From Hackathons to High Impact: Building Real AI Solutions

00:00:06 Mark Smith
Welcome to the MVP show. My intention is that you listen to the stories of these MVP guests and are inspired to become an MVP and bring value to the world through your skills. If you have not checked it out. Already I do a YouTube series called how to become an MVP. The link is in the show notes. With that let's get on with the show.

00:00:35 Mark Smith
Welcome back to the Microsoft Innovation Podcast. Today we're heading to Germany, where our guest leads solution development at ORBUS. Please welcome edit. You'll hear why she develops across the Microsoft ecosystem. After turning into her mentorship driving approach and how she's turning hackathons into launchpads for real world growth, for links are in the show notes for this episode. As always, Edit welcome to the show.

00:01:01 Edit Kapcari 
Hi mark. Great to be with you today.

00:01:04 Mark Smith
I always like starting with food, family and fun just so my audience can get to know a little bit about you personally. So food, family and fun. What do they mean to you?

00:01:15 Edit Kapcari 
Well, food should be healthy. Currently vegetarian and plant based and as least processed as possible. I was reading in 2014, then I transitioned to vegetarian. When I started to travel for business related events. And it was not sustainable anymore to be vegan, so I didn't have to constantly think about where I'm going to eat. But I had to focus on actually doing the work. And there's a lot of vegetarian options everywhere. And that was a very nice transition. But if I have to say, where do I enjoy the best food is at home in Albania when my mom cooks it, because she also knows how to. The best ingredients, and he knows the man who produces. For example, the olive oil and my dad does the honey and and fruit and vegetables. Baking. She's great. So it always takes us there family. I have my family everywhere because my family uh core family is living in Albania. My mom, dad and the younger sister, the other sister and her family is living in Finland, which is very interesting to experience that culture there. So we go visit and we also have a bit of Finland while being there. And I married a German, so I'm also getting to know. The core of German people, which is highly interesting. They're also very connected. They're my neighbors, so we get to do a lot of things together. For example, we sing songs for Christmas. We have gaming nights, we grill together, we celebrate every possible. Birthday. So it's a great connection there. Uh, fun. Well, it depends. I'm a sponge. I'm all time sort of. Consuming information for topics I'm interested at. Medicine, for example, is something like getting to know my body and how do things work and what's best for me. And it's it's never tiring for me. I'm very curious what? Reading, listening to podcasts, for example, try things out. Of course. Nutrition is part of it. Workouts and physical activity has also accompanied me for years is something which helps me for my mental health health primarily, but also for other. Good outcomes it brings with it. I like to dance because that's a form of expression where I'm not thinking about anything. Like I'm not thinking about that meeting or that e-mail I didn't send. That's really one of the. Few activities where I can just let go like running for example from time to time or walking outside in the nature and I have three turtles or it's a turtles because there are land turtles. I got 2 new babies one month ago so they require currently a lot of babysitting. Sometimes they are sitting here next to me because they fall on the back and that's not nice because they might die. So it has been really fun lately, taking them everywhere with me, like when working out and dancing when cooking, when doing everything. It's a nice journey to see how slow pace their life is and how I can incorporate a bit of that in my daily life.

00:04:25 Mark Smith
This is so, so cool as like so many interconnected things that you have going on it. It is very, very interesting. And I love the. The interplay in the communities that you're in and the songs and the, you know, the eating together and stuff like that is is, you know, when I traveled through Russia, one of the things that I noticed is that people inherently love family. You know, and and no matter which culture you go into and I'm coming up 50 different countries I've been to, that's one common thing I always do notice that people love their families and they love to be involved in their families and it's that special time when, you know, they're not working. Tell me more about Albany. Yeah.

