Code Conversations

As we enter the age of AI, the roles of programmers and designers are evolving. The convergence of design and code signals a narrowing gap, prompting us to question the future landscape of design. Will AI-driven innovation lead us to chart a new course, or will it see us walking down familiar paths? Drawing from my experience leading Design at GitHub, I’ll delve into my journey starting out as a d...

It’s 1998. It’s the year of Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, the first Google Doodle, and the year Titanic dominated the box office. It’s also the year Hasbro gifted us with the Furby, the first successful attempt at an interactive robot pet. It divided the playground, created a generation of spooky sleepover stories and sparked the xmas riots of 99’.Two decades on, creatives and engineers have st...

It's time you meet your AI pair programmer. Do you find yourself stuck on a chunk of code? Unsure of how best to center a div? GitHub Copilot can help. Get unstuck by seeing suggested lines or code, whole functions, and learn more about your development journey through having code explained, and even translate your code into other languages. Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlviuph9QX4&amp...

Natural language processing using generative pre-trained transformers (GPT) algorithms is a rapidly evolving field that offers many opportunities and challenges for application developers. But what is a generative pre-trained transformer, and how does it work? How can you leverage the latest advances in GPT algorithms to create engaging and useful applications? Can my business benefit from creatin...

AI is due to revolutionize the life of a developer, with Microsoft leading the way, combining the public code base of GitHub.com with ChatGPT to product Copilot to speed code generation and increase developer productivity. However, this is just the latest in a set of tools and frameworks that have all had the goal of improving productivity. But have we lost something along the way? As soon as we s...

Web developers: you have a fantastic opportunity to make your web UIs more intelligent and productive than before. But don’t just throw on a chat pane and call it done, as people may not even use or like it. Let's explore how language models can integrate into your existing web UIs, anticipating your users' needs and completing their tasks faster. This is a technical, demo-centric talk wit...

The journey into AI integration shows that every single person's job—from developers to non-developers—has been impacted by this technology . Adoption starts with the basics: most users overlook critical steps like setting up Custom Instructions in ChatGPT to ensure clear, concise, and direct responses while avoiding unnecessary niceties and garbage. Furthermore, the rise of custom GPTs, built...

My talk, "I Connected My Farm To The Internet. Now What?", uses the Llama cam hobby project to explore product development under real-world constraints like a 100 gigabytes of internet data per month limit and zero budget . We integrated Home Assistant and custom AI for llama detection to provide value and continuously iterate. Key takeaways: Listen to your community feedback and remembe...

Microsoft Security Copilot leverages generative AI to help overwhelmed security teams by summarizing complex incidents and generating crucial KQL queries using natural language prompts. This first-of-its-kind security AI operates at machine speed, leveraging Microsoft’s comprehensive global threat intelligence to make defenders more efficient and effective against the rapidly scaling challenges of...

Struggling to make an impact or overcome networking anxiety? LinkedIn is a powerful, free tool that can help you shortcut your time to becoming a "Minimum Visible Person" (MVP) . By establishing credibility from a distance and influencing by volume, you can use LinkedIn to access all areas, from the factory floor all the way up to the boardroom, positioning yourself for the career that y...

Deploying Generative AI applications at production scale demands careful attention to architecture and security, starting with the realization that large language models are entirely stateless and state must be constructed and passed through (e.g., via a database) to avoid losing conversation context and enable proper scaling. To achieve production readiness and control costs, developers should im...

HTML is not just the foundation we build on, its vital in making our websites accessible usable and performant. We'll explore how we can make the most of our HTML elements and attributes to improve the performance and accessibility of our website and applications as well as boosting the efficiency of our development process. All by using a technology we are already use day to day, but just usi...

Everyone has at some point wished they could clone themselves – to do the dishes, or work more efficiently. With advancements and improved accessibility of AI, this becomes more of a reality...This session will explore how to use Azure Custom Neural Voice to create a synthesised version of our own voice for use in a range of fun and practical applications – telephony, voice overs, or even attendin...

This session covers the ethical use of AI, detailing how to identify, understand, and proactively counter potential risks while sharing examples of impactful solutions built for the nonprofit and humanitarian sectors. The discussion emphasizes the necessity of implementing responsible AI principles , utilizing mitigation strategies like prompt engineering and grounding, and acknowledging that AI w...

Large Language Models (LLMs), including GPT, operate at their simplest level by attempting to produce a reasonable continuation of the text they are given, basing their predictions on patterns observed across a massive corpus of information like billions of web pages. Prompt engineering is an iterative process that employs various techniques—such as role prompting, few-shot learning, and Chain of...

Recent advances in generative AI, exemplified by LLMs like Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT, have created significant industry hype. Generative AI involves creating new media (such as text or images) by analyzing massive datasets to deduce and mimic existing patterns, a process driven by probabilistic and stochastic modeling. While models like GPT can produce humanlike text, they operate as language p...

Enterprise software development is currently facing immense executive pressure, driven by boards and CEOs demanding rapid innovation, especially utilizing AI, to increase productivity, save costs, and gain a competitive advantage, a significant shift from previous executive disinterest in issues like integration modernizations. Developers frequently encounter frustrations and delays, including the...

This presentation by Mandy Michael, a Staff Software Engineer and Google Developer Expert, makes a compelling case for using  HTML meaningfully  to improve  web performance and accessibility , arguing that these concerns should be addressed from the foundational HTML stage, not left until the end of development. The core message is that HTML elements should be chosen based on the content type—simi...

This speech synthesis service allows you to train your own model based on existing base models, utilizing a neural Voder to generate speech from text input. Crucially, Microsoft promotes responsible use: every custom voice must provide a talent statement (consent) that expires after 90 days. https://youtu.be/XkbvfSLO3yE?list=TLGGiewzlim6miMwNzEwMjAyNQ

This talk was recorded at NDC Sydney in Sydney, Australia. Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odWIkRcqEAU&list=PL03Lrmd9CiGey6VY_mGu_N8uI10FrTtXZ&index=20

To trust or not to trust? That depends on the quality of your prompts. Trusting Large Language Models (LLMs) is all about reducing uncertainties, and effective prompt design is the key to achieving the desired outputs. Prompt design, often referred to as Prompt Engineering, is a burgeoning field that demands creativity and meticulous attention to detail. It involves carefully selecting the right w...

People talking about AI is like glitter after a craft project, or azulejos in architecture, it's everywhere! Recent advances in generative AI, like Stable Diffusion and Chat-GPT, have the industry more hyped up than a caffeine-addicted toddler. It can leave one feeling like they're being left behind if they're not incorporating AI into their apps today. In this talk, we'll take a s...

The landscape of software development is rapidly evolving, and developers are constantly seeking better tools to enhance their productivity and create more efficient workflows. In this talk, I'll show you what many of my enterprise customers are looking to implement - deploying architectural archetypes using the latest advancements in developer toolsets. We will stand up our dev environment on...

It's been hard to miss AI in the news recently. From breakthroughs in natural language processing to impressive image recognition and generation capabilities, AI is everywhere we look right now! In this talk, experienced software engineer Simon Waight will explore the benefits and considerations for developers when they are looking to adopt generative AI as part of their toolkit. To help set t...

Microsoft Security Copilot leverages with the full power of Generative AI with specially trained models focused on Security Operations within a Microsoft Security environment. Attend this session to go on a deep dive for Microsoft Security Copilot. Learn how it can assist security operations teams to prioritise workloads, facilitate incident response and remediation, understand how it can assist o...