Buildup to Microsoft Build 2019
Microsoft Build 2019 is around the corner. From May 6 to 8, developers and software engineers will fill Seattle’s Washington State Convention Center, where Microsoft is expected to announce updates to Windows, Office 365, its Azure cloud computing platform, and other company platforms and services.
As Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Build has been the main stage for debuting most of the company’s consumer-facing announcements. Build offers tech talks and training sessions for developers to catch up with the most recent news and updates. Microsoft has already rolled out a partial schedule for the event, which features 592 sessions covering topics such as Containers, AI and ML, Serverless computing, IOT, Mixed reality, power platforms, etc.
Synced has prepared a short list of notable sessions.
Day 1: Monday, May 6
Vision Keynote — Satya Nadella
- 8:30 AM
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and guests will present the Microsoft Build Vision Keynote. Although Build is a developer-centric conference, hardware does tend to make an appearances during the Vision Keynote. Last year’s keynote showed how Microsoft was leveraging artificial intelligence with the integration of Cortana and Amazon virtual assistant Alexa.
Microsoft Azure: Empowering Every Developer
- 11:00 AM
This is a technology keynote session. Currently, there are 54 Microsoft Azure Regions worldwide, which the company says is more than any other cloud provider. An Azure Region is a set of datacenters deployed within a latency-defined geo-perimeter and connected through a dedicated regional low-latency network. In this Build Azure-themed session, Microsoft is expected to announce updates to its Azure Regions and possibly introduce new Azure Regions.
5 industries that are getting disrupted by Computer Vision on Cloud and on Edge
- 2:00 PM
Corporate Vice President Lila Tretikov will walk the audience through how Azure AI, Robotic Process Automation, and Mixed Reality have been generating business value for customers. The talk will dive into manufacturing, media, finance and other industries and discuss the application of state-of-the-art computer vision techniques.
Microsoft AI for all — Empowering Developers
- 6:30 PM
“For years we have learned how to interact with machines; in this age of AI, isn’t it time machines learn to interact with us in more natural ways?” This session will explore how developers, organizations and researchers can tackle challenges in industry and society by leveraging AI. Microsoft AI will demonstrate AI use cases, AI vertical scenarios, etc.
Day 2: Tuesday, May 7
The Ethical Challenges of Building Facial Recognition Systems
- 8:30 AM
Windows Hello and Face API teams will co-host this session to share real world experiences with the audience. Unfair biases in facial recognition systems and policy have been longtime nagging issues in the field, and this session will look at various solutions that are beginning to take shape.
IntelliCode: how AI helps bring the wisdom of your community to daily development work
- 8:55 AM
“What if AI could extract valuable insights from the code that you and your community build, and help you apply them right in your code editor? What if it could figure out patterns across your whole codebase when you make changes, and alert you to opportunities? What if it could take the tedium and arguments out of keeping your code consistent?” This session will explore these and other AI enrichment possibilities.
Talk Tech with Quantum Computing
- 10:00 AM
Software Development Engineer Anita Ramanan and Software Engineer Frances Tibble will lead a talk providing a brief introduction to quantum computing, and suggest how developers can start developing for quantum hardware with actual use cases.
Designing for speech
- 12:30 PM
Tech giants have been heavily invested in developing AI personal assistants for years: Microsoft has Cortana, Amazon has Alexa, Google has Google Assistant, and Apple has Siri. The companies however take different approaches when designing a natural language interface. “Is the interface supposed to be able to interpret every single nuance of speech? and how about slang? Or should we aim more towards forced language and make our users learn how to interact with simple commands?” This session will look at how different virtual assistants can be used for different scenarios.
Day 3: Wednesday, May 8
From Zero to AI Hero — Automatically generate ML models using Azure Machine Learning service, Automated ML
- 8:30 AM
Last September Microsoft announced Automated ML (Automated machine learning) as a new capability available on Azure Machine Learning service. AutoML takes the tech out of ML, enabling even users with little previous data science expertise “to identify an end-to-end machine learning pipeline for any problem, achieving higher accuracy while spending far less of their time.” Auto ML is one of Microsoft’s most exciting AI-related developments.
AI in Power BI
- 10:00 AM
Power BI is a Microsoft business analytics service. This session offers insights on how AI is shaping the future of data and analytics.
Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) in the enterprise: how Microsoft scales ML across the world and across devices
- 12:00 PM
ONNX (open neural network exchange format) offers a single execution environment with the ONNX Runtime for different model formats for ML frameworks (e.g. TensorFlow, Pytorch, MXNet). This session will use examples such as Bing, Ads, Speech, Office, and Cognitive Services from Microsoft to show how frameworks like TensorFlow, Pytorch, Scikit-learn, and Caffe can be used.
Digital Ink: Building for the Web, Fueled By Cloud AI
- 4:30 PM
The session will showcase how Azure Ink, the Microsoft ink cognitive services, is adopting cloud backed AI services.
Visit the Microsoft Build 2019 website for registration and other information. Synced will be reporting on the conference throughout the week.
Journalist: Fangyu Cai | Editor: Michael Sarazen
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