00:05:12 Edit Kapcari 
It's an amazing, chaotic marvel, I'd say, because you have a lot of virgin things that are still untouched and unchanged, like nature wise, for example, isolated beaches where it's difficult to build, construct, build, big building. Or something. Uh. Tourist. Related so it's nicely enjoyed when you just drive with your best power your motorbike, because there's no way to reach it otherwise and you can just spend some time there. It's very small country, but it has everything in terms of nature like we have very high mountains and in half an hour from this high mountains you are at the beach. Sometimes there's beach with a hillside on the back, so it's a great. Combination of climate because of course, on top of the hill, it's a bit different compared to when you are by the sea. We have two seas attached our. West coastline and they bring with a different natures of beaches, from very Sandy to pretty rocky. We have a lot of rivers. We have also lakes. So in terms of nature, I really love to be there. The food is delicious. As I said, I eat best when I'm there. It's similar to Italy and Greece, for example. The best Greek sauce. It's of course days is better in Greece and similarly for some dishes that you can just find in Albania. People are very social, which is a bit different. If you see me, I'm a social person, but I'm not like the person who starts things like I need a bit of time to listen and to read the room before I. Ignite anything but that's also great to see because I hear a lot of feedback from people from the community who visited Albania and I gave some tips, for example, because I'm all the time saying, hey, if you're going, let me know, I will make the itinerary for you or you can meet my sister and she can explain everything. They like the hottest. This is the nicest things to visit. I'm all the time, very passionate about people visiting Albania but also colleagues or friends that decide to go there. We are a country that is very opinionated but resistant. It comes from the culture we had because we have been under dictatorship for a lot of years and we first came out. In the 90s and in the beginning, it was chaos. We wanted to be free, but we did not understand actually the option of the concept of freedom because we did a lot of things which have nothing to do with. Freedom and we. Thought that means to have nose and do whatever you want, but we are getting there because I see a lot of people from the power platform. Community that I meet in conferences and they are awesome people. I like their mentality, how they think, how passionate they are about things, and this passion is what sort of differentiates me in a place. Like. Germany. And I am learning in the last years to use that in my favor because if I am convinced about something then I'm very pushy. I'm very passionate. I'm taking people into the journey, convincing them, inspiring, doing everything, understanding. Why didn't that they? They get inspired. What did I miss in the communication? What do I have to do to really? Convince them because. I'm really convinced and I use a lot of that in my career, I would say.

00:08:30 Mark Smith
So so interesting. Tell me about being a sponge and and and and what are you absorbing at the moment? What are you kind of you know, in the last six months, we're halfway through 2025. What are you? What are you getting into? What are you learning that's new. That's kind of stretching your thinking in the last six months?

