Join us for a candid look behind the scenes at run.events, the platform that has become essential for many event organizers worldwide who want to manage their events efficiently. Taking the road less traveled, without relying on outside funding and with a dedicated, compact team, was what formed run.events into its current state. Our reliance on the robust Microsoft Azure public cloud platform (we'll share why we eliminated the last two AWS services from our architecture only a few weeks ago), a focus on user experience, and the integration of automation workflows have been the foundation of what run.events is today, enabling us to serve a global audience. In this session, we'll share the architectural, developmental, technological, and emotional challenges encountered while building the platform. We'll discuss the good and not-so-good decisions. We will discuss how our first European Collaboration Summit taught us that standard Azure load testing isn't always sufficient, leading us to scale our Azure SQL Server to the max to get through the event (which we did!). We'll also talk about why you should be in Microsoft for Startups program during the initial development and early go-to-market stages of building a SaaS product, and how being in that program has saved our money and our skin. :) To wrap up, we'll provide some insights into where we are now, the challenges we're currently facing and how we're addressing them, our ideas for the future, and how Microsoft taught us that a bug in production is not the end of the world. :)

In today's dynamic event landscapes, meaningful connections between attendees and sponsors are more crucial than ever. Discover how integrating AI-powered solutions can revolutionize networking experiences by providing personalized and impactful matchmaking opportunities. In this session, I will show how did we use Microsoft Semantic Kernel and Azure OpenAI to develop intelligent matchmaking for run.events. We'll explore a practical scenario where an attendee's interests, session participation, and professional background are analyzed to recommend the top 10 individuals they should connect with during an event - complete with insightful reasons for each recommendation. Key discussion points include: * Implementing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): * Architectural Insights and Best Practices * Real-World Examples with run.events Join me to learn how to harness the power of AI to create enriched, personalized networking experiences that add significant value to event participants and stakeholders alike. Whether you're an event organizer, developer, or tech enthusiast, this session will equip you with the knowledge and tools to transform attendee engagement through intelligent technology solutions.