All posts by Taylor Jacobsen

Introducing Our Final AWS Heroes of 2025

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-our-final-aws-heroes-of-2025/

With AWS re:Invent approaching, we’re celebrating three exceptional AWS Heroes whose diverse journeys and commitment to knowledge sharing are empowering builders worldwide. From advancing women in tech and rural communities to bridging academic and industry expertise and pioneering enterprise AI solutions, these leaders exemplify the innovative spirit that drives our community forward. Their stories showcase how technical excellence, combined with passionate advocacy and mentorship, strengthens the global AWS community.

Dimple Vaghela – Ahmedabad, India

Community Hero Dimple Vaghela leads both the AWS User Group Ahmedabad and AWS User Group Vadodara, where she drives cloud education and technical growth across the region. Her impact spans organizing numerous AWS meetups, workshops, and AWS Community Days that have helped thousands of learners advance their cloud careers. Dimple launched the “Cloud for Her” project to empower girls from rural areas in technology careers and serves as co-organizer of the Women in Tech India User Group. Her exceptional leadership and community contributions were recognized at AWS re:Invent 2024 with the AWS User Group Leader Award in the Ownership category, while she continues building a more inclusive cloud community through speaking, mentoring, and organizing impactful tech events.

Rola Dali – Montreal, Canada

Community Hero Rola Dali is a senior Data, ML, and AI expert specializing in AWS cloud, bringing unique perspective from her PhD in neuroscience and bioinformatics with expertise in human genomics. As co-organizer of the AWS Montreal User Group and a former AWS Community Builder, her commitment to the cloud community earned her the prestigious Golden Jacket recognition in 2024. She actively shapes the tech community by architecting AWS solutions, sharing knowledge through blogs and lectures, and mentoring women entering tech, academics transitioning to industry, and students starting their careers.

Vivek Velso – Toronto, Canada

Machine Learning Hero Vivek Velso is a seasoned technology leader with over 27 years of IT industry experience, specializing in helping organizations modernize their cloud infrastructure for generative AI workloads. His deep AWS expertise earned him the prestigious Golden Jacket award for completing all AWS certifications, and he actively contributes to the AWS Subject Matter Expert (SME) program for multiple certification exams. A former AWS Community Builder and AWS Ambassador, he continues to share his knowledge through more than 100 technical blogs, articles, conference engagements, and AWS livestreams, helping the community confidently embrace cloud innovation.

Learn More

Visit the AWS Heroes webpage if you’d like to learn more about the AWS Heroes program, or to connect with a Hero near you.

— Taylor

Meet our newest AWS Heroes — August 2025

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/meet-our-newest-aws-heroes-august-2025/

We are excited to announce the latest cohort of AWS Heroes, recognized for their exceptional contributions and technical leadership. These passionate individuals represent diverse regions and technical specialties, demonstrating notable expertise and dedication to knowledge sharing within the AWS community. From AI and machine learning to serverless architectures and security, our new Heroes showcase the breadth of cloud innovation while fostering inclusive and engaging technical communities. Join us in welcoming these community leaders who are helping to shape the future of cloud computing and inspiring the next generation of AWS builders.

Kristine Armiyants – Masis, Armenia

Community Hero Kristine Armiyants is a software engineer and cloud support engineer who transitioned into technology from a background in finance, having earned an MBA before becoming self-taught in software development. As the founder and leader of AWS User Group Armenia for over 2.5 years, she has transformed the local tech landscape by organizing Armenia’s first AWS Community Day, scaling it from 320 to 440+ attendees, and leading a team that brings international-scale events to her country. Through her technical articles in Armenian, hands-on workshops, and “no-filter” blog series, she makes cloud knowledge more accessible while mentoring new user group organizers and early-career engineers. Her dedication to community building has resulted in five new AWS Community Builders from Armenia, demonstrating her commitment to creating inclusive spaces for learning and growth in the AWS community.

Nadia Reyhani – Perth, Australia

Machine Learning Hero Nadia Reyhani is an AI Product Engineer who integrates DevOps best practices with machine learning systems. She is a former AWS Community Builder and regularly presents at AWS events on building scalable AI solutions using Amazon SageMaker and Bedrock. As a Women in Digital Ambassador, she combines technical expertise with advocacy, creating inclusive spaces for underrepresented groups in cloud and AI technologies.

