary *\* Open to all adult ages* At: **POINT COOK COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTRE** 1-21 Cheetham Street Point Cook \* Same building as the Point Cook Library Building \* We are in Main Room 1 - opposite the Reception Desk as you walk in. **2026 MONDAY - POINT COOK** **CUBAN SALSA, BACHATA** **& RUEDA DE CASINO** **PROGRAM:** **6.30PM** **BACHATA** (Main class) \* Absolute Beginner to Improver level \* No dance experience or partner required \- All welcome **7.30PM - 8.45PM** **BEGINNER CUBAN SALSA** **\- INTRODUCTION TO SALSA BASICS** An extra 15 minutes have been added to assist new beginners with a slower, easy to follow breakdown of the main basics steps \- Beginners of all levels should attend this class This leads into the main **CUBAN SALSA BEGINNER** lesson. *\* Total Beginner Salsa class time: 1 hour & 30 minutes* **8.45PM - 9.45PM** **CUBAN SALSA & RUEDA INTERMEDIATE** (Main class) \* Beginners who are confident with their steps and turns can do this class. (Cuban Salsa/Rueda De Casino) **COST:** \* CASUAL/DROP-IN RATE: $20 for any 1 main class \* DO 2 CLASSES on the night: $30 \* DO ALL 3 CLASSES ON THE NIGHT - Only $35 **PAYMENT OPTIONS:** *\** **CASH** *is the preferred payment on the night and* *recommended for students to avoid paying the* *extra eftpos surcharge fees.* ***\* EFTPOS*** *facility with Mastercard or Visa credit card available* \- Please note: There is a 1\.9% surcharge when using Mastercard or Visa cards\. \* Please note: We do not accept American Express & Diner cards. **BOTTLED WATER & HAND TOWEL:** \* We recommend students bring a bottle of water and a hand towel as some nights are quite hot and some lessons can be abit of a workout! ((-: **CENTRE PROTOCOLS:** \* Masks are recommended \* If feeling unwell or have any flu like symptoms, please do not attend any classes \* If you are a close contact, as a precautionary measure, we ask you not to attend any classes until after 7 days of negative results \* We recommend sanitizing hands frequently **What To Wear:** \* Best shoes - low or flat shoes with smooth sole shoes, such as leather sole shoes. \* Avoid runners or sneakers as these are made to grip the floor and can impede your movement and turns. \* Clothing - comfortable, casual clothing is fine **MEDICAL:** Please consult your doctor before taking any classes if you have breathing problems, heart conditions, knee, back or shoulder injuries or are taking prescribed medication that may effect your health **PRIVATE LESSONS:** We offer private lessons on a one-to-one basis at our private studio setup in Werribee. Available for one to one or with your dance partner or for small private groups at a time that suits you. Large private groups or functions, we can come to you or your event. Private salsa lessons are a great way to fast track and accelerate your salsa dancing skills by focusing on your salsa dancing in more detail with individual attention.

**PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING DETAILS:** This group is suitable for a beginner type player only. **YOU WILL NEED TO REGISTER AND PAY VIA THE ATTACHED LINK TO SECURE YOUR SPOT:** https://play.tennis.com.au/RoyalParkTennisClub/Coaching **Players who just register their interest on Meetup, do not have their spots secured and may miss out.** **Registration Opens:** 6 Days in advance at 9am **Registration Closes:** Close 6pm the day *before* the event. This is to finalise player numbers and organise a playing roster. **Social Tennis Structure:** * Location: Royal Park Tennis Club (333 The Avenue, Parkville, Melbourne) * Day: Monday * Time: 5.30pm-7.30pm * Cost: $18 for Non-Members, $12 for Members. * Participants will play some casual games of tennis: emphasis on learning about tennis, improving your serve, trying to get the ball into play, and having fun. \*\*\* *Please note there is no coaching for this program.* * Balls are provided each week. * Racquets are available for hire if required. * Some refreshments are available for purchase. * Please remember to wear shoes suitable for tennis! * Maximum of 8 spots for each session.

