We will be having our second meetup of the year in August featuring two speakers!
Sign up here: https://forms.gle/B5Ku8MfRDipHGgFU7
Talk 1: Multimodal RAG in Action: Unlocking Complex Documents Retrieval (Zane Lim: Director, Generative AI - Manulife)
This talk explores cutting-edge techniques for multimodal Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with late-interaction architectures. We'll focus on state-of-the-art approaches like ColPali, ColQwen2 and ColNomic, demonstrating how they overcome traditional OCR/text-based limitations through novel embedding and retrieval strategies.
Speaker Bio:
Zane has been a technology practitioner for more than 10 years, with experience in software engineering, machine learning and AI. He's currently a director of Gen AI in Manulife leading the architecture and reusability of Gen AI systems.
In his pastime, he is a passionate data science, machine learning and AI educator. His experience includes being an adjunct lecturer in Singapore's tertiary institutes and a lead instructor of data science and AI bootcamps in General Assembly and other tech academies.
Talk 2: Choosing the Right Framework for building AI Agents (Sam Witteveen: CEO, Founder - Red Dragon AI, Google Developer Expert)
With the explosion of AI agent frameworks like LangChain, PydanticAI, CrewAI, ADK, and others, Python developers face a bewildering array of choices when building intelligent applications. How do you cut through the hype and select the right tool for your specific use case?
In this talk, Sam will explore the landscape of popular AI agent frameworks, examining their strengths, weaknesses, and ideal applications. You'll learn practical decision criteria including scalability considerations, integration complexity, community support, and cost implications.
Whether you're building your first AI-powered application or evaluating options for production systems, you'll leave with a clear understanding for making informed architectural decisions. We'll also cover emerging patterns and what to watch for as this rapidly evolving ecosystem continues to mature.
Perfect for Python developers curious about AI agents or teams planning their next intelligent application.
Speaker Bio:
Sam is a serial entrepreneur who has built multiple startups including 2 B2C startups with more than a million users. He has extensive experience in Machine Learning and in 2017 was appointed one of the first 12 Google Developer Experts for Machine Learning in the world.
He often shares his expertise through his YouTube channel, which has 100k followers and is where he creates content on LLMs, AI Agents and educational content around GenerativeAI. He is also one of the hosts on the VentureBeat podcast, where he discusses the latest trends in AI technology and startups.
Sam has given talks across the world on creating products with Deep Learning including at TensorFlow World(USA), Naver D2 Startup Factory (Korea) and PyCon events.
Got any queries? Contact us through contact#pugs.org.sg (# = @)
