Montréal × Seattle: AI Community Connect
Reflections on my participation in 'Montréal × Seattle: AI Community Connect', a panel during Seattle AI Week exploring how two leading AI ecosystems can collaborate and innovate together.
Rami Sayar's RSS Feed
AI × UX Engineering Manager at Microsoft. 🍁 MTL ✈️ NYC ✈️ SEA
Latest posts
Deep search on Bing
Introducing Deep search on Bing. Deep search leverages GPT-4 to provide more comprehensive and detailed answers to complex search queries.
Whirlwind to Wisdom: Product Lessons from Integrating LLMs & GPT-4 into Bing
Thrilled to share product insights learned from the whirlwind integration of LLMs & GPT-4 into Bing at TechAide Product4Good in Montreal benefitting Centraide (United Way).
Visual Stories on Bing
Thrilled to share Bing Stories, allowing users to visually explore and interact with results in a more engaging way.
Catching up with Modern CSS
A colleague of mine recently reached out to ask about new features in modern CSS. He started his career as a web developer in the 2000s but hadn't touched CSS since. He was not looking to become an expert web developer but just to know enough to style some simple pages. He remembers getting frustrated by "relative" vs. "absolute" positioning among the other annoyances of CSS. He asked me to share…
How to Include External JavaScript Using Helmet and Gatsby
## GATSBY NOW HAS A BUILTIN [HEAD API](https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/built-in-components/gatsby-head/). Please consider using that API instead of React Helmet. Gatsby can be confusing for web developers who are new to this world of React server-side rendering. In this short article, I answer the question for how to include external JavaScript libraries from a CDN in your Gatsby site…
FITC - How We Built A Bot For FITC
`youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIA9tvbejZY` I gave a [talk](https://fitc.ca/presentation/built-bot-fitc/) at [FITC 2017](https://fitc.ca/event/to17/) about how we built a bot for the conference. Here's the official description: "Imagine a platform where language is the new UI. When we build chat bots that augment human abilities and experiences, it’s not about man versus machine. It is…
FITC - Building Universal JavaScript Applications with React
`youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD2x2ongMAk` I gave a [talk](https://fitc.ca/presentation/building-universal-javascript-applications-react/) at [FITC Spotlight React](https://fitc.ca/event/spotlightreact/) about building Universal JavaScript React applications. React is a powerful production-ready library for building advanced single page applications but React’s magical power lies in…
Trondheim DC - An Intense Overview of the React Ecosystem
I gave a talk at the [Trondheim Developer Conference](https://2016.trondheimdc.no/) covering the various parts of the React ecosystem. React has been named the front-end library to learn in 2016 however few people talk about the React without mentioning Flux (or Redux or Relay). In this intense talk, we will navigate through the most significant parts of the React tools and libraries. We will look…
Build Toronto - The Future of the Web Panel
[Wes Bos](https://twitter.com/wesbos), developer of the extremely popular React for Beginner's video series, [Alex Blom](https://twitter.com/AlexBlom), partner at the IsleOfCode Ember shop in Toronto, [Steve Fisher](https://twitter.com/hellofisher), designer and UX fanatic at the Republic of Quality, and Stacey Mulcahy, JavaScript and Node hacker extraordinaire, get together for a live,…
FITC - Introduction to the React Ecosystem
`youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yTb3J6_Hak` I gave a [talk](https://fitc.ca/presentation/an-overview-of-the-react-ecosystem/) at [FITC Spotlight React](https://fitc.ca/event/react/) covering the various parts of the React ecosystem. React has been named the front-end library to learn in 2016 however few people talk about the React without mentioning Flux (or Redux or React Native or…
On Michael Wolf’s Presentation about the Future of Tech and Media in 2016 for Montreal Startups
[Michael Wolf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wolf_(businessman)) (from [Activate](http://activate.com/)) presented at [The Wall Street Journal’s Digital Live Conference](http://wsjdlive.wsj.com/) a massive amount of data points on the future of technology and media in 2016. In the same vein as my [previous article](https://ramisayar.com/internet-trends-report-2015/) on Mary Meeker’s annual…
On The Internet Trends Report 2015 For Montreal Startups
