Again, Global Azure Days 2025 Skopje has proven to be a remarkable event for technology professionals and enthusiasts. This year, it was held on May 10th, at familiar location – INNOX Innovation Centre. This was the third time, Global Azure initiative visits North Macedonia.
The event, known for its community-driven focus, offers a unique opportunity to engage with experts on Microsoft Azure cloud. This year, a humanitarian note was woven into the event – dedicated to supporting those affected by the devastating fire tragedy in the city of Kočani.
The Skopje edition of this global event featured six sessions within a single track, covering various aspects of Azure and cloud technology. This format is designed to give attendees an intensive, informative experience that dives deep into technical content and practical applications of Azure services. The sessions were also streamed live, through the YouTube channel of one of the friends/supporters: Base42.
The Organizers of the Event
The Macedonian .Net Community and Macedonian IT Pro User Group, pulled up the resources no only to organize this event for the technology’s sake, but also gave it a humanitarian note. They approached SupportKocani, one of the NGO’s helping the families and those affected by this tragedy to channel the collected funds, from the attendees, as well as the friends and supporters of the event.
They also had huge support from Andon Dragomanov, Mile Grujovski and Darko Milevski, from Macedonian .NET Community group (not present on the photo above).
The community, as well as companies and individuals, from – 42.mk – Base42, Adopt Intelligence, Success IT, SupportKocani, InnoX, Axapta Masters, Init, MCA.dev, Tarmac.IO, CodeChem Inc, ITuziast, IT.mk, Doniraj Kompjuter, Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors took part and supported the organization of this event.
Digital Donations Box
With support of eCrowd, a digital donation box has been set up, where attendees as well as everyone that want to help can donate All funds will be transparently donated to the families affected by the fire in Kočani. With this decision, we want to show solidarity and readiness to join in supporting and helping all those who need it most now.
The donation box will be open till May 18th, so please visit the web site and donate: Global Azure Skopje 2025 donation box.
Global Azure Days 2025 Skopje Agenda
- Keynote and opening session
Speaker: Miodrag Cekikj (Macedonian .NET Community Group)
Speaker: Nenad Ristov (SupportKocani team) - Introduction to GitHub Copilot for Azure
Speakers: Marko Atanasov, Bojan Ivanovski (Gold Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors) - Rage Against The Machine Learning
Speaker: Vekoslav Stefanovski (Macedonian .NET Community Group) - Macedonian .NET Community Group
Speaker: Vlatko Ivanovski (Macedonian .NET Community Group) - Migration to Azure – Patterns and Antipatterns
Spaker: Dimitar Grozdanov (Macedonian ITPro User Group) - Azure Container Apps: Is It the Best Cloud-Native Alternative for .NET Developers?
Spaker: Miroslav Janeski (Macedonian .NET Community Group) - Orchestrating Collaborative Agent Clusters with Semantic Kernel and Azure AI
Speaker: Miodrag Cekikj (Macedonian .NET Community Group)
The complete event schedule is on the Global Azure 2025 Skopje event website.
Keynote and opening session
Keynote speaker Miodrag Cekikj, opened the event by emphasizing its humanitarian focus in light of the recent tragedy in Kočani, dedicating the gathering to support those affected by the devastating fire. He expressed deep respect and gratitude to all attendees, supporters, and donators, on behalf of the event organizers, acknowledging their vital role in making this meaningful, community-driven event possible.
The audience observed a moment of silence, in memory of the 63 people, that tragically lost their lives during the devastating fire in the night club, on March 16th.
After that, Nenad Ristov from SupportKocani shared the story of how everything began. A group of passionate, resourceful, and courageous people from Kočani, quickly came together to support those in urgent need after the tragedy. Nenad walked us through their process for setting up a web platform to enable donations. They took a Lean approach, focusing on what mattered most, cutting out the unnecessary, and delivering what people needed in those critical days and weeks.
Session 1: Introduction to GitHub Copilot for Azure
Marko Atanasov and Bojan Ivanovski, both members of the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors program, explained the power of GitHub Copilot for Azure. They showed how GitHub Copilot for Azure, transforms development workflow by bringing AI-powered guidance, resource management, and deployment directly into your Visual Studio Code editor. If you are not using it, you are already behind your mates who are.
