On Thursday 19th October, the Excel in London hosted Microsoft Build: AI Day, it was great to be back at such an event. I just wanted to recap the day.
The buzz of meeting friends, colleagues, and partners, under one roof for a day or two. Before the pandemic, I think the face to face interaction we took for granted. For a while, that was taken away from us and we all went virtual.
As a speaker at large events, the excitement before you head to the event, the nerves of speaking on stage, and the thrill of meeting people and talking about like minded topics, all came back.
The energy and enthusiasm was palpable, I think everyone thought the same. While the day was squarely focused on AI, I had the pleasure of speaking with attendees in the morning on GitHub Copilot and Codespaces, then in the afternoon, I was speaking about AKS and cloud native.
First of all, I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who stopped by the two stands and asked questions. Over the past few years of relative isolation, I’ve certainly forgot that the technologies I use day to day are not all that well understood and not everyone is using them.
I also appreciate that for some, asking a question may not come naturally to them, but I enjoyed every interaction and hope everyone found the information useful.
For me, it was great to reconnect with some old customers, talk to lots of new people, meet some old colleagues, and friends old and new.
Next I have to thank Microsoft for putting on a great event, it was very well attended, the workshops and the breakout sessions were pretty much full and everyone was in great spirits.
One observation I had, is that while we clearly still have a lot to do in terms of diversity in the industry, all groups were well represented at the event. Something which was a pleasant surprise and nice to see given the hard work done so far. Long may this trend continue.
Finally, it was great to meet some fellow MVPs, some for the first time, some for the first time in person, and some after a few years. It’s great to be part of the community and have the opportunity to share our knowledge and experience with you all at events like this.
If anyone wants to connect, feel free to reach out, if you still have questions now the information is digested, give me a shout either on X or LinkedIn!
Martyn Coupland 