00:08:53 Edit Kapcari 
Yeah, I like to combine things. For example, what I observed is that if I'm doing something at home, like Saturdays for cleaning. I like to have something in my ears, so I'm listening to something and usually it's podcasts. It might be tech work related and it comes with phases. For example, there's a phase where I'm highly inspired and going deep dive into topics because for me it works best if I want to learn something first. You have to. Listen to a concise summary and version of it and some opinions and some ideas where the journey going. How does it look like? Where are we at? What are the potential risks and opportunities? And then? That is a good place to deep dive in terms of learning and dogs and trying things out and breaking things. So for example, AI of course has been one of the topics I have been highly invested in the last years, like listening a lot, even though that was not. Directly part of the projects that we were doing, we have been experimenting and trying to stay up to date because I think from the beginning. As we have connectors and custom connectors and power automate, it's a very easy simple way to sort of just check what simple models are doing. We started with machine learning back in the days and I had very nice experts in the field who joined my team. We got to understand the power of power platform and I always try to give him the space to experiment with machine learning. And though the hype was not there yet, or we did not see the business value back then, so he kept me up to date and it was a great addition to the team. And of course now more and more with all these type of. Additions and copilots and agents and the the big announcement agentic area era and the UI for AI and generative user interfaces. And this is that and that is that all this type of stuff are things which I like to listen to and have gather perspectives. The community sometimes I'm really overwhelmed by this, so I move on to something which is another interest interest of mine. For example, lately I've been highly invested in mental health. In psychology, it's always been my interest, but lately bit more practical. Like what are some things where you notice, for example, because I'm leading the team of people and I always start my weeklies with how was your weekend? Because we have them on Monday and or what is trusting you. And I have now a very good relationship where they also tell me other things which are not work related that help me a lot. To sort of prioritize and make sure that we have successful and happy projects and happy custom. So I learn and read a lot in that direction. If this also feels a lot of heavy weight, then I go to nutrition or I might just listen to some songs, or I might just bench for example. Sometimes I really need the. The. Pose because I learned to build a relationship with my body. This is something that. This conscious eating brought where I try to listen. How do I feel? Do I feel overwhelmed? Do I feel stressed for nothing, or do I feel like dizzy and not concentrated, unmotivated, for example? So what might be missing in terms of things like how have I been eating Italy? Do I need iron or do I need vitamin D or vitamin B12? For example, but also. Am I doing too much? Am I absorbing too much and do I need something which is completely where I don't need to think so I pinch for example, some Netflix shows which are just junk, but I sort of need. While working out so I watch television running or doing some training, which is also not good. I learned I really have to learn how to be lazy because I'm a person who doesn't know how to be lazy, like just sitting on the couch and doing and thinking about nothing is not my thing or I cannot do it for a long time. But. I learned to not romanticize this parts, and I'm slowly trying to learn how to really relax and focus, not listen anything to anything or thinking about things which is a bit difficult. So I incorporated then yoga and meditation, but in terms of information all the time. Then I have my for example. Typical podcasts I listen to. For example, I like to listen to your podcast. I like to listen to the announcements. Then when we are close to those. Speak. Big support, sort of. Summarize announcements because they are announcing every time, but the top five top 10 from Lisa, for example, in YouTube in the morning while brushing my teeth and getting ready. Or I have some interesting political podcasts in German for example because it helps a lot with German. I'm speaking on a daily basis German and I need to improve it. So I'm a person who wants to be better than I was yesterday, so I'm what I'm thinking. What's my interest? How can I combine it with some? Anything else and where it's enough of from the tech, tech perspective or work perspective and where I can add something else in order to reboot, relax, and come in with new energies because I know that we are not all time hyped and overly motivated.

00:14:20 Mark Smith
Tell me about meditation.

00:14:22 Edit Kapcari 
Difficult for a person like me. It's very difficult, especially if you think that you have to do it a certain way. So what it means for me? It's I wake up in the morning, I prepare my turtles because they like a morning bath. Like at 7-7 something. They are bathing in the balcony. Now it's summer. It's really hot, by the way. Today it's one of the hottest day in Germany. We have like 38°. That's why I'm drinking. I run. And while they enjoy their bathing time, I have a nap. Which is for free and have some has some meditations in there different length from 5 minutes to 20 minutes or you have to decide what what how much time you have to put it in in your day. So I put it in I just sit in a comfortable a comfortable place sometimes I. Observe my turtle. Sometimes I'm I manage to. So. Leave a lot of thoughts away sometimes I think. Ohh. Great. Now I will start the day and I have to do these things first and this I have to prioritize. That's not a very good meditation, of course, because you are bringing in actions. So it's it depends. It's just you have, you just have to do it like just do it every day like brushing your teeth, put it in your calendar and then you will see the effect with the time, which means that you will. Observe yourself more like if there's a conflict or something instead of getting. Heated and reacting on the moment, you might think. Where's the other person coming from? Why am I, for example, being so stressed about it? Why am I so triggered? Should I define a call to action now or better to sleep one night over it and come up with a solution which is best for both and also this? Of there is not US against each other. There is US against the conflict or problem or whatever it might arise, or let's find ways to. Solve it together and I think there it helped because I'm. I'm coming from Balkans and we are known to be. Hot blooded? And passionate and impulsive like acting in the moment and loud and everything. So it was a learning process. We never had a communication course at university or at school, so finding it out the first time when you were working like in the industry, it's a bit late. But it has been very helpful.

