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Last week I got a chance to attend Microsoft Build conference geared towards developers. I hadn't been to build for at least 3-4 years now, but it is still a top-notch developer event that everyone should attend if you have an opportunity, especially if you build or plan to build applications on Azure cloud platform. Build is famously known for many swag giveaways in the past which seems to be not the case anymore, but the quality of content and speakers are still top notch.

My path to "Build 2018" conference was completely unexpected, back in April I came across a tweet by Lena Hall one of the Azure Advocates talking about Azure Dev tour in Seattle.

I tried to register for this event, but unfortunately, I was a bit late I guess. I did not know the event was sold out when I fired off this reply.

I got this response from awesome Allison one of the Azure Advocates and organizers of the Azure dev tour.

Long story short, I not only got a pass to attend the Azure dev tour, got an invite to attend Build and a wonderful gift from Allison. Thank you for showing kindness to a complete stranger. I'll never forget it.

Through "Azure Dev" tour and "Build" I got to know and hang out with many Azure Advocates, and I have to say Jeff Sandquist and Microsoft have indeed assembled a group of remarkable individuals who are not only super technical and knowledgeable in their respective areas but also wonderful individuals who care deeply about DevRel and community. You'll find Azure advocates speaking at many conferences and events, if you get a chance go attend one of those events, say hi to them, if you are already building on Azure platform tell them about your experience, speak to them about your design and technical problems, etc. trust me you won't regret it :)

Day 1

Day 1 keynote was split into two.

• Vision keynote led by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadela

• Technology keynote led by Scott Guthrie

Watch vision keynote here

Watch technology keynote here

My key areas of focus through out the conference was containers, IoT, Big Data processing, AI and Machine learning.

Below are links to recordings of few of my favorite sessions

• Build Intelligent applications by infusing knowledge from the web

• Real time data streams with Apache Kafka and Spark

• What's new for Serverless Computing on Azure

• Azure IoT Edge: a breakthrough platform and service running cloud intelligence on any device

• A Developer’s Introduction to Big Data Processing with Azure Databricks

• Smart Insights with Machine Learning from Azure Monitoring

Day 2

Day 2 technology keynote was focussed mostly on Windows and Office. You can watch the recording of Day 2 key note [here](Microsoft 365: A powerful development platform)https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2018/TK02

Below are links to recordings of few of my favorite sessions

• Building Custom AI Models on Azure using TensorFlow and Keras

• Getting started with containers on Azure

• Easily run containers on Azure using Azure Container Instances (ACI)

• 5 Azure services every developers needs to know about

• Why Kubernetes on Azure

• Streaming Big Data in Azure with Kafka and Event Hubs

• Deep learning at scale in Azure

• Building, Running, Patching Docker Containers – The Paradigm Shift

Evening I got to attend a community event "Building the pipeline from Prison to Tech" organized by Azure Advocates and an organization called "Unloop" which focuses on enabling people who have been in prison to succeed in tech. Hearing stories from people that have gone through the program, their journey was so incredible and inspiring. I also heard Jeff Sandquist speak for the first time, you could tell from his speech he genuinely cared about the cause and called upon us to act and make a difference.

Here is pic (used from Twitter) of a young lady named "Alana Andres" who was brave enough to share her story with us.

There was also a panel discussion with lots of good questions and discussions. I came away inspired and wanting to do something to make a change. You can support unloop by donating, more info here I've made a monthly pledge and hoping to speak about this with our internal T-Mobile team.

Day 3

There was no technology keynote on day 3. Below are links to recordings of few of my favorite sessions

• Inside Azure Datacenter Architecture with Mark Russinovich

• Machine Learning at Scale

• An Introduction to Blockchain with Mark Russinovich

• Java App Hosting: Choices!

• Ingestion in data pipelines with Managed Kafka Clusters in Azure HDInsight

The conference ended with a celebration at museum of pop culture mopop. This was a fun event, and there was music, food, drinks, and access to all the exhibits. As a Marvel comics fan, I enjoyed the Marvel exhibits. I've uploaded all the pictures I took while I was at build to Google photos. Check out the album here

Overall build was a blast, hope to be back next year hopefully as speaker. Massive shout out to the team behind build for the job they did pulling together an event like this, finally huge thanks to Azure Advocates for inviting me. Keep rocking.

Cheers,

Ram