**Skeptics Cafe.** Vic Skeptics Pub Night - Third Monday of every month. Skeptics Café will be held in the Mahogany Room at [The Stolberg Hotel](https://stolberg.com.au/), 197 Plenty Road, Preston. Each month, Victorian Skeptics hosts a social night in the pub. We get together for dinner, drinks and good conversation with like-minded individuals. We have a different speaker each month. Topic: "***The Modern Minoans".*** Speaker: Prof. Peter Revesz. Professor Peter Z. Revesz is a Computer Science researcher who has published many academic articles in technology journals about the relationship between the Hungarian language and various ancient languages such as Hurrian, Sumerian and Minoan. But do his claims stand up to scrutiny in the fields of linguistics and information theory? **Start Time:** 6:00pm for dinner and a chat. 7:30pm for beginning of the talk. **[Vic Skeptics](https://vicskeptics.wordpress.com/events/)** \- \- **[Australian Skeptics](https://www.skeptics.com.au/)**

**Details** Join us for networking, drinks and a good time catching up with fellow Power BI and Microsoft Fabric enthusiasts **Agenda:** 5:30PM - 6:00PM Welcome and Networking 6:00PM - 7:00PM Speaker Session **Topic:** An Evening with the Microsoft Fabric CAT Team **THE SPEAKER -** Phil Seamark - Phil Seamark works on the Microsoft Fabric CAT team and is an accomplished database and business intelligence (BI) professional. Phil has an in-depth knowledge of the Microsoft BI stack along with extensive knowledge of data warehouse (DW) methodologies and enterprise data modelling. Phil has expert knowledge in all facets of BI/DW including planning architecture, project management, dimensional modelling, performance tuning, ETL design, development and optimisation, report and dashboard design as well as installation and administration. Phil has written several books DAX and Data modelling and has also blogged extensively at dax.tips **THE SESSION** The Microsoft Fabric CAT (Customer Advisory Team) is touring ANZ and dropping in for an evening with us. Expect demos, war stories, and straight talk about what's working (and what isn't) at the biggest Fabric customers in the world. We'll range across the stack, covering OneLake, semantic models, Spark, real-time intelligence, performance, and whatever has just shipped. Plenty of time for Q&A, plus a few hot takes from the product group. Bring your hard questions. **Sponsors:** **Vivanti** A big thank you goes out to our sponsor, Vivanti, for their support of this Meetup; providing the venue as well as drinks for attendees. **GET AI** A big thanks to GET AI for sponsoring the food. GET AI is a Microsoft speciliased consulting company focussed on building AI solutions in the Microsoft Ecosystem https://www.getai.com.au

Artificial intelligence and data centres are reshaping how we live, work, and use energy. Right now, the Federal Government is asking for input to influence how this important technology shapes our future. This is a real opportunity for community voices to reach the people making decisions about our collective future. The problem is that formal consultation processes can feel inaccessible; full of technical jargon, unclear on process, and easy to scroll past. That's exactly why we're running this community assembly. Rather than feeling overwhelmed or just venting into the void, come and do something about it. This is a free, volunteer-run, in-person session designed to give you: * Context — a plain-English overview of the inquiry and what's at stake for our communities, environment, and economy * Space — a safe, welcoming environment for open discussion, whatever your background or level of expertise * Support — practical guidance to help you formulate and submit your own perspective directly to the inquiry.
No technical expertise required. Just curiosity and a willingness to have your say. We believe that diverse perspectives lead to richer outcomes, and on something as consequential as AI and data centres, we need as many of them as possible! Come and help shape a future we can all look forward to. Register here for a free ticket: https://events.humanitix.com/community-assembly-ai-and-data-centres

