Countdown to SAS Innovate: Must See ModelOps Sessions and Experiences
SAS Innovate is less than two weeks away, so it is time to start building your agenda. SAS Innovate is the data and AI experience for business leaders, technical users, SAS partners, and more. This year, SAS Innovate will take place May 6th – May 9th in sunny Orlando, Florida. Haven’t registered yet? Not to worry! Prices for individual tickets go up after April 30th, but group discounts are available.
Let’s dive into all things ModelOps at SAS Innovate. In this article, I’ll go over the sessions, demos, and events where you can learn how to improve outcomes through better analytically driven decisions and model management.
Participate in a SAS Hackathon Boot Camp
The SAS Hackathon provides the opportunity for teams to make their ideas a reality. But you don't have to wait until fall to start your Hackathon experience. You can take part in a complementary Hackathon Boot Camp at SAS Innovate! This event offers a fantastic opportunity to gain hands-on experience, enhance your skills, and network with SAS experts and fellow participants. It’s open to customers, partners and students from any industry. All participants receive an honorary diploma of completion and a fabulously stylish and enviable SAS Hackathon Boot Camp T-shirt.
Take a Training Session
AI is innovating at top speed. To stay ahead (or at least hang on), you need to make continual learning a priority. When it comes to AI and analytics, building new skills and learning the latest technologies are the best ways to excel in your role. Our SAS training sessions make it easy to gain this knowledge as part of your conference experience.
In the SAS Viya Overview session, you’ll learn about the SAS Viya platform, including the architecture, applications, and programming features. You’ll also see how SAS Viya take you through the AI and analytics life cycle, including SAS Model Manager.
From Idea to Production With LLMs and SAS® Viya®
In this super demo, David Weik, from Into the Viya Verse fame, will take a look at how leveraging the SAS Viya platform can accelerate the time from deciding which large language models (LLMs) to use to running prompt engineering in a no-code and a yes-code fashion, tracking every experiment, deploying our prompt as part of a decision, and monitoring usage and cost in the production system. If you’re struggling to get your LLM systems to production, this is the session for you!
Related reading: Understanding LLMOps: Navigating the waters of large language models
Mapping Made Magical: Modernizing Model Implementation
Translating data into the right format for models can be a labor-intensive process, but not to worry. In this session, see how the data scientists and engineers at SAS are working on making this process painless using SAS Data Mapper. Data Mapper uses generative AI to intelligently align disparate data sources with target models, producing executable code, mapping schemas, and documentation. Through an intuitive web interface and natural language collaboration, Data Mapper accelerates time-to-value, reduces implementation costs and transforms services into scalable software to help organizations unlock analytics faster and more efficiently.
SAS Innovate After Hours
Get ready for one of the most incredible parties SAS has ever thrown—a New York City street party in the heart of Universal Studios Florida! We've reserved a select area of the park just for us—all the fun without the lines!
Responsible AI: Building ModelOps Processes With SAS® Model Manager
Yours truly will review five key capabilities available today to support Responsible AI with SAS Model Manager, including our model card, Trustworthy AI Lifecycle Workflow, model locking, fairness monitoring, and debugging issues with score code using testing. At SAS, we want to make responsible AI irresistible, meaning building AI systems responsibly should be easy and a natural part of the process. This session will demonstrate how SAS Model Manager is working towards irresistible responsible AI.
Related reading: Monitoring Model Fairness in SAS Model Manager
“Late Night” Bites and Brews in the Hub
The Innovation Hub features 60+ booths representing technology, industries, and partners. If you haven’t had an opportunity to swing by the ModelOps booth and come chat about your model deployment woes with me (or if you prefer to chat about hiking horror stories, best vacation spots, or what you’re reading), this is the time to do it. Why’s that? Well, there are free snacks, drinks, and lots of folks passionate about AI.
Using SAS Model Manager to Deploy Models Trained in SAS Viya Workbench
SAS Viya Workbench is so hot right now, but how do you get the models trained in SAS Viya Workbench into an enterprise-grade MLOps solution? Its easier than you think. In this session, I’ll discuss the integration points of these two solutions and how users can move their best models from SAS Viya Workbench to SAS Model Manager for model management, deployment, and more.
Related reading: SAS Viya Workbench & SAS Model Manager for Model Training and Deployment: SAS Models
Face Off Against the Orlando Magic
Look out for SAS’s new interactive video game that allows you to face off against Magic guard Cole Anthony. I had a blast testing it out and learned something new about myself (that I have a wingspan that’s larger than my height) as well as iterated what I already know (with my shooting percentage, I’ll never make it in the NBA). Test yourself or compete against your teammates to see who has what it takes!
Data Ethics and AI Governance
What has SAS been Innovating on? Hear directly from SAS’s Vice President of Data Ethics, Reggie Townsend, and Senior Data Scientist, Allie DeLonay, about what SAS is working on next for AI Governance. Learn about how you can address today’s most pressing AI risks while enabling responsible innovation. Be among the first to see a unique governance solution that can be applied to your organization’s AI initiatives, regardless of technical background.
From Conversation to Decision: Building an AI Assistant With SAS® Intelligent Decisioning and Azure OpenAI
Discover how to enhance AI assistant workflows by integrating SAS Intelligent Decisioning with Azure OpenAI. This guide provides a step-by-step approach to building your own AI assistant capable of redirecting chatbot conversations into trusted internal workflows. We'll demonstrate how Azure Logic Apps connects to a decision designed with SAS Intelligent Decisioning, enabling real-time decision logic execution.
Visit the Braindate Lounge
To foster stronger connections, SAS has added Braindate to SAS Innovate! Braindates are 1:1 conversations or group sessions around a specific topic. SAS Innovate attendees can create their own Braindates or sign up to join an existing Braindate. I’ll be hosting a group session all about Model Cards. You can bring your questions, feedback, recommendations, or wish-list to this session. Spaces are limited, so check out the available Braindates in the event app!
Assessing Model Bias and Model Health in SAS® Viya®
In this hands-on workshop, learn how to make decisions from machine learning models that are fair and explainable—and evaluate the health of your models once they’re deployed. You'll learn to assess models for unintended bias with Fairness and Bias statistics in SAS Model Studio. Then you'll learn how to assess the health of a deployed model using model cards.
Related Reading: Model cards: The AI transparency label you need
Model Governance – A Deep Dive: Using Python Models, Model Cards and SAS® Viya®
Haven’t gotten enough model cards and SAS Viya Workbench? This deep-dive session focuses on the development, deployment, and documentation of Python machine learning models using SAS Viya Workbench and SAS Model Manager. Learn to build a simple Python model in SAS Viya Workbench, seamlessly register it in SAS Model Manager for governance and create a model card. We'll explore key components of a robust model card, including purpose, intended use, limitations, and ethical considerations. By the end, you'll understand the entire model life cycle within the Viya ecosystem—development, deployment, and responsible documentation.
Related reading: Creating a Model Nutrition Label: Model Cards for Python Models
Networking Meets Fitness
Just because you’re at a conference doesn’t mean you need to miss your workout. But it does mean that you can work out while meeting analytics leaders and experts. Check out many of the morning exercise classes to start the day right or join a lunchtime mindfulness break to refresh your mind before diving into more learning and world-class sessions.
Ready to Learn More?
Whew, that’s a lot of great sessions! Which one are you most excited about? Did I miss a must-see session? Let me know in the comments below! And don’t forget to register!
