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AI Templates: Gabriela and Aishwarya
Takeaway
Microsoft's Founders Hub plus open-source AI Templates lets early-stage startups stand up production-grade Azure AI apps in minutes with up to $250k in credits and dedicated expert guidance.
Summary
- Gabriela DeAro (Director AI startups), Aishwarya (Sr AI advisor) and Pamela Fox (Python cloud advocate) walk through Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub and the 'AI Templates' program for fast Azure-based AI app starts.
- Founders Hub: up to $150k Azure credits (incl. Azure OpenAI), plus GitHub Enterprise, Microsoft 365, LinkedIn and Perplexity benefits; sign-up takes <5 minutes regardless of incorporation/funding stage.
- Strategic VC partnerships (M12, Y Combinator, Neo, Alt Capital, Alchemist) extend credits to $250k and unlock dedicated startup development managers plus the Pegasus go-to-market amplification program (Azure Marketplace, blog/video features, conference slots).
- AI Templates target the 'first end-to-end app takes weeks' pain — non-toy examples like RAG with Azure AI Search that deploy in minutes, fully open source on GitHub and customizable.
- Hands-on workshop walks attendees through cloning a template, setting up Azure resources, and getting a complex AI app running quickly using azd up.
azurestartupsai-templates
Original description
Building and deploying generative AI solutions can be challenging and time-consuming, especially for startups with limited resources and expertise. In this workshop, you will learn how to use AI templates and GitHub to quickly prototype and deploy generative AI applications in minutes. AI templates are ready-made solutions that leverage Microsoft Azure Services like Azure OpenAI and GitHub features like GitHub Codespaces. https://aka.ms/aie-workshop Recorded live in San Francisco at the AI Engineer World's Fair. See the full schedule of talks at https://www.ai.engineer/worldsfair/2024/schedule & join us at the AI Engineer World's Fair in 2025! Get your tickets today at https://ai.engineer/2025 About Gabriela 15+ years of experience in the data space, Gabriela has worked in research and in several startups from different industries, including Software, Financial, Advertisement, and Health. Throughout her career, she has built diverse teams, created sophisticated data science solutions, engaged with customers and stakeholders to deliver business insights and drive data-centric decisions. She is passionate about building innovative solutions, understanding business gaps, and customer needs, and delivering a flawless experience. About Aishwarya Aishwarya works in the Microsoft for Startups group within Microsoft as a Senior AI Advocate to help startups build machine learning solutions, leveraging core Microsoft/OpenAI products. Prior to this, Aishwarya was working as a Data Scientist in Google Cloud and before that an AI & ML Innovation Leader at IBM Data & AI, where she was working cross-functionally with the product team, data science team and sales to research AI use-cases for clients by conducting discovery workshops and building assets to showcase the business value of the technology. She is the founder of Illuminate AI, first of its kind non-profit organization for providing resources and mentorship for people who want to build their career in the field of AI. She is an advocate for open-source technologies, presently an open source Developer Advocate for Deepchecks; previously a developer advocate for PyTorch Lightning and a contributor to Scikit Learn.