Events

On 25th Nov, we held another successful edition of “ACE Microsoft Tech Talks” at ACE Ideation Centre where we were honored to have Alyssa Ong to share her insights into leading the chat bot movement with Microsoft Bot Framework. Featured in VentureBeat as one of the 100 people to watch in the chat bot space, Alyssa has been working with bots since the early days of Microsoft Bot Framework’s release, and has published multiple bots publicly since. An all-round bot nerd, she is an active member of the Chatbots News community and loves discussing bots with others. Over 70 participants attended the event which comprised of startups, developers, and industry professionals. During the session, Alysaa provided an overview on the current state of the chat bot movement in the industry and showcased several ways in which chat bots could be used to improve the delivery of products and services to customers. At the end of the session, Alyssa received a warm round of applause from the audience and everyone rushed to engage with her to find out more about the Microsoft Bot Framework. Below is a list of resources for the session: ...

In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, every company is essentially a technology company. Every business and industry will undergo digital transformation as technology disrupts existing structures. In no business segment is the digital transformation having a greater impact than with small and midsize businesses. With digital technologies enabling the democratisation of IT, the multiplication of channels to deliver services and products, the astounding increase in work mobility and an incredible level of access to business data; SMB employees can be more effective than ever before. How is your business being digitally transformed? How is your core business model being changed by digital technology? Irrespective of the industry you are in, you have to start thinking and operating like a digital company. It’s no longer just procuring one solution and deploying one solution. Instead, it is building out what we refer to as systems of intelligence – digital feedback loops that help you engage with your customers, empower your employees, optimise your operations, and reinvent products and business models. At Microsoft, the business continues to raise expectations around the role that IT can play by aligning digital services into cross-company service offerings. We see that same expectation in every industry that Microsoft serves – including yours. We invite you to join us at the Modern Business Conference – unlock your Digital Transformation on Tuesday, November 29, 2016, as we come together to make digital transformation real for you and your organisation. ...

The 2nd edition of “Microsoft Innovation Huddle” was held on Friday, 11th Nov, at BASH LaunchPad where technical evangelist, Gerald Goh, provided a deep dive into Docker on the Microsoft Azure platform. Despite the heavy rain and traffic, the event was still attended by 15 participants comprising of startups and industry professionals who were eager to find out more about container services on the Microsoft Azure platform. The event was well received and the participants connected with Gerald to find out more about the architecture and services available on Azure. During the session, Gerald featured an introduction to Docker and how it can help startups and developers in their deployment workflow. Gerald provided a deep drive into building and deploying a Docker file on a Ubuntu Virtual Machine, and shared insights into the Azure container service and how orchestration frameworks such as Kubernetes and DC/OS can help simplify the Docker deployment workflow for the participants. Here’s a list of reference materials if you want to find out more about Docker on Azure: Azure Container Service ...

The second edition of “Microsoft Startup Days” was held on 2nd November at BASH (LaunchPad, 79 Ayer Rajah Crescent), featuring BiTS who was founded by Jonathan Lee. During the one-hour session, they shared their entrepreneurial journey to deliver a set of solutions to businesses looking to modernize while also being less than a fraction of the market cost. They also explained how they are leveraging on Microsoft BizSpark Program and Microsoft Azure Platform to propel and accelerate their growth. [caption id=“attachment_22478” align=“alignnone” width=“1500”] BiTS Founder, Jonathan[/caption] Despite the rainy weather, we welcomed over 25 participants comprising of a mixture of startup founders, students, developers and industry professionals. The audience was highly interested in the business model of BiTS and how they improved scalability, resource management and security through Azure. They also talked about their startup journey and how BizSpark has supported them to build traction and gain customer trust. [caption id=“attachment_22482” align=“alignnone” width=“960”] Making use of Microsoft BizSpark and Azure for their business[/caption] Here are some key points which they covered during this session ...

After two successful editions, “ACE Microsoft Tech Talks” is back with a deep dive into Azure Machine Learning and Modeling by Mr. Pradeep Menon, an experienced Data Science and Business Analytics professional with 13+ years of vast experience from multiple industries. The event was held at ACE Ideation Centre (28th Oct, 12pm) and drew over 40 participants comprising of startups, developers, students, and industry professionals. During the session, Pradeep introduced the fundamentals of Machine Learning and Modeling, and provided a demo on building models for specific use cases. One of the key learnings from the session was the importance of the “B.A.B.” model whereby data scientists are highly encouraged to consider Machine Learning as a tool to facilitate the following objectives: ...

Join the world’s first cross-industry, multi-level global call for innovations which will impact the way we live in Asia to create an aware & quantifiable way of life! TNB Ventures Sensing Cities Call is looking to fuel promising next-gen startups in the areas of AR/VR, IoT, Robotics, Big Data and AI. Aside from receiving seed/Series A funding & incubation, applicants will also stand a chance to be directly supported by successful market leading Ecosystem Partners & injected into their extensive infrastructure & networks. Visit https://goo.gl/Yyt3Eg to apply by 31st December!