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Mary Meeker released her annual Internet Trends Report. As an avid yearly reader of this report, I want to highlight a few of the stats that are particularly pertinent to tech startups in Montreal. Global Internet usage has definitively shifted to Asia. China alone accounted for 23% of Internet users. Combined with the rest of Asia, over half of the global Internet…
FITC - What’s New in ES6 for Web Devs
`youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhZbga8BM_4` I gave a [talk](https://fitc.ca/presentation/whats-new-in-es6-for-web-devs/) at [FITC 2015](https://fitc.ca/event/to15/) on what's new in ECMAScript 6 for web developers. Wondering what the future has in store for JavaScript web developers? ECMAScript 6 (ES6) is the next major release of the ECMAScript language specification a.k.a. JavaScript.…
FITC - Twitter Bootstrap Unleashed
`youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxCr5byta2c` I gave a [talk](https://fitc.ca/presentation/twitter-bootstrap-unleashed/) at [FITC Web Unleashed 2014](https://fitc.ca/event/webu14/) on Twitter Bootstrap. Twitter Bootstrap is a wildly popular HTML and CSS framework for building websites and web applications. It is the number 1 project on GitHub. Bootstrap supports responsive web design,…
FITC - Data Visualization in Practice
`youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSdVrfKmMbY` I gave a talk at [FITC Spotlight Front-End](https://fitc.ca/presentation/data-visualization-in-practice/) on data visualization. Data visualization is crucial to understanding the big data being generated by apps and services. Data visualization toolkits such as D3.js and charting toolkits are immensely popular but it remains difficult to…
Introduction to Growth Hacking at KWS Montreal 2014
I am very delighted to be speaking again at this year's KWS Forum, Social Good and Innovative Technology week. Be sure to attend my talk if you want to think more like a startup and growth hack. I included a discount code to the event in the article.
FailCampMTL
Failure comes with a certain stigma and fear, particularly among entrepreneurs. It should not be this way, for to fail is to learn.
ThoughtBasin's Panel on Communication and Connection
I am super excited to be participating in ThoughtBasin's Panel on Communication and Connection this Thursday.
KWS Forum Recap Video
My friends from the Kongossa Web Series have launched a recap video of their conference.
Why I Love Startup Grind
We are just days away from the first Startup Grind event in Montreal. It is another startup event in a city that already has many, including a startup festival. But Startup Grind isn’t just another startup event; it’s an opportunity to take our community to the next level.
Africa + Startups = Kongossa
The world has recognized the promise of Africa. It is home to more than a billion people and houses 16 of the world’s 30 fastest growing economies. Coupled with explosive Internet growth, there are incredible opportunities for startups and technologists.
TEDxHEC Montreal
At TEDxHEC Montreal, I address the question of how can we best put our networks to use. The resulting talk, entitled “Democratic Collaboration”, examined the challenges of collaboration and demonstrated the ways that technology can be used to solve these problems.
HOWTO: Automatically Enable GZip Compression on AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Recently, I started experimenting with the AWS fancy deployment system, Elastic Beanstalk. The first thing I noticed was that gzip (mod_deflate) compression was not enabled by default. A quick search revealed that it is indeed not enabled by default for reasons of compatibility.
More QR Code Madness
After my initial post exclaiming "Enough with the QR codes!", I got another interesting picture of a QR code fail.
Enough with the QR Codes!
 QR codes have exploded in usage ever since smartphones took off. Presumably, companies wanted to add these ugly white and black boxes to their advertisements to give the impression of being cutting edge and in-tune with technology. However, this "novelty", if it ever was one (QR codes look too much like barcodes to me and barcodes are…
Neat Features in Python: Slicing and Sliding (Stepping)
Anyone following my [twitter feed](https://twitter.com/#!/ramisayar) can tell you that I am a great fan of the [Python](https://python.org/) programming language. It is an incredible programming language and it is filled with many neat language features that truly help programmer productivity and code readability. For a quick tutorial, visit the informal Python tutorial…