2112 Pennsylvania Ave NW

If you are struggling to figure out which AI model is best for your use case or wondering if you should upgrade to the latest model, be sure to check out this exciting talk by Samiksha Kale and Will Angel. Agenda: 6:00 - 6:30 PM - Welcome and mingle 6:30- 6:45 PM - Introductions 6:45 - 7:30 PM - Talk 7:30 - 8:00 PM - Wrap up Description: Newer isn't always better - but how do you know? Every model release comes with benchmark scores, numerous blog posts, and pressure to upgrade. This talk cuts through the hype and gets into real model tradeoffs and performance characteristics such as intelligence, cost, and latency, grounded in real-world examples of newer models not always being better. We'll explore how to actually evaluate models for your use case, when to trust the numbers and when not to. Speaker Bios: Samiksha Kale is an AI Engineer at Leidos, building agents for enterprise automation and tackling the challenge of turning scattered organizational data into a unified intelligence layer. She has worked across a variety of areas and industries, spanning production ML systems in geospatial AI, data engineering in consumer policy research, agentic AI in defense technology, and computer vision in biomedical imaging. Outside of work, she can be found fine-tuning transformer models, hacking together browser extensions, or teaching herself whatever corner of the stack she hasn't explored yet. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. Will Angel is an AI Engineer at DroneDeploy, and is the author of Virtual Power: The Future of Energy Flexibility, an organizer for the Data Visualization and Data Engineers DC Meetups, and the executive director at Data Community DC, a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to data education in the national capital area. In his free time, Will enjoys wildlife photography, gardening, reading, cooking, art, DIY electronics, and traveling. Will is also the creator of www.vibechart.net.

Join us for an AI demo night at Prefect HQ in DC Location: Prefect HQ offices in Downtown DC (2112 Pennsylvania Ave NW) On Thursday, July 30th, join us for an event of live AI demos and great conversation, hosted and sponsored by Prefect. We will hand select three AI builders in the DMV who will get the floor to show you what they've built with AI. It might be an agent running their research and context management, a product they shipped, or a workflow that ended up saving them 10 hours a week. Grab food, meet fellow creators, and leave with AI ideas you can explore more. Whether you're AI-curious or already building, you'll fit right in. Have a project you want to demo? Give a shoutout to Nadeen via Linkedin or email (nadeen.sidd@gmail.com) Agenda 5:30pm: Doors Open Grab food and drinks. Chat with other builders and get the vibe. 6:00pm - 8:30pm: Rotating Demo Sessions Three demo speakers to present their AI builds and walk through how they created it. Topics can include: Claude Code builds Personal AI agent systems A job-specific workflow automation 8:00pm: Wrap-Up Exchange contacts, make plans to collaborate, and head out inspired. Who Should Come AI Curious: No coding required. If you're curious about what AI can do, this is your entry point. AI Builders & Creators: Developers, designers, product folks, and entrepreneurs exploring practical AI applications. Anyone in between: If you're excited about building with AI, you belong here. What You'll Leave With Real examples of AI products you can actually build Connections with other creators in the DC AI community Momentum to start your own project About the AI Build Club DC AI Build Club DC is a community for people who want to feel confident steering AI. Workshops, demo nights, co-working sessions, whatever the format, people are there designing, prototyping, and building real apps, agents, and workflows. Everyone's both a student and a teacher, and the floor belongs to the community. Visit us at: aibuildclubdc.com Led by: Nadeen Siddiqui: AI coach for professionals & product manager Ez Emir: AI product builder & community leader. Working in Sales and GTM @ Edrevel AI We've both lived in DC for 10+ years and love giving back to our community with thoughtful knowledge share and great IRL experiences.