Helps launch LSU's first course on building LLM applications
Joins the inaugural cohort of the LSU Honors course on large language model applications, the class where FarmSmart, now FarmMind, was built.
BATON ROUGE, La. · In the fall of 2023, LSU's Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College launched one of the first university courses in the country on building applications with large language models: HNRS 3035, Large Language Model Development and Deployment for Real-World Applications. Raby was selected for its inaugural cohort, which learned about, researched and built LLM applications with tools that were only months old.Taught by LSU Provost Roy Haggerty with James Ghawaly and Henry Hays; Michael Blandino also helped bring the course together.
His team (Raby, Cody Flurry, Grant Muslow and Jackson Joyce, sponsored by Prof. Stephenson of the LSU AgCenter) built FarmSmart AI, which gives Louisiana farmers a personalized herbicide-management plan for their crop and field based on the weeds growing in it. It was the beginning of the company now called FarmMind.
The semester closed with LSU's first AI Showcase at the LSU Foundation, where the teams presented to leaders from IBM, Shell, Our Lady of the Lake, LSU Health Sciences Center, the LSU AgCenter and LSU's Office of Research and Economic Development. WAFB covered the showcase and spoke with Raby:
"There's something that's been said multiple times throughout the class, which is that AI will not replace any jobs, but those using AI will. And it's really great to see how LSU is using the initiative to help prepare students to use this new technology."
The next semester, he returned to the course as its teaching assistant.
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