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AgentCon Perth 2025

ยท 3 min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

๐Ÿ–๏ธ Agentic LEGO Robotics talk at hashtag#AgentCon hashtag#Perth - my day trip to West Coast adventure with over 350 passionate participants! ๐Ÿค– 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 6ยฐC โ„๏ธ, sunny Perth turned it on with huge crowd of amazing people for AI conference.

I shared the journey๐Ÿ“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: ๐ŸŽฎ Controller Agent โ€“ Commands the LEGO Spike via hashtag#Bluetooth + hashtag#MCP ๐Ÿ‘€ Observer Agent โ€“ hashtag#YOLO object detection + video streaming (coded by hashtag#GitHub hashtag#Copilot!) ๐Ÿงญ Planner Agent โ€“ Builds action plans using a knowledge base + hashtag#python code library โœ… Judger Agent โ€“ Confirms if goals are actually met ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€โœˆ๏ธ Orchestrator Agent โ€“ Keeps the whole squad in check ๐ŸŽค Voice Agent โ€“ Talks to humans like a pro ๐Ÿ’ป Interactive UI โ€“ Pulls back the curtain so humans can stay in the loop

All this was powered by: ๐Ÿง  hashtag#SemanticKernel + hashtag#AzureAIFoundry agent services on Microsoft Azure ๐Ÿงฑ LEGO Spike Prime 3 from LEGO Education ๐ŸŒŠ Stories from our robotic team during the FIRST Australia FFL Submerged season

๐ŸŽ™๏ธI also soaked in incredible talks from speakers across hashtag#Australia โ€“ so much talent in all 3 tracks from 24 talks in one day! ๐Ÿ’ก๐Ÿ’ฌ

  • Welcome by Michael from UWA DI
  • Introductory Keynote by David
  • Let Me Tell You About Your Future ๐Ÿ”ฎ 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

๐ŸŽ‰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. ๐Ÿค

hashtag#Perth, you were brilliant ๐ŸŒŸ. Now that my 'crazy' mind knows a day trip across the country is an option! See you next time. ๐Ÿ˜Žโœˆ๏ธ

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

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Azure NVIDIA Application Modernisation Hackathon

ยท 2 min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

Application Modernisation & hashtag#GenAI Hackathon powered by NVIDIA & Microsoft Azure!๐Ÿš€ Microsoft North Sydney office was once again packed and buzzing with passionate app dev creators last Monday with a spectacular (and misty! ๐ŸŒซ๏ธ) morning! We dived hands-on into our App Modernisation hashtag#Hackathon๐Ÿ’ป, making it super practical and featuring exciting new announcements straight from Microsoft Build! ๐Ÿ“ฃ

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 containers๐Ÿ“ฆ, and deploying them as Azure hashtag#ContainerApps. But we didnโ€™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 voice๐ŸŽค, hashtag#AzureAISearch ๐Ÿ”, and a hashtag#PostgreSQL database into one smart (and hilariously witty!) hashtag#chatbot. ๐Ÿค–

๐Ÿ’กThe 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 snacks๐Ÿช, you helped make the event a win for everyone.

๐ŸŽ‰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!๐Ÿ”ฅ

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! ๐ŸŒŸ

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Microsoft Fabric Innovation Summit Sydney

ยท 2 min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

โœจ Spent the morning at Microsoft Fabric Innovation Summit in Microsoftโ€™s North Sydney office, and the room was fully packed! From Fabric's real-time intelligence โšกto agent & copilot-infused experiences ๐Ÿค–, 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! โœจ

We were fortunate to have Bogdan, Yitzhak and Harsha in the room, sharing their vision for Fabric's future ๐Ÿ”ฎ, 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. ๐Ÿงฉ

The event reminded me of my data analysis, reporting, and performance-tuning days from ten years ago. Fun fact ๐Ÿ˜„: 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! ๐Ÿ’ช

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 ๐Ÿš€, with a Jupyter notebook full of ideas to accelerate our own data & AI roadmap. ๐Ÿ““

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Global Azure Bootcamp Melbourne 2025

ยท 2 min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

โ˜€๏ธ Beautiful Saturday in hashtag#Melbourne at Global Azure! ๐ŸŒ 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. ๐Ÿ˜„.

Here are the ones I attended: ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿ’ป๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป

  • 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

๐ŸŽค 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 !! ๐Ÿ˜…

Massive thanks to the warm and enthusiastic audience ๐Ÿ™Œ: your smiles truly made my day. I loved sharing my story and hands-on experience of hashtag#LEGO hashtag#AzureAI & hashtag#Robotics ๐Ÿค–. It's always exciting to see how creativity and technology spark curiosity in others.

Such a joy meeting new friends in Melbourne ๐Ÿค. Grateful for all the good vibes and great conversations! Until next time, Melbourne โค๏ธ

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Azure NVIDIA Activate Generative AI Hackathon

ยท 2 min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

๐Ÿ”ฅ 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. ๐Ÿ’ปโšก

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. ๐Ÿš€

๐Ÿ’ก 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

๐Ÿ’ฅOne 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 ๐Ÿฆ™ models, trained using NVIDIA hashtag#NeMo, and powered by NVIDIA hashtag#A100 GPUs on Azure platform.

