Daniel Fang

🏆Huge Congrats to Team Iron Lions (AU) & Kryptonite (IN) – Winners of the FIRST Tech Challenge (hashtag#FTC) Robot Game @ Asia Pacific Championship 2025! 🎉👏 I accidentally stepped into the TOUGH role: Queuer, a.k.a. The Runner 🏃‍♂️💨 as I returned to Macquarie University to volunteer at this epic event!

Equipped with my walkie-talkie 📻, I was on the move all day between the MQ Theatre 🎭, Practice Fields ⚙️, and the Pits 🔧, chasing down teams and making sure they were ready for their matches! It is not easy...

20 incredible teams 🌍 from Australia, New Zealand, Romania, USA, China, South Korea, UAE, and India – all bringing their A-game to the hashtag#FTC arena! 🤩 And wow – the hashtag#robots were sleek, smart, and absolutely mind-blowing 🤯✨. The design, hashtag#innovation, and hashtag#teamwork behind each one left me speechless. This is what hashtag#STEM is all about! 💡🛠️

✨ Special moment for me this time – my daughter finally hit the minimum age to volunteer 🎉 and joined me for the first time! 💕 So proud to share this experience with her. (Guess who she is in one of the pics? 😄📸)

Big shoutout to our incredible queuer squad: Shie (MQ Student) & Umar (Y9 Student) and me, led by the legendary Jo (15 years voluntering) 💪🔥. Can’t believe how intense this role is… I couldn't feel my legs by the end of the day 😅 (started at 7AM and wrapped up at 5PM!).

Huge shoutout to all the brilliant teams, coaches, volunteers, judges, and referees (Jo, Mark, Garry, Mary-Jane, Jim) 🙌 - and a massive appreciation to the amazing event organisers FIRST Australia (Lisa, Aaron, Will) who ran the show behind the scenes! 🎯👏

Wanna be part of an event like this, don't hesitate - jump in, volunteer, and experience the energy, teamwork, hashtag#GraciousProfessionalism (clap, clap, cheer!).

✨FIRST LEGO League Asia Pacific Open Championships 2025 – This Time, I'm a Judge! ⚖️ Unforgettable experience to be part of the hashtag#FLL hashtag#APOC 2025 again, but this year, not as a coach… as a judge! 💼💙

Over four incredible days, 59 amazing teams from all around the world gathered for this international celebration of robotics, innovation, and teamwork through the FIRST LEGO League at Macquarie University. And on Day 3 (Saturday), it was our turn to dive deep into the brilliance of these young minds. 'Sadly'🧐, Judges don't get to join the epic harbour cruise with 600+ students, coaches, and volunteers! We've got serious business to handle! ⚖️

These are what we celebrated and assessed during judging! All guided by the heart of hashtag#FIRST: Gracious Professionalism (clap, clap, cheer, 👏👏🎉) 🔹 Core Values 🔹 Innovation Project 🔹 Robot Design 🔹 Engineering Excellence, Breaking through 🔹 Rising All-star, Motivation

After 4 jam-packed hours of presentations, show cases and Q&A, the judges spent the whole afternoon in passionate deliberation process (yes, we were really into it, until 6pm, with closed curtains!). Each of us proudly advocated for the teams that wowed us most with creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration. 💬🔥

🎉 Congratulations to all 59 teams! You've earned your place on this stage, and you've shown the world what determination, teamwork, and innovation look like.

What stood out most to me? Seriously, these robots were awesome 🤖! Every team brought contagious energy, optimism, and passion, and it reminded me why I love being part of this community. 💙 🧠 Bold ideas 💡 Imaginative thinking 💪 Unshakable resilience 🤝 Unstoppable team spirit

Huge shoutout to the organizers (Will, Aaron), 28 judges (Melinda, Hester, Garry, Luke, Mary-Jane, Wil, Peter, Dawud), volunteers (Jack, and lots, lots of them), students, coaches, and mentors who made hashtag#APOC2025 such a magical experience. It's no small feat bringing together teams from across the globe, you did it with heart, precision, and joy.

