MCP in 30 Minutes: Give Claude Real Tools

Hosted by Aki Wijesundara and Manu Jayawardana

Thu, Jun 25, 2026

9:00 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

Free to join

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AI Engineering Bootcamp & Certificate
Aki Wijesundara, PhD and Manu Jayawardana
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What you'll learn

What MCP is, plainly

The whole idea of MCP without the spec language, so you see why it matters for real work.

Connect Claude to a live tool

Plug in one MCP server and watch Claude use it to do something it could not do on its own.

Where the line is

What MCP handles, what it does not, and how to think about which tools to connect first.

Why this topic matters

A chatbot that can only talk is limited. The moment it can read a database, hit an API, or touch your files, it starts doing real work. In this free 30 minute session you see what MCP is in plain terms and connect Claude to an actual tool, then watch it use that tool to answer something it could not before. We wire up one MCP server live and ask Claude to do something only that tool makes possible. You leave knowing how MCP turns Claude from a talker into something that can act on your systems.

You'll learn from

Aki Wijesundara

AI Advisor | Educator | Google AI Accelerator Alum

Aki Wijesundara is an AI leader with a PhD in Machine Learning and extensive experience mentoring startups at Google’s AI Accelerator. With a career spanning both research and applied AI, Aki has taught 5,000+ students worldwide how to design and deploy production-ready AI systems.

He has worked across cutting-edge areas of applied AI, from LangChain and RAG pipelines to observability and large-scale deployment. As a researcher and educator, Aki bridges the gap between theory and practice, making complex systems approachable and actionable for engineers, founders, and product leaders.

Aki is also a frequent speaker and advisor to organizations adopting AI, helping them transition from experimentation to production at scale.

Manu Jayawardana

AI Founder | Co-Founder & CEO at Krybe | Co-Founder of Snapdrum

Manu Jayawardana is a serial entrepreneur with multiple AI startup successes.

He is also the Co-Founder of Snapdrum, an AI consultancy helping companies integrate and automate their businesses using AI. Through Snapdrum, Manu has worked with top startups and enterprises across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, advising on automation, product development, and AI strategy.

Currently, Manu is the Co-Founder & CEO of Krybe, an AI voice agent startup in London transforming how businesses automate customer interactions. His experience spans fundraising, scaling products, and leading teams to deliver production-grade AI solutions adopted globally.

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