The session would be led by Microsoft Cloud Architect Kyle Wilson. The initial part of this talk focuses on exploring a simple model for application modernization strategy. We then dive into the Serverless capabilities of Azure and how they can be leveraged in support of the application modernization process. We will cover technical insights into the pros and cons of various approaches along with some specific examples and demonstrations. The goal of the talk is to bring more clarity on the Serverless offerings in Azure and how they fit into a broader cloud/application modernization strategy.
 
Kyle Wilson has been working in technology for over 20 years.  As a technical resource at Microsoft he interacts with customers on a daily basis, helping them take advantage of the cloud to change the way they think about their business and their digital transformation journey. He spent a long time in the consulting world helping customers adopt collaboration portals and other web technologies before joining Microsoft 5 years ago.  He currently works as an Azure architect and technical specialist helping enterprise customers and partners digitally transform their businesses with Azure based services.
 
David McDonald, Director of the Reston Microsoft Technology Center, would kick off the event and join Kyle for follow-up Q&A. At the Reston MTC, Microsoft empowers customers and partners to digitally transform their organizations through the Microsoft Cloud. The MTC Director is the leader of a high performing team of technical architects as well as a customer centric facility designed to engage customers and help them envision the art of the possible with Microsoft Cloud Solutions.  Prior to being the MTC Director, David was the Technical Director of the MTC and a Technical Architect.  Throughout David’s career, including 25 years at Microsoft, he has worked with Government and Commercial enterprises helping them develop and deploy mission critical enterprise business solutions.

WHEN: May 10, 2019 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102

The first session in our series on Application Modernization with Serverless Technologies was presented by Amazon Web Services (AWS).  The session was led by Rory Richardson, Head of Business Development for Serverless at AWS, and she will discuss how enterprises can apply DevOps, microservices and serverless to innovate faster, at scale. Learn how Amazon got from four to over 60 million deployments per year and benefit from their key learnings from building modern apps at Amazon.com. Covering the transition from a monolithic application to event-driven serverless microservices, this session will dive into the reasons more and more Amazon customers are choosing the serverless operational model. By leveraging AWS Lambda, AWS Step Functions, AWS Fargate, SNS, SQS, and the entire serverless portfolio, customers are able to innovate faster and focus more on their core businesses.
 
Rory has been driving business development with some of the fastest growing and innovative services at AWS such as Aurora and DynamoDB. She is now head of business development for Amazon’s Serverless technologies which include Lambda, StepFunctions and API Gateway, as well as, enterprise messaging such as AmazonMQ, SNS, and SQS. These technologies enable customers to move to a microservice architecture. A serverless microservice architecture lets companies increase business agility, reduce undifferentiated heavy lifting, and optimize costs by paying only for what they use.

WHEN: April 5, 2019 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102
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In domain after domain, Deep Learning is outperforming both people and competing algorithms at practical tasks:

• ImageNet Hit@5 object recognition error rates have fallen 88% since 2011 and can now recognize objects in photos faster and better than you can
• All major speech recognition engines (Google's, Baidu's, Siri, etc.) automatically translate a speaker's voice in one language to the same voice speaking another language.
• Machines can now beat you at Atari and Go

 
These breakthroughs are visible as both product offerings (Siri, Real-time Ray-tracing on NVIDIA Turing cards, Netflix Recommendations, etc.) as well as breakthrough results on international open benchmarks. All successful deep learning product teams:

1. Identify the best-matched organizational opportunities to drive ROI with machine learning
2. Address the talent crunch for deep learning expertise
3. Warehouse sufficiently large labeled data sets for training and
4. Update their models at scale as data distributions drift over time

 
We will review all four of these considerations, understand some of the key discriminators between product success and failure, and learn how to identify opportunities best suited for the application of Deep Learning.
 
Dr. John Kaufhold, data scientist and managing partner at Deep Learning Analytics, will lead the discussion. Deep Learning Analytics was one of the four fastest growing companies by revenue in Arlington, Virginia in 2015, and again in 2016. Dr. Kaufhold also serves as Secretary of the Washington Academy of Sciences and is a regular contributor to the DC Data Community, where he moderates the DC2 Deep Learning Discussion list. Prior to founding Deep Learning Analytics, Dr. Kaufhold investigated deep learning algorithms at NIH, SAIC and at GE's Global Research Center. Dr. Kaufhold is named inventor on 10 issued patents in image analysis, and author/coauthor on 40+ publications in the fields of machine learning, image understanding and neuroscience.