So proud to be part of the hashtag#FIRST community, helping inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and world-changers. 🚀🌟

🏖️ Agentic LEGO Robotics talk at hashtag#AgentCon hashtag#Perth - my day trip to West Coast adventure with over 350 passionate participants! 🤖 What a cracker of a Friday it was! My first-ever talk on the west coast, and you all made it unforgettable. While Sydney shivered at 6°C ❄️, sunny Perth turned it on with huge crowd of amazing people for AI conference.

I shared the journey📍of building our real-world hashtag#LEGO hashtag#robotics hashtag#agent: a goal-based, multi-agent, functional team of AI agents controlling a LEGO Spike Prime robot. Think of it as LEGO mini-figure engineers who powering the real-world robots.

Here's the agent lineup: 🎮 Controller Agent – Commands the LEGO Spike via hashtag#Bluetooth + hashtag#MCP 👀 Observer Agent – hashtag#YOLO object detection + video streaming (coded by hashtag#GitHub hashtag#Copilot!) 🧭 Planner Agent – Builds action plans using a knowledge base + hashtag#python code library ✅ Judger Agent – Confirms if goals are actually met 👩‍✈️ Orchestrator Agent – Keeps the whole squad in check 🎤 Voice Agent – Talks to humans like a pro 💻 Interactive UI – Pulls back the curtain so humans can stay in the loop

All this was powered by: 🧠 hashtag#SemanticKernel + hashtag#AzureAIFoundry agent services on Microsoft Azure 🧱 LEGO Spike Prime 3 from LEGO Education 🌊 Stories from our robotic team during the FIRST Australia FFL Submerged season

🎙️I also soaked in incredible talks from speakers across hashtag#Australia – so much talent in all 3 tracks from 24 talks in one day! 💡💬

• Welcome by Michael from UWA DI
• Introductory Keynote by David
• Let Me Tell You About Your Future 🔮 by Jiaranai
• Getting Started with AI Agents by Vanessa
• Azure MCP is the Connector You've Been Waiting For by Daniella
• From Bots to Brains: Patterns for Building Intelligent AI Agents by Rakesh
• MCP and A2A. Bringing some order to the chaos by Graeme
• Agent Architects: Building Smarter Brains, One Demo at a Time by Sammy
• From prompt to protocol, securing AI agents and MCP, George Coldham Building Trustworthy AI Agents by Michelle
• Live Coding an AI agent by Phil

🎉Huge thanks to the fantastic Global AI Perth organisers (Michelle, George, Julianne, Sabrina, Amy, Dinusha) and all the volunteers like Louisa for making it all happen. So great meeting ex-Insight friends Andreas & Rakesh. 🤝

hashtag#Perth, you were brilliant 🌟. Now that my 'crazy' mind knows a day trip across the country is an option! See you next time. 😎✈️

P.S. Don't forget to watch hashtag#LEGOMasters: Grand Masters of the Galaxy on Nine.

Application Modernisation & hashtag#GenAI Hackathon powered by NVIDIA & Microsoft Azure!🚀 Microsoft North Sydney office was once again packed and buzzing with passionate app dev creators last Monday with a spectacular (and misty! 🌫️) morning! We dived hands-on into our App Modernisation hashtag#Hackathon💻, making it super practical and featuring exciting new announcements straight from Microsoft Build! 📣

Dimitri kicked things off with an epic intro to NVIDIA's hashtag#GenAI services and offerings (NVIDIA AI Enterprise, hashtag#NIM, hashtag#Nemo framework, and heaps of awesome models). Then we rolled up our sleeves: transforming a monolithic app into sleek frontend and backend containers📦, and deploying them as Azure hashtag#ContainerApps. But we didn’t stop there: next up was deploying the NVIDIA hashtag#Riva voice model using hashtag#VMI, hosted on hashtag#Azure, and building an hashtag#AI orchestration workflow using hashtag#PromptFlow on hashtag#AzureAIFoundry that brought together voice🎤, hashtag#AzureAISearch 🔍, and a hashtag#PostgreSQL database into one smart (and hilariously witty!) hashtag#chatbot. 🤖

💡The best part? It wasn't just about cutting-edge tech, we witnessed real teamwork and creativity in action! From curious questions to out-of-the-box solutions, the room turned into a melting pot of ideas, innovation, and laughter. Whether you came to learn, to hack, or just for the snacks🍪, you helped make the event a win for everyone.