00:17:10 Mark Smith
So interesting. Tell me. I know you're big on mentorship in the tech space. Tell me about about how you think about mentorship and helping people in their tech careers.

00:17:23 Edit Kapcari 
I see it. I didn't have a. Straightforward. Let's say a career I didn't know I would be doing what I'm doing. And I did not like what I started. So I studied computer science and I was sort of programmed to always deliver. So I was high top in class and high results everywhere, which was not an indicator of anything because I finished and I didn't like it. I always loved medicine, but I went to tech. Because I back then I made mini job market evaluation and I saw you are best paid if you go in that direction. And I had my first job. I was sort of crying very often at the toilet because I didn't like to spend my day sitting in front of the PC trying to debug something. An error that I could use. So I was thinking, hey, are you doing the right thing? And then I switched. Jobs started working at Orbis, completely new in the Microsoft technology. It was an unsolicited application I saw they are doing SAP and Microsoft and the Microsoft team had the first interview with me, so I landed in the Microsoft space and then dynamic space. And there I started to understand the products and I was working with teams and also developing in the beginning I was a developer from scripting plugins as it usually is. I liked it, but again I felt. I needed more. So. I sort of. I'm a person who notices things like I'm a person who observes a lot and listens a lot. So this gives me this opportunity to identify some things which might not be working as they should. So I'm also a person who criticizes a lot. So I had very open conversations with my chefs and every. When I saw something and they gave me this space, which was great, and I know it's not something that every company gives you. So this is one of. The things and flexibilities I highly appreciate it arvis. And then I participated in a hackathon. It was my first. I cried before going there because I thought, what are you doing? Hackathons. Are you good enough? And they had it crunched with conference participation, so they were next to each other and one was in Munich. The other one was in Berlin. So it was difficult logistically speaking, but also in terms of focusing your energies and what are we going to do? I entered there and I was girl #3 in 120 participants. So the heart rate went up and we managed. I remember the solution was called log trends and it was a combination of our automated custom connector, very simple canvas application and machine learning. So what you do, you get some parameters. I want to transport goods that need to be refrigerated or not from A to B. What are? What are the best rate options so it calculates in the background based on some data that we had some dummy data which is the best route and then it visualizes you like what is it lists you the top optimal routes to book. And we were like, uh, they liked our solution because it was business. Related. So we had to present it in front of the general manager of Microsoft and France back then, and I was a bit introduced in the Microsoft world, the viewer and this imposter syndrome became a bit more manageable. And. Working with technology, they came back to our business, said we have to do a hackathon about power platform this thing, let's check it out. Let's say yeah, let's see if you push it forward. So I got also the freedom to see if this thing will fly and will be business relevant for us because we have a lot of experts since yours like we have dinosaurs, Orbis, who worked with the first version. They had they build their own CRM and then they went with the options that Microsoft offered. So we have a lot of knowledge, especially in the CRM space at orbit. So they are all the time and also this German mentality like they are not very expensive and they they observe and they are not easily convinced. So they check they try things. How they might say I have no idea, but they have tried a lot of stuff in the background so they are not all time loudly showing off and they are all time evaluating so they said yeah, check and see if this is something that might lie and then I started building my team. And I had to know how to make these people. Follow culture. So I also had the freedom to understand what type of people do I want to work with. What type of culture do I want in my team and I wanted sponges. I wanted people who are not afraid to read, to learn, to expand, to try things out, even if it's scary. Even if they think they can't, even if it's untrue. Like try it out, stay involved, and see how the journey goes. If it flops, it's great. You learn something, you can move on, you can shift. You can. See that you can. And I also learned, do I keep them in the lab because I'm with all these in a? Day stuff or do I? Put them in the arena, for example. For me what worked out is sometimes I also do a lot of do with myself. I just drop myself into something having no idea about it. For example, in a in the sea, without knowing how to swim. And then I see