WHEN: December 17, 2018  from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102
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The move from an application-centric to a more data-centric and integrated systems approach is well underway. We’ve been successfully re-engineering workflows from internal user targets to include users across multiple stakeholders, multiple institutions, and disparate systems using REST based APIs for a while now. However, as the number of endpoints and integrated systems increase, the most significant limitations of REST-based APIs must be resolved:

• Discovery
• Flexibility
• Type-safety of data exchange
• Traceability
• Observability

 
There are a few emerging approaches worth considering – namely:

• GraphQL for next generation data-centric API endpoints
• gRPC for next-generation functionality-centric API endpoints
• Distributed event-oriented programming as an approach to create a more flexible and reliable systems integration strategy
• OpenTracing and OpenCensus for increased observability across complex API pathways across multiple boundaries

 
Shahid Shah, one of the most engaged CTO Roundtable member, has architected, designed and implemented several projects using these new approaches and will lead the discussion on the topic. Shahid, CEO of Netspective Communications, is a serial entrepreneur with over 28 years technology strategy and software engineering experience. He had led several complex projects in the fields of Government 2.0, Health IT, and Medical Device Integration. He has co-founded and led Netspective.com, Physia.com, InfluentialNetworks.com, HealthcareGuy.com, HITSphere.com, and simplifyMD.com within the last few years. Shahid also serves as a senior technology advisor to OMB’s Budget System Branch, the eGov Budget Formulation & Execution Line of Business (BFELoB.gov), Veterans Affairs (VA.gov), OSEHRA.org, and Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC.gov).
 
WHEN: October 12, 2018 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102

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We are collaborating with Sierra Ventures, an early stage venture firm based in the Bay Area focusing on enterprise B2B companies, to bring two of their portfolio companies, Hired and Phenom People, to lead the discussion.
 
Agenda: 
8:00 - 8:30 am: Breakfast / Meet & Greet
 
8:30 - 9 am: Phenom People, CEO, Mahe Bayireddi
Leveraging Talent Relationship Marketing & AI to Attract Top Candidates
Phenom People, a leader in Talent Relationship Marketing, has proven that to attract the best talent, phenomenal companies must build relationships with candidates through personalized digital experiences. The Phenom Talent Relationship Marketing Platform automates the process for driving awareness, interest, engagement and acquisition of talent. Mahe will discuss on why today's organizations must leverage disruptive technologies like cloud, AI, and next gen web UI and processes (ATS) to acquire the best and brightest candidates. It is imperative for HR and technology leaders to collaborate to accomplish this. Mahe also has 5 years worth of experience working with those teams to understand best practices. Phenom has had great success and is listed a Gartner Cool Vendor & #177 on the INC 5000 in 2017.
 
9 - 9:30 am: Hired, VP of Sales, Sloane Barbour
The Candidate Centric Approach to Recruiting
Hired connects the right talent with the right opportunity. Their curated marketplace allows candidates and clients to discover their perfect match more effectively and efficiently. Sloane will expand upon 4 different takeaways the company has identified over 5 years from millions of discussions with candidates:
Takeaway 1: It’s a candidate’s market. The best candidates are off the market in 10 days and there is a projected shortfall of a million applicants for computing jobs by 2020.
Takeaway 2: It’s an on-demand economy. Experiences like Netflix and Uber also apply to the way people want to find a job. The candidate experience should BE a one-on-one interaction, personalized with proof that you know who the candidate is and what he or she is looking for.
Takeaway 3: Brand Matters. Companies must build a strong employer brand and not fall into the routine of parroting buzzwords: we’re a tech leader; we work as a team; we care about our employees; etc. But unless you can transform those key points into an employee- and candidate-centric value proposition balanced with authenticity and proof – they come across as empty statements.

Takeaway 4: Candidates are paying close attention to diversity efforts. Diversity inclusion is not just a recruiting challenge, rather, it is a cultural issue that spans public brand perception, your ability to innovate, differentiation of your corporate vision and the inherent values of fairness and transparency.
 
9:30 - 10 am: Wrap up and Q&A


WHEN: August 9, 2018 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102