🎉Huge thanks to everyone who joined us, asked questions, shared ideas, and persevered through the fog and the bugs! Special shoutout to the dedicated folks who made the trip from Canberra. Proof that nothing, not even the thickest Sydney mist, can stop our passion and innovation!🔥

Big thanks to Clare, Richa, Jamie, Agustina, Aymee for organizing the fantastic event, and to Ross, Katherine, and Olaf as our superstar instructors for the day! 🌟

✨ Spent the morning at Microsoft Fabric Innovation Summit in Microsoft’s North Sydney office, and the room was fully packed! From Fabric's real-time intelligence ⚡to agent & copilot-infused experiences 🤖, every demo showcased how hashtag#Fabric is re-imagining data & AI for the enterprise.

Insightful presentations and demos from Vyas and Francesco-Giorgio, especially the demos of integrating AI into batch processing and data streaming. It was great to see how easy it is to leverage hashtag#Copilot and hashtag#DataAgent with just a few clicks! ✨

We were fortunate to have Bogdan, Yitzhak and Harsha in the room, sharing their vision for Fabric's future 🔮, unveiling upcoming features & product roadmap, and open QnA. Great questions from everyone, especially Ali's, bringing our customers' day-to-day needs right into the discussion. 🧩

The event reminded me of my data analysis, reporting, and performance-tuning days from ten years ago. Fun fact 😄: I'm an old-school Microsoft Certified Master for hashtag#SQLServer, one of those folks who survived the eight-hour live lab test on SQL performance tuning! 💪

Kudos to the Microsoft team (Clare, Jeanne, Elizabeth and more) for bringing the energy and insights of hashtag#FabCon from Las Vegas to Australia!

Everyone left inspired 🚀, with a Jupyter notebook full of ideas to accelerate our own data & AI roadmap. 📓

☀️ Beautiful Saturday in hashtag#Melbourne at Global Azure! 🌏 Had an incredible time with the amazing tech community here. So many great sessions happening - I honestly wished I could be in multiple rooms at once. 😄.

Here are the ones I attended: 👩‍💻👨‍💻

• Agentic AI: the future of innovation or just hype? by Yas
• Who tests their cloud code anyway? by Lars
• Your AI, Your Rules: Building a Multi-Model Private AI Assistant on Azure by Venura
• Building Responsible AI Apps with Azure AI Foundry by Lachlan
• The Future of Cloud Security: AI, Zero Trust, and Beyond by Pouya
• You use App Insights Right? Right? by Bron

🎤 RMIT University's Storey Hall is massive! My voice echoed through the space, and that enormous 8m x 10m screen (maybe even bigger?!) definitely turned up the nerves !! 😅

Massive thanks to the warm and enthusiastic audience 🙌: your smiles truly made my day. I loved sharing my story and hands-on experience of hashtag#LEGO hashtag#AzureAI & hashtag#Robotics 🤖. It's always exciting to see how creativity and technology spark curiosity in others.

Such a joy meeting new friends in Melbourne 🤝. Grateful for all the good vibes and great conversations! Until next time, Melbourne ❤️

🔥 Still buzzing from Activate Generative AI with hashtag#Azure & hashtag#NVIDIA Hackathon at the Microsoft Office in Sydney last Friday. It was an incredible day of innovation, collaboration, and unstoppable developer spirit. 💻⚡

From presentations to hands-on labs, the room on the 27th floor was packed with passionate hashtag#AI builders pushing the limits using Microsoft Azure and NVIDIA. 🚀

💡 We explored:

• Scalable, purpose-built hashtag#AI infrastructure
• Enterprise-grade software and services
• Deep integrations across the hashtag#Azure solution stack
• NVIDIA-accelerated Microsoft applications

💥One of the key highlights: a 2.5-hour lab deploying NVIDIA hashtag#NIM (accelerated inference microservices for GenAI) to Azure Machine Learning. The NIM container used hashtag#LLAMA3 8B 🦙 models, trained using NVIDIA hashtag#NeMo, and powered by NVIDIA hashtag#A100 GPUs on Azure platform.