The MLAI Meetup is a community for AI researchers and professionals which hosts monthly talks on exciting research. Our format is: * 6:00 - 6:20: Socializing * 6:20 - 6:40: Announcements and AI news * 6:40 - 7:40: Talk(s) and Q&A * 7:40 - 8:00 Networking * 8:00: Head to the nearest pub for dinner **Elena Tartaglia: "Do initial attack models work for triage?"** **Talk description:** Initial attack refers to the first set of firefighting actions undertaken at a newly reported fire, with the aim to control the fire’s spread. When multiple fires are reported and resources constrained, decisions need to be made about triaging fires for an escalated response. We developed empirical initial attack models for grass and forest fires for the specific purpose of triaging fires. Using a recently developed dataset of spreading fires, we tested three statistical modelling techniques to estimate the probability of unsuccessful initial attack. We assessed the models' performance and how practical it would be to use them in an operational setting using statistical techniques and case studies. In this talk, we will discuss how the models have limited skill overall and are unable to distinguish fires where bottlenecks affect the initial attack suppression. We will highlight the importance of taking an application specific approach to developing and validating initial attack models. A preprint of this work can be found on [bioRxiv](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.31.668020v2). **Speaker bio:** Dr Elena Tartaglia is a Principal Data Scientist at the Victorian government Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, where she has worked for the past three years in Bushfire and Forest Services (BFS). BFS works to keep Victorians and the things they care about safe from bushfires, through land management actions and by responding to bushfires on public land. Elena and her team use statistics and machine learning to support data-driven decision-making in BFS. Elena is also the current President of the Victorian and Tasmanian Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia. **Ping Siriamnat: "Impact of fire suppressant drops on fire severity"** **Talk description:** One of the common suppression methods of bushfires is aerial drops, but there is limited research on its effectiveness. Aerial drops refer to aircraft flying over a fire and droping water or fire suppressant to slow or stop the spread of the fire. Through the National Aerial Firefighting Centre, aircraft attending to bushfires in Australia are tracked, so we have data on when and where drops were done, along with what type of suppressant was used and how much. In this project, we investigated the impact of drops on fire severity by measuring the association between drops and fire severity level, as calculated by the Arthur Rylah Institute, accounting for the influence of terrain steepness and land cover characteristics. **Speaker bio:** Ping Siriamnat is a Master of Business Analytics graduate (Monash University) and previously interned at DEECA in the DAIS Data Science team. Across his projects, he applies statistical methods and machine learning models, alongside his business acumen, to transform data into actionable insights. He has a strong interest in market analytics, business strategy, and applying data science to uncover opportunities and improve the performance of strategic decisions.

Hi Architects, Welcome to our next AWS Melbourne Well-Architected User Group Meetup for 2026, including more exceptional speakers and topics! :-D At each meetup we covered off various pillars in detail, best-practices and insights from industry leaders that specialise in the Well-Architected Framework. And giving away drones, of course. Lots of drones. **Please also note that AWS Security now requests a company name and company email where it is available. If you are a student, please list your institution and your student email address at that institution 👍** We’ll be updating throughout the month with more speakers and our speakers so far this month include: * **Mike Taylor, Solution Architect, TiDB** **Well-Architected Data Foundations for Agentic AI: Lessons from Kimi and Manus** As AI transitions from static prompts to autonomous, action-oriented agents, traditional data architectures often break down under the pressure of unpredictable scaling and relentless write workloads. We will explore the infrastructure of two massive-scale AI platforms, Kimi and Manus, through the lens of the well-architected framework. * **Mystery Speaker** **Well-Architecting AWS Marketplace** In this talk we will dive deep into the good, the bad and the ugly of AWS Marketplace, how to maximise traction and minimise the gotchas. This month's menu will include: * Pizzas * Beer: Nastro Azzurro * Wine: Big and red 🤤 NB: Please check in up the stairs from the ground floor to the Mezzanine Level. So come join us at 5:30 for a 6pm **SHARP** start, followed by beer, wine, pizza and friendly networking after our talks :-) Tired of Linkedin’s "thought leadership”, spam and advertising? Join https://well-architected.me/ , the AWS community built for architects, developers and cloud professionals. * Connect with experienced AWS practitioners * Preview upcoming AWS Meetups and relive past content * Create and review beautiful AWS case studies in minutes * Prepare for AWS certifications with curated quizzes * Show your manager and reports you’re well-architected (Please note that by registering to attend you agree to your details being shared as and where required with Amazon Web Services and AWS Well-Architected User Group partners)

