Local Models 101: Running AI on Your Laptop

You keep hearing you can run AI models on your own laptop — but which models, on what hardware, and how good are they really?

This first edition of AI for Devs Athens is a hands-on primer on running LLMs locally. In 45 minutes we'll go from "what even is a local model" to knowing exactly what you can run on the machine you already own — no cloud, no API keys, no data leaving your laptop.

It's a technical talk, but not a deep one: if you're a curious hobbyist you'll walk out able to download and run your first model tonight; if you're a developer you'll leave with the mental model to reason about size, memory and performance.

What we'll cover:

• What local models are, and why you'd run one on your own machine
• Model size vs performance — and how to tell what your hardware can handle
• The tools that make it easy to get started
• A live demo: running a model from scratch

Who it's for:
developers, tinkerers and hobbyists curious about AI. No ML background needed, you can just show up.

About the speaker:
Filippos Karailanidis is an AI coach at ByteRail, where he helps companies and professionals adopt AI in their processes. Behind the consulting sits 10+ years of software engineering across frontend, backend and DevOps, and 5 years leading development
teams. He's enthusiastic about the AI ecosystem but still believes vibe-coding must be exercised with restraint. He co-organizes AI for Devs Athens to bring that ecosystem closer to the local developer community.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/filkaris/