Anand Chowdhary

Netherlands Netherlands

I'm a technology entrepreneur, engineer, designer, and GitHub Star. I'm currently building FirstQuadrant, an all-in-one AI sales platform funded by Y Combinator, and contributing to open source. Previously, I founded rent-to-own furniture with interior design startup Pabio and accessibility technology company Oswald Labs that started as an open source hackathon project. I use open source code as a way of scratching my own itch; most of my 100+ repositories are tools to solve problems or experiments with new ideas, including Upptime, an uptime monitor and status page built on top of GitHub Actions. it has 15k+ stars and was one of the first projects that mentored students under the GitHub Externship.

Community Contributions

Developer to Founder at Coding Ninjas 10X Club

Presented to 200 developers at the Coding Ninjas 10X Club, this talk is a journey from being a developer to becoming a tech entrepreneur. Anand shares insights from his experience as an engineer, designer, and entrepreneur who co-founded ventures like San Francisco-based FirstQuadrant, backed by Y Combinator. Drawing on his accomplishments, including features in Forbes 30 Under 30 and GitHub Stars, the talk emphasizes leveraging open source, standing out in the job market, and career growth strategies. It inspires developers to identify opportunities, embrace innovative ideas, and take actionable steps to transition into leadership roles while addressing market and technology trends.
Speaking (conference/usergroups) / 01-03-2025

AI Community Day

I'm speaking at AI Community Day, where all the AI developers come together to geek out and share what they know about artificial intelligence on how we test and deploy prompts at FirstQuadrant. The talk will provide a detailed walkthrough of the system's architecture, highlighting its capabilities in versioning, models, and testing methodologies. Key focus areas include the mechanism of comparing new prompt versions against historical data, the intricacies of implementing full logging, and the strategies for analyzing and optimizing token costs. This talk is tailored for a technical audience, aiming to share practical insights and techniques in prompt engineering that can be applied in other AI and machine learning contexts.
Speaking (conference/usergroups) / 12-10-2024

GitHub Stars @ GitHub Universe and Day 0

I had the amazing opportunity to connect with the global GitHub community at the Stars Lounge during GitHub Universe this year. As a GitHub Star recipient, I got to meet fellow Stars from around the world, share experiences over coffee, and chat with developers curious about the Stars program. It was incredibly energizing to spend time with the GitHub team and other Stars while helping introduce new developers to this wonderful community that recognizes open source contributors and technical content creators.
Speaking (conference/usergroups) / 10-28-2024

Build your own Copilot Workspace using Copilot Workspace

I love tinkering with AI tools, so I recorded a step-by-step video showing how I built a mini version of GitHub Copilot Workspace from scratch. In this talk, I demonstrate how to combine GitHub Actions with OpenAI's Assistants API to create an AI assistant that automatically turns GitHub issues into pull requests. You'll see exactly how I set up the workflow, handle the API interactions, and get the AI to understand and modify code in your repository. Whether you're curious about AI automation or looking to streamline your development workflow, this practical demo will show you how surprisingly simple it can be to build your own AI-powered development tools.
Speaking (conference/usergroups) / 05-12-2024

Smol GitHub Workspace

I wanted to experiment with AI-powered code automation, so I built a miniature version of GitHub Copilot Workspace using GitHub Actions and the OpenAI Assistants API. When you create an issue in your repository describing a change you want (like "make the button text red"), the workflow automatically spins up an AI assistant that reads your codebase, makes the requested changes, and creates a pull request for you to review. It's a simple but powerful demonstration of how AI can streamline the development workflow by handling routine code changes automatically. I also recorded a talk to go along with this project.
Open source project / 05-07-2024

#OpenSourceFriday

I turned my need for a simple uptime monitoring solution into an open source project that runs entirely on GitHub's infrastructure, and I'm excited to share the journey! Join me and Kedasha Kerr (@itsthatladydev) for #OpenSourceFriday where I'll walk through how Upptime uses GitHub Actions, Issues, and Pages to monitor websites and generate status pages - no external services required. Whether you're curious about building with GitHub Actions or interested in creating zero-cost developer tools, I'll share the technical decisions, challenges, and lessons learned while building a tool that's now used by thousands of developers to monitor their sites.
Video/Podcast / 03-01-2024

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