Melbourne, Are You Ready for the Next Era of Intelligent Testing? Many teams are actively exploring AI-assisted QA workflows but are still figuring out how to apply them effectively within real delivery pipelines. That’s where the conversations at this summit are focused. Join the Test Automation Summit – Melbourne 2026 on 18 June 2026, where practitioners and engineering leaders discuss practical approaches to AI-enabled QA, secure delivery, test data management, and modern automation practices – with lessons drawn from real enterprise environments. Who Should Attend • QA & Quality Engineering Leaders • Automation Engineers & SDETs • DevOps & Platform Teams • Engineering & Delivery Managers • Software testers • Engineers working with AI, APIs, or mobile testing • Software Development Engineers in Test • Teams exploring AI-enabled testing and secure delivery practices Featured Sessions • Renard Vardy Principal Consultant, KJR The Rise of Test Data Management Exploring why test data is becoming a growing challenge for modern quality engineering and how teams are approaching governance, accessibility, and scalability. • Aarti Suresh Solutions Engineer, Postman MCP and AI Agents in QA: A Strategic Implementation Framework A practical look at how AI agents and MCP workflows can support QA teams, along with considerations for implementation and adoption. • Vinay Madan Technical Lead, MVSI DevTestSecOps – Secure Shift-Left Testing (Embedding Security Testing in CI/CD Pipelines) How teams are integrating testing and security earlier into development pipelines to improve delivery confidence and reduce downstream issues. Panel Discussion Human-Centric Quality: AI-Driven, Sustainable, and Secure Testing for the Digital Era Panel Speakers: • Humera Khanum Senior Delivery Manager, Lovisa Pty Ltd Additional panel speakers will be announced soon. Why This Event Matters Many teams are currently balancing the following: • Faster delivery expectations • AI-assisted development workflows • Increasing security considerations • Growing complexity in test environments and data The challenge is not just adopting new tools — It’s understanding how to apply them effectively within real delivery environments. This summit is designed around those practical discussions. If you're involved in modern QA, engineering quality, automation, or secure delivery practices – this is a conversation worth being part of.

**Nirvana Shatakam – Shankara's Six Verses on Freedom** Most spiritual paths tell you to become something. This teaching does the opposite. Through six ancient verses by Adi Shankara, you discover who you are by removing what you're NOT – the body, mind, and roles you play. What remains is your limitless nature that was always here. Over seven months, we'll unpack these verses line by line, transforming how you see yourself and your life. **What You'll Learn** * How you mistake yourself for body, mind, emotions, and roles * Why self-knowledge differs from self-improvement * Why you've never actually been bound – and what keeps that recognition hidden * What it means to recognise yourself as the sought, not the seeker **About the Teacher** Andre Vas teaches Vedanta full-time under the Swami Dayananda (Arsha Vidya) lineage. As a former business owner, he relates deeply to householders juggling work, family, and inner growth. Known for making knowledge stick through lived experience, not just concepts. **Who This Is For** No prior background needed. For anyone noticing that acquiring more, achieving more, or becoming better doesn't stick. For those with burning curiosity and a hunger to know, understand, and live this wisdom. **I'll set up group discussions also to help us make new friends.** **When & Where** 📅 2:00-4:00pm Melbourne time 📍 3 Anjaya Court, Blackburn, Melbourne **More info: [YesVedanta.com/nirvana](https://YesVedanta.com/nirvana)**

⚡️ Online Speed Dating & Matching Event! ⚡️ Tired of endless swiping? Skip the small talk and connect with singles face-to-face from the comfort of your home! 📍 Where: Online via Zoom ⚠️ IMPORTANT: RSVPing on this page DOES NOT secure your spot! To keep the gender ratio balanced and match you with the right people, you must register and complete our 3-minute personality quiz using the link below. [👉 CLICK HERE TO REGISTER & TAKE THE MATCHING QUIZ👈](http://www.tempodating.com/product?productId=574&productType=onlineSpeedDating) (Only registration through this link guarantees your Zoom invite. Spots are limited!)