Session 2: Rage Against the Machine Learning
The Jedi Wekoslav Stefanovski discussed the fear of developers that AI and machines will replace developers. He walked us trough AI’s impact on software development, arguing for thoughtful adoption rather than blind acceptance. It explores how over-reliance on AI tools can weaken programming skills and critical thinking, while highlighting areas where human judgment remains essential—particularly in security, architecture, and debugging.
“Naaaah,” the Jedi has spoken. We are just moving from one way of working to another. We are accelerating things and adding one more layer of automation on top. So, be ready for the next era of software development initiated by the beautiful world of Machine Learning, for which the math was articulated long ago.
Session 3: Azure Adventures: The Quest for the Well-Architected Framework
Vlatko Ivanovski is a proactive engineer who takes a few steps to mitigate the risks. Applying or using a framework, or a set of rules, processes, methods, and mechanisms, can be a good approach. Knowing who is doing what, when, and how can help avoid scenarios that can cost a lot. He did a quite insightful overview of Azure Well-Architected Framework, covering the five pillars with examples from real life.
Session 4: Migration to Azure: Patterns and Anti-patterns
Dimitar Grozdanov, an Azure consultant and trainer, discussed the good practices of the migration process to the Azure cloud platform and specific services, but also covered the subjects of anti-patterns – a commonly used solution to a recurring problem that appears effective at first but is actually ineffective and often counterproductive in the long run. This was based on Dimitar’s observations, acquired during various migration projects he was involved.
Session 5: Azure Container Apps: Is it the best cloud-native alternative for .NET Developers?
The cloud-native initiative aims to maintain cloud-agnostic principles, reduce technical debt, and bridge the gap between local development and cloud deployment. Hands-on minded Miroslav Janeski covered subjects related to Azure Container Apps, carefully comparing them with alternatives such as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Functions, and Azure App Services.
The attendees gained insights and practical knowledge to confidently determine whether Azure Container Apps is the optimal cloud-native alternative for their .NET development needs.
Session 6: Orchestrating Collaborative Agent Clusters With Semantic Kernel and Azure AI
Agent Smith: “Tell me, Mr. Anderson… what good is a phone call… if you’re unable to speak?”
Do you remember this quote? Of course you are. The legendary movie, The Matrix. Agents are the future’s most reliable workers, and Miodrag Cekikj (AI Master) the orchestration of a cluster of agents, was sharing with the audience what Agents are and getting deeper into the idea of how agents can be organized and orchestrated into a cluster so that you get top-notch professionals working together toward one goal that you, dear prompt engineer, will need to take the baton.
He went hands on into architectural patterns that enable autonomous agent teamwork, where multiple AI minds unite to tackle complex challenges that would overwhelm the capabilities of any single agent. “Think AI orchestra, not solo performer” – as he puts it.
Hint: And yeah, if you still haven’t watched The Matrix, you’d better subscribe to your favorite streaming service and watch it.
Closing session
Vlatko Ivanovski shared the story about what it took to organize Global Azure Skopje 2025. As we understood, it takes:
- A good friendship;
- Passion for technologies;
- Willingness to share your knowledge;
- Experience to inform the community about what’s going on and what’s next in the beautiful world of machines.
The Venue: InnoX Innovation Centre
The location of the event was the venue of Innox Innovation Centre in Skopje. It is a great co-working space, and venue for such events.
Friends and Supporters of the Event
The event successfully hosted over 120 participants on site, and another 263 who followed the life stream.
ITuziast was the event’s media partner. (You can view the event’s complete photo gallery on ITuziast’s Flickr profile.)
Conclusion
Once again, Global Azure Days 2025 Skopje, showcased dynamic and collaborative nature of the IT community in North Macedonia. This event highlighted the local tech community’s expertise and enthusiasm for Microsoft Azure technologies and fostered connections among industry professionals. Sessions were tailored to address both foundational and advanced aspects of Azure services.
As the third iteration of this globally organized, locally held event, showed its “Tech” side, it also had a humanitarian note.
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