โš™๏ธ And no, it wasn't all smooth sailing - and that's what made it awesome ๐Ÿ˜…. We saw many of us troubleshooting complex code ๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿ’ป, helping each other ๐Ÿซฑ๐Ÿฝโ€๐Ÿซฒ๐Ÿผ, and not giving up until our hashtag#GenAI applications using hashtag#AzureAI & hashtag#AzureAISearch were deployed by hashtag#AZD and running on Azure! ๐Ÿ’ช

๐Ÿด The catering was next level. From fresh pastries ๐Ÿฅ to a full lunch spread, we were well-fueled and ready to code. Big thanks to Aymee!

โค๏ธ 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! ๐Ÿ’›

๐Ÿ™Œ Huge shoutout to all the incredible participants who showed up ready to learn, build, and innovate. ๐Ÿง  This hackathon wasn't just about cutting-edge tech, it was about teamwork ๐Ÿ’ž, persistence ๐Ÿง—, and building the future of AI together! ๐ŸŒโœจ

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Azure AI App in a Day at Microsoft Brisbane

ยท 2 min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

Back where it all began, Microsoft Brisbane Office! Closed out our last AIAppInADay session of the season. What a ride! ๐ŸŽขโœจ

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!๐ŸŽˆ๐Ÿฅณ

The day ran super smoothly, and big thanks ๐Ÿ™Œ to everyone who participated, asked thoughtful questions, and sparked some great conversations.

Some questions during the day:

๐Ÿ”น 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.

๐Ÿ”น 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 ๐Ÿฑ and swags ๐ŸŽ (Microsoft Azure & CodeIsLife t-shirts) as usual! Keep learning Microsoft AI Skills and join AI Skill Fest

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Look + Speak + Draw - Azure AI In Action @ Uni of Sydney

ยท 2 min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

What an exciting session at #syncs โ€“ 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! ๐Ÿ’ก๐Ÿค–

Here's what we tackled together:

โœ… Analyzed visuals using GPT-4o models โœ… Converted text to speech with Azure's Speech Service โœ… Generated stunning visuals using DALLยทE 3

๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ From decoding images to bringing words to life and generating art from prompts โ€” 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. ๐ŸŒโœจ

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Azure AI App in a Day at Sydney Reactor

ยท One min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

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 electricโšก๏ธ, fueled by enthusiastic participants from all levels of experience coming together to learn๐Ÿ“š, code๐Ÿ’ป, and innovate๐Ÿ’ก!

We loved Code4Life & Azure T-shirts ๐Ÿ‘•, 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 ๐Ÿ”. Then we leveled up: using LangChain to streamline the process. Why both ways? Because we are keen to understand the plumbing under the hood!๐Ÿ› ๏ธ

Absolutely loved the amazing vibe โœจ at Microsoft Reactor Sydney!

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Azure AI App in a Day at Microsoft Auckland

ยท 2 min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

โ˜€๏ธ Beautiful weather and brilliant minds! Awesome time at AI App in a Day session at the Microsoft Auckland office! The sun was shining, the room was buzzing with energy, and we had a full house of curious participants ready to dive into AI app development on Microsoft Azure .

From setting up GitHub Codespaces, running the chatbot with RAG in action, and completing all three labs (even with 5 minutes to spare!) - It was one smooth ride. ๐Ÿง ๐Ÿ’ป

As always, we tossed in a few brain teasers throughout the session to keep the energy and creativity levels high. You know it's been a brain-burner of a day when the coffee machine runs out of milk โ˜•๐Ÿ’ก

A huge shoutout to my Insight buddy, Rakesh - it's been such a pleasure running these sessions with you from the start. Your passion and hands-on coding experience continue to inspire and engage the community. ๐Ÿ”ฅ Watching you in action is always a highlight!

Fun factor: there are 915,103,765 ways to group six, 8-stud LEGO bricks ! (last photo)

Participants learning Azure AI app development

Participants engaged in AI workshop session.

Participants learning AI app development session

Presentation on generative AI applications

Presenter discussing AI app development tools

Insight team outdoors near marina

Microsoft Auckland office branding wall

LEGO rocket display with creativity facts

Airplane wing above clouds at sunset

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Azure AI App in a Day at Microsoft Wellington

ยท 2 min read
Daniel Fang
AI, Robotics & LEGO Enthusiast

๐Ÿš€ AI App in a Day is back in Wellington! ๐ŸŒฟ During today's session, Rakesh and I explored AzureAI services, ContentSafety, AISearch, CosmosDB, LangChain, and various techniques to enhance LLM responses, ensuring more accurate, efficient, and context-aware AI solutions. ๐Ÿš€๐Ÿ”

This time, we added a Jupyter Notebook for Graph RAG (from Microsoft Research) as new lab exercise, and it was amazing to see one of the participants had already implemented GraphRAG in a past project! ๐Ÿ”ฅ Seeing real-world applications of AI in action is always inspiring.

Of course, no event is complete without tasty food and awesome swag! ๐Ÿ•๐Ÿ‘• Speaking of swagโ€ฆ quick question: does anyone know what number 42 stands for in the "Build on Azure - Code is Life" T-shirt? ๐Ÿค” (3rd photo) We could not figure it out !

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, it was an incredible day, especially with that stunning afternoon weather! โ˜€๏ธ

Keep building, keep innovating on Azure ! ๐Ÿ’กโœจ

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