how I manage and I drop them all the time, but observe observing them like how are they doing and when when they. First, raise your hand, say hey I need. Help. And then I came. I explained why I did that. And what we learned and what can we do? For example, they face their first challenge. So I had to bring in another colleague from another team to support. Because sometimes if you are working with people who are coming from fresh from the university did not program there, they decided for example. Media Informatics, which is not a lot of programming and now they are working with a tool which, in my eyes, if you want to do it right, then you have to involve some clean code and. This for example error handling and fall back being considered all these type of patterns which are very important if you really want to think a solution through and not just it works and I'm happy and. I did it. So I had to bring in also help from other colleagues. I thought that could help in order to. Find a solution together and they grow. They help they. Feel better about themselves to build the first solution and then of course, when it's the time to put them in real projects and not just leave them in the lab, let's say because of course I think it's important from the beginning to have a base, but at some point you have to move somewhere else and then building a community internally. For me, it's very important to have a community. Stick. We have offices everywhere. We have people who are building something, not just in the Microsoft space, but also in the SAP space. So I thought, let's. To meet up, I live in a countryside in a sort of a very hidden place in Germany, so there's a lot of not a lot of community things going on. So I saw the need to build something like if it doesn't exist, do it. Yourself. So I built internally a community where I invited all our enthusiasts from Austria, from Switzerland or from other teams that are doing also some other stuff, and we meet on a weekly basis. We talk about problems we had. Sometimes we solve problems in the meeting. We talk about highlights like what did I. You're reading LinkedIn or whatever, which I would like to share with you because I know that it's valuable. Information. Sometimes we have topics which are being presented. For example I tried this PCF here or I tried this custom page here or I'm experimenting a bit with this agent and this is how it looks like. Or have you seen the news at build? I want to give you a concise summary how I saw and how I perceived stuff. So it's a very nice weekly meeting where we sit for one hour. And we talk everything about power platform. I had to build this for my team and I would like to share the same knowledge I gained in the process because there was a lot of learnings like what I did right, where it took a lot of more time and what I can improve and we're going. To be a bit more efficient. And of course. Putting these in framework, I have a community building framework for power platform that it can apply. Its its technology agnostic in my opinion which I share with my customers. But I also learned how great the community is out there, especially how approaching and how friendly and how helpful those people are. Like we, they really grab you and say, hey, we think you can, you fit income like it's not that you have to ask or see. Do I even if you're scared they are amazing like I didn't know as an outsider I thought. A lot of Divas and I don't know how they are and I don't know if I. Then, but I experienced something completely different and now for example, I have people saying, hey, do you want to mentor? This or hey. I saw you. I'm following you for years and I'm getting started. What do you do when I say? Let's get up. Chat like let's sit together and see. Get to know each other because I have to know more and I think you experience more when talking to people and I can just see how I can help. So my trajectory was not straight. Word and this helped me understand that we might come from different. We all bring our perspectives. I usually say we are working perspectives because we live all in our virtual world. How we perceive things. We don't know how the reality looks like. We know how we perceive it and. A lot of things chat here or meeting the right person. There can really influence can you can really give you that push. Like I like to be a pushy person. I am a push person and. It feels great when you help people, so I also learned that that if you do good, it's.

00:27:28 Mark Smith
It it. It is being so interesting. Hearing your story, I feel like I could listen for another hour. But our time is up. So thank you so much for coming on the show and I know I saw you in person. What, 3 or 4 weeks ago? Hopefully it won't be too long and.

00:27:44 Edit Kapcari 
I'll see you again. I hope that too. And it has been great, Mark. Thanks a lot.

00:27:52 Mark Smith
Hey, thanks for listening on your host business, Application MVP, Mark Smith, otherwise known as the nz365guy. If you like the show and want to be a supporter, check out buy me a coffee.com/nz365guy. Thanks again and see you next time.