The 2nd edition of “Microsoft Biz Talks” occurred at NUS Enterprise on 7th Oct where we were honored to have Pratima Amonkar (Director, Partner Business for Independent Software Vendors and Solution Providers, Microsoft Asia Pacific) where she shared her experiences on digital transformation and how it can help to transform existing business models and accelerate growth. Despite the rain and heavy traffic, the business sharing session still attracted over 25-30 participants from a wide range of experiences (startups, developers, students, and industry professionals). The session was very well received, with numerous participants eager to connect with Pratima and the rest of the Microsoft team members present at the event. During the session, Pratima showcased how organizations are transforming their businesses by leveraging on technologies such as Internet of Things, Machine Learning, and Cognitive Services. When quizzed about the biggest obstacle to digital transformation, Pratima shared that obtaining the trust and commitment of top management to embark on a potentially risky and disruptive organizational change exercise is the first and most important step. After securing the mandate from top management, the change agents in the organization would be able to engage multiple teams within the organization to leverage technologies to transform their existing business processes, enhance customer experiences, and accelerate growth. ...

The first edition of “Microsoft Startup Days” was held on 29th September at BASH (LaunchPad, 79 Ayer Rajah Crescent), featuring the founders of Cafebond, Keyis Ng and Eugene Chen. During the one-hour session, they shared their entrepreneurial journey to build the world’s leading e-commerce portal for coffee lovers everywhere and how they are leveraging on Microsoft BizSpark Program and Microsoft Azure Platform to propel and accelerate their growth. The session was well received by the community as it welcomed over 40 attendees comprising of a mixture of startup founders, students, developers and industry professionals. The audience was highly engaged with the wealth of experience and knowledge shared by Keyis and Eugene, starting from the incubation of their ideas and engagement of industry partners from Australia to launching their platform and tackling issues such as customer service and logistics. Some of the key lessons shared included: ...

23 September 2016 Last Friday, the second session of ACE Microsoft Tech Talks took place at ACE Ideation Centre, Block 79. In this session, I discussed about the latest trending technology in the IT industry, which is Chat Bots. I gave the audience an overview of Chat Bot technologies from Microsoft by using Bot Framework and LUIS. The Bot Framework allows for developers to build a single web service and connect it to the various communication channel such like Skype, Facebook Messenger, Telegram and more. The engine behind which understands natural language is LUIS which allows for developers to build a language model of their own allowing it to understand intents and entities of a user by analyzing the text message sent by the user. Towards the end of the talk, a few chatbots demo were shown and one of them is a Changi Airport Chatbot that i have built. This is closely related to the customer service industry as chatbots could replace mundane tasks of a customer service officer and employers could assign them a much more important or critical task. A link to my Changi Airport chatbot code could be found below. If you would like to read up more on Bot Framework and LUIS. Here are a few useful links**:** For Bot Framework- dev.botframework.com For LUIS- luis.ai For Sample code on the integration of Bot Framework with LUIS- github.com/Microsoft/BotBuilder/ For LUIS Documentation- https://www.luis.ai/Help For BotFramework Documentation-https://docs.botframework.com/en-us/csharp/builder/sdkreference/ For Changi Airport Code Repository- https://github.com/izzkhair/SampleChangiAirportBot Here are a few photos taken during the talk: [caption id=“attachment_22318” align=“alignnone” width=“3840”] Explaining the industrial use cases of Chatbots.[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_22322” align=“alignnone” width=“3840”] Giving a demo on the various Chatbots that I have built.[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_22320” align=“alignnone” width=“3840”] The audience that attended my talk[/caption]

PowerShell Conference Asia 2016 Join us for the second PowerShell Conference Asia, held in Singapore, where PowerShell speakers from Asia and around the world come together to bring attendees in-depth PowerShell and DevOps content. Speakers Line-up Speakers include 4 members of the PowerShell team from Microsoft headquarters in Redmond and a strong line-up of MVPs, well-known international speakers, and community contributors. They’ll cover in-depth topics on the PowerShell language and how you can use PowerShell to automate the technologies you use every day. There will be strong focus on using PowerShell to enable DevOps practices whether On Premises or in the cloud. Event Highlights The main event runs on Friday and Saturday, but we also have a Workshop day on Thursday, where we will have some vendor-led workshops where you will have the opportunity to be introduced to and get hands on with tools and technologies in the DevOps and Automation space. If that’s not your thing, we have a 1 day PowerShell refresher crash course led by one of the best PowerShell trainers from the United States. This is geared up to make sure you get the most from being a conference attendee. At the end of Day 1 (Friday), we have drinks and nibbles at a local bar where you can connect with peers and the speakers in a more relaxed setting. All included in your ticket price. Remember, we still have another full day of content on Saturday though! Resources: ...