Pickleball \| Singles \| 20s\, 30s\, 40s \| Ditch the Apps\. Hit the Courts\. DateColumbus Pickleball League **8 Weeks of Singles Pickleball - you joining us?!** Summer is calling, and we've got better plans for you than swiping right. DateColumbus's Pickleball League is back — 8 weeks of casual open play, rotating partners, new connections, and honestly? A really good time. Whether you've never held a paddle in your life or you've been playing for years, this league was built for you to show up, get moving, and meet people IRL. **Never played before? You're in the right place.** For the first three weeks, we'll have on-site instructors ready to walk you through the basics in the first 30 minutes — no experience needed, no pressure, just good vibes and a little coaching. Our volunteers are also on-site every Monday to get you settled on the courts, introduce you around, and make sure you leave with at least a few new faces in your contacts. **How it works:** We run open play — meaning you'll rotate courts AND partners throughout the night. Winners stay for one round before rotating, so there's always someone new to meet, rally with, and maybe grab a drink with after. Maximum mingling. Maximum fun. **[Ticket & Registration is linked here!](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/summer-pickleball-but-everyones-single-datecolumbus-tickets-1990356562056?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true)** **What's included:** * Paddles available every week (or bring your own!) * Locker room on-site * Full restaurant + bar at Paddle Taps * Every Monday, 6:00–8:00 PM for 8 weeks * Eat, drink, and mingle during and after play * **Ready to meet your pickleball partner (and maybe more)?** Grab your spot now — courts fill up fast and so do summer schedules, see you soon :)

Over a billion documents processed. Millions of Veterans impacted. Hundreds of thousands of employee hours saved. Faster decisions. Greater accuracy. More benefits in the hands of our disabled Veterans. We created Smart Search, the world’s largest consumer of Amazon Textract, right when GenAI began reshaping what’s possible. Since then, we’ve built a suite of AI‑driven solutions that transform this data into real, measurable outcomes—accelerating benefits decisions for our Nation’s Veterans. Join us for a focused conversation on how an outcome‑driven approach to AI is helping us boost accuracy, streamline workflows, and deliver faster results for those who have served. This is a follow up to the AWS re:Invent 2023 "Intelligent Document Processing with Gen AI for Public Sector" presentation. About Speaker: Cameron Williams is a Senior Technical Project Manager and cross-functional technical leader at Booz Allen Hamilton with 15+ years of experience architecting and evolving scalable, cloud-native systems, from greenfield development to complex enterprise modernization. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronw711/ **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

Join the Columbus AI community for a special event. **Battle of the Personal Agents** is your chance to see what people are actually building with AI agents and personal automation systems. Whether you’re running OpenClaw, Hermes, or a completely custom solution, bring your agent and show the community how it works. We’re interested in real-world implementations: the problems your agent solves, how you use it day-to-day, how it’s hosted and managed, how you built it, and why you’ve chosen to keep using it. Live demonstrations are encouraged, so be prepared to show your code, architecture, workflows, and your agent performing real tasks. This is less about polished presentations and more about sharing practical experience, comparing approaches, and learning from one another. If you’d like to present, please contact Chris Slee (via meetup) before the event so we can allocate enough time for everyone’s demonstrations. Come ready to show what you’ve built, discover what others are doing, and maybe find a few ideas worth taking home. Whether you’re deep in the field or just getting curious, come connect with others building and exploring AI in Columbus. Sponsored by [Transform Labs](https://www.linkedin.com/company/transformlabs/) Sign up also accessible via [Transform Labs Luma](https://luma.com/transformlabshq)