⚙️ And no, it wasn't all smooth sailing - and that's what made it awesome 😅. We saw many of us troubleshooting complex code 🧑‍💻, helping each other 🫱🏽‍🫲🏼, and not giving up until our hashtag#GenAI applications using hashtag#AzureAI & hashtag#AzureAISearch were deployed by hashtag#AZD and running on Azure! 💪

🍴 The catering was next level. From fresh pastries 🥐 to a full lunch spread, we were well-fueled and ready to code. Big thanks to Aymee!

❤️ Big thanks to the amazing Microsoft (Clare, Jamie, Agustina, Haritha, Katherine, mei, Olaf), NVIDIA (Dimitri) & Insight (Ross, Daniel) teammates who supported every step of the way! 💛

🙌 Huge shoutout to all the incredible participants who showed up ready to learn, build, and innovate. 🧠 This hackathon wasn't just about cutting-edge tech, it was about teamwork 💞, persistence 🧗, and building the future of AI together! 🌐✨

Back where it all began, Microsoft Brisbane Office! Closed out our last AIAppInADay session of the season. What a ride! 🎢✨

It felt like a full circle: the exact same room where we kicked things off last September with Michelle and Tricia. This time, the space even had extra flair with Microsoft's 50th birthday balloons floating around!🎈🥳

The day ran super smoothly, and big thanks 🙌 to everyone who participated, asked thoughtful questions, and sparked some great conversations.

Some questions during the day:

🔹 Are vector and embedding the same thing? Not quite! A vector is just a list of numbers. An embedding is a special kind of vector that's learned by a model to represent something (like text or images) in a way that reflects meaning and relationships.

🔹 What's the definition for AI agent? It's a system or program that can autonomously perform tasks on behalf of a user or another system. Think of it like a smart assistant that can act on its own.

We loved the food 🍱 and swags 🎁 (Microsoft Azure & CodeIsLife t-shirts) as usual! Keep learning Microsoft AI Skills and join AI Skill Fest

What an exciting session at #syncs – packed with creativity, innovation, and hands-on AI fun!

We explored the power of Azure AI services in a truly interactive way. Whether you're just stepping into the AI world or looking to sharpen your skills, this session was a fantastic opportunity to learn, build, and get inspired! 💡🤖

Here's what we tackled together:

✅ Analyzed visuals using GPT-4o models ✅ Converted text to speech with Azure's Speech Service ✅ Generated stunning visuals using DALL·E 3

🖥️ From decoding images to bringing words to life and generating art from prompts — this was a deep dive into what's possible with today's AI tools.

Big thanks to everyone who joined us, asked questions, and shared their creativity! Stay tuned for more sessions where we explore, create, and innovate together. 🌐✨

What a day at Microsoft Reactor Sydney! Our AI App in One Day workshop was all about building intelligent app on Azure. The energy in the room was electric⚡️, fueled by enthusiastic participants from all levels of experience coming together to learn📚, code💻, and innovate💡!

We loved Code4Life & Azure T-shirts 👕, enjoyed delicious food and refreshing drinks, just to dive deep into building AI App. It was the perfect day for coding in Sydney on Monday.

We started the hard way: ingesting our own data, generating embeddings, building vector indexes, and performing semantic search from scratch 🔍. Then we leveled up: using LangChain to streamline the process. Why both ways? Because we are keen to understand the plumbing under the hood!🛠️

Absolutely loved the amazing vibe ✨ at Microsoft Reactor Sydney!