Building Apps Using Amazon's Alexa and Lex

Alexa Skills and Lex Chatbots

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Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google Now - voice-activated personal assistants are one of the hottest trends in technology these days. They are a great way to convey complex information to your customers in a free-flowing, conversational way. Alexa is a great way to build them - an AWS service for building conversational interfaces for Echo, FireTV and a host of Alexa-aware devices.

  • Alexa and Lex are state-of-the-art, with support for new devices being added all the time
  • Powered by a deep learning based engine that parses user voice and resolves the contents of user utterances to API calls and parameter values
  • No deep learning or natural language processing expertise is needed to build even complex voice and chat apps
  • Provides an intuitive way of specifying the conversational interface
  • Automatically and dynamically adjusts conversational responses
  • Easy to build, test and publish app

In the sections on Alexa we will cover:

  • The big picture - voice and text interfaces and current trends in human-computer interaction
  • How Alexa, Lex, Echo and the other bits of the Amazon ecosystem come together
  • Interaction models: Utterances, intents, slots, prompts and their resolution into API calls
  • Fulfilment models: Using AWS Lambdas to fulfil user intents, and how AWS lambdas provide smooth, no-ops, auto-scaling code endpoints

In the sections on Lex we will cover:

  • Interaction models: Utterances, intents, slots, prompts and their resolution into API calls
  • Fulfilment models: Using AWS Lambdas to fulfil user intents, and how AWS lambdas provide smooth, no-ops, auto-scaling code endpoints
  • Third-party integration: How a chatbot can be added to your Slack workspace


Your Instructor(s)


Loonycorn
Loonycorn

Loonycorn is us, Janani Ravi and Vitthal Srinivasan. Between us, we have studied at Stanford, been admitted to IIM Ahmedabad and have spent years working in tech, in the Bay Area, New York, Singapore and Bangalore.

Janani: 7 years at Google (New York, Singapore); Studied at Stanford; also worked at Flipkart and Microsoft

Vitthal: Also Google (Singapore) and studied at Stanford; Flipkart, Credit Suisse and INSEAD too

We think we might have hit upon a neat way of teaching complicated tech courses in a funny, practical, engaging way, which is why we are so excited to be here on Udemy!

We hope you will try our offerings, and think you'll like them :-)


Course Curriculum


  Introduction
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  Alexa Basics: Eco-system and Skill Concepts
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  Build a Basic Alexa Skill
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  Multi-turn Dialogs for Rich Conversation
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  Persist State Across Sessions
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  Build a Flash Briefing Skill
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  Introducing Lex
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  Interaction Models in Amazon Lex
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  Fulfilment Models in Amazon Lex
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  Third-party Apps: Chatbots in Slack
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Frequently Asked Questions


When does the course start and finish?
The course starts now and never ends! It is a completely self-paced online course - you decide when you start and when you finish.
How long do I have access to the course?
How does lifetime access sound? After enrolling, you have unlimited access to this course for as long as you like - across any and all devices you own.
What if I am unhappy with the course?
We would never want you to be unhappy! If you are unsatisfied with your purchase, contact us in the first 30 days and we will give you a full refund.