Title: Smart Search + AI: An Outcome-Driven Journey from IDP to a Suite of AI Register at the Columbus AWS meetup: [https://www.meetup.com/columbus-aws-amazon-web-services-meetup/events/313426379/](https://www.meetup.com/columbus-aws-amazon-web-services-meetup/events/313426379/) Over a billion documents processed. Millions of Veterans impacted. Hundreds of thousands of employee hours saved. Faster decisions. Greater accuracy. More benefits in the hands of our disabled Veterans. We created Smart Search, the world’s largest consumer of Amazon Textract, right when GenAI began reshaping what’s possible. Since then, we’ve built a suite of AI‑driven solutions that transform this data into real, measurable outcomes—accelerating benefits decisions for our Nation’s Veterans. Join us for a focused conversation on how an outcome‑driven approach to AI is helping us boost accuracy, streamline workflows, and deliver faster results for those who have served. This is a follow up to the AWS re:Invent 2023 "Intelligent Document Processing with Gen AI for Public Sector" presentation. About Speaker: Cameron Williams is a Senior Technical Project Manager and cross-functional technical leader at Booz Allen Hamilton with 15+ years of experience architecting and evolving scalable, cloud-native systems, from greenfield development to complex enterprise modernization. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronw711/ **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

**Abstract:** Motivated by the challenges of detecting extremely rare failures in sophisticated circuit design specifications, we study the problem of efficiently identifying multiple disjoint regions of interest (ROIs) — regions of a continuous, high-dimensional parameter space where a complex, expensive-to-evaluate target function falls below or above a pre-specified threshold. We reframe this problem as a Bayesian sequential decision-making problem and, more broadly, as an instance of strategic agent behavior in continuous spaces: an agent that must allocate a hard evaluation budget intelligently, updating its belief about the unknown function after each observation and choosing the next query to maximize coverage of all disjoint failure regions rather than convergence to a single optimum. This is a *hybrid* event. To attend online, join us on Zoom here at 6pm: [https://iit-edu.zoom.us/j/89379230295?pwd=NdETyE5sdYuSrvsrBZXSBFkUESBVkg.1](https://iit-edu.zoom.us/j/89379230295?pwd=NdETyE5sdYuSrvsrBZXSBFkUESBVkg.1) Meeting ID: 893 7923 0295 Passcode: 5t5WYn **Sponsor**: Grainger will provide the meeting site, as well as snacks for the onsite participants. * **Address:** 222 W Merchandise Mart Plaza, 18th Floor, Chicago, IL 60654 * **Grainger's Overview:** W.W. Grainger, Inc., is a leading broadline distributor with over $17 billion in revenue. At Grainger, We Keep the World Working® by serving more than 4.5 million customers worldwide with maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) products and services delivered through innovative technology and deep customer relationships. Our machine learning team builds broadly across search, recommendations, product matching, computer vision, and generative AI. * **Logistics**: To access the Grainger office, we require first and last names of those who RSVP'd by Jun 11. Please take the main elevators at the center of the Mart. Attendees will then present their IDs when they arrive at the front desk on the 18th floor.

Most people still use AI like a search box: type one question, get one answer, repeat. But the next step is AI agents: systems that can take a goal, break it into steps, use tools, remember context, and produce useful work for a human to review. In this beginner-friendly session, we’ll demystify what AI agents actually are — without hype or jargon. We’ll walk through practical examples of how agents can help with research, planning, writing, coding, operations, and personal productivity. We’ll cover: * What makes an AI “agent” instead of just a chatbot * How agents break tasks into steps * Where agents are genuinely useful today * Where they fail, hallucinate, or need human review * How to design simple AI workflows for your own work * A live demo of an AI agent-style workflow from start to finish No coding experience required. This is for anyone who wants to understand where AI tools are going and how to use them more effectively right now. LOGISTICS AND PARKING: The talk starts at 7:00 PM. The first half hour is reserved for everyone to get set up and mingle. Free pizza and drinks! The cheapest parking option is to find street parking, which will only cost you a few bucks. Otherwise, park in the nearby veteran's museum lot for $8. It's highly recommended you avoid the nearby $15 garage parking.