Presentations
- June 2026 at Christchurch AI
- March 2026 at Agent Camp Chch 2026
- November 2025 at Python New Zealand Meetup, Christchurch
- November 2025 at Code Camp Christchurch
- March 2025 at Global AI Bootcamp 2025
Agent habits with an engineer's mindset
This is a "motivational / actionable" talk for people wondering what AI agents are and what they can do, described from someone shaped by 20 years of programming experience. Expect some serious local agents and cloud agents... explained simply. We'll work through some jargon because words are important, and with our newfound understanding of "harnesses" and "models" we'll look at how a senior engineer approaches agents, for work stuff and other stuff. You'll start to see the habits, hooks, and opportunities where agents can play a part, and then you can try it, too.
Local agents: Replacing vibes and magic with engineering and math
Super excited to talk about how an agent is just a language model with some tools wrapped in a loop. Let's make one. And then let's talk about why local agents are going to be the coolest thing about 2026. Coming from 20 years of writing code "pre-LLM", I'll also loop in the serious topics of "outcomes vs fundamentals" and "engineering matters, coding doesn't".
Problem solving quickly after 50,000 hours
While AI is starting to become part of how we work, we're still reliant on using a mouse, a keyboard, and our human brains. I will share some of what I do to offload the mechanical parts of the day job so I can focus on thinking more. From ultra-specific keyboard shortcuts to broad advice like "just don't solve that problem", expect a whirlwind tour of my experience as a hobbyist-turned-pro computer user, lifelong coder, and continuous learning advocate.
The journey to building faster with a personal RAG-powered AI agent
Improve your ways of working with your own RAG-powered AI agent. In this session, follow the journey of using retrieval-augmented generation, multi-agent approaches, and Azure AI to build a voice-based assistant that taps into enterprise data (SharePoint) and automates tasks in Azure DevOps.