Raphael Manke – Karlsruhe, Germany

DevTools Hero Raphael Manke is a Senior Product Engineer at Dash0 and the creator of the unofficial AWS re:Invent planner, which is used to help build a schedule for the event. With a decade of AWS experience, he specializes in serverless technologies and DevTools that streamline cloud development. As the organizer of the AWS User Group in Karlsruhe and a former AWS Community Builder, he actively contributes to product enhancement through public speaking and direct collaboration with AWS service teams. His commitment to the AWS community spans from local user group leadership to providing valuable feedback to service teams.

Rowan Udell – Brisbane, Australia

Security Hero Rowan Udell is an independent AWS security consultant specializing in AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). He has been sharing AWS security expertise for over a decade through books, blog posts, meet-ups, workshops, and conference presentations. Rowan has taken part in many AWS community programs, was an AWS Community Builder for four years, and is part of the AWS Community Day Australia Organizing Committee. A frequent speaker at AWS events including Sydney Summit and other community meetups, Rowan is known for transforming complex security concepts into simple, practical, and workable solutions for businesses securing their AWS environments.

Sangwoon (Chris) Park – Seoul, Korea

Serverless Hero Sangwoon (Chris) Park leads development at RECON Labs, an AI startup specializing in AI-driven 3D content generation. He is a former AWS Community Builder and the creator of “AWS Classroom” YouTube channel, and he shares practical serverless architecture knowledge with the AWS community. Chris hosts monthly AWS Classroom Meetups and the AWS KRUG Serverless Small Group, actively promoting serverless technologies through community events and educational content.

Toshal Khawale – Pune, India

Community Hero Toshal Khawale is an experienced technology leader with over 22 years of expertise in engineering and AWS cloud technology, holding 12 AWS certifications that demonstrate his cloud knowledge. As a Managing Director at PwC, Toshal guides organizations through cloud transformation, digital innovation, and application modernization initiatives, having led numerous large-scale AWS migrations and generative AI implementations. He was an AWS Community Builder for six years and continues to serve as the AWS User Group Pune Leader, actively fostering community engagement and knowledge sharing. Through his roles as a mentor, frequent speaker, and advocate, Toshal helps organizations maximize their AWS investments while staying at the forefront of cloud technology trends.

Learn More

Visit the AWS Heroes webpage if you’d like to learn more about the AWS Heroes program, or to connect with a Hero near you.

— Taylor

Introducing our newest 2025 AWS Heroes cohort

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-our-newest-2025-aws-heroes-cohort/

The AWS community is a vibrant network of innovators, problem-solvers, and thought leaders who drive cloud technology forward. Today, we’re excited to shine a spotlight on three exceptional individuals who embody the spirit of innovation, knowledge-sharing, and community building. From architecting scalable solutions for millions of users to fostering inclusive tech groups, these professionals are making notable contributions within the AWS community. Let’s give them a warm welcome!

Christian Bonzelet – Cologne, Germany

DevTools Hero Christian Bonzelet is an AWS Solutions Architect at Bundesliga and creator of promptz.dev (a specialized prompt library for Amazon Q Developer). He brings over a decade of media and entertainment industry expertise to the AWS community. Since his first AWS project in 2013, architecting a high-scale voting system for a major German television broadcast, Christian has been passionate about AWS, serverless architecture, and AI/ML technologies. He excels at helping teams optimize their AWS implementations and develop business-aligned solutions, particularly when designing highly scalable systems serving millions of users. Known for his collaborative approach to system design and architecture, Christian actively shares his insights and experiences with the AWS community.

David Victoria – Monterrey, Mexico

Community Hero David Victoria is a senior cloud architect at Caylent. He has a Master’s in Cybersecurity and a Computer Science degree, and nine AWS certifications. With over a decade of experience delivering secure, cost-effective, and scalable solutions, David leads the AWS User Group Monterrey and helps organize the AWS Community Day México, creating spaces where thousands of builders connect and grow. His commitment to mentoring the next generation of cloud professionals across Latin America reflects his belief that “your network is your net worth.” Beyond his technical expertise, David is dedicated to fostering meaningful relationships within the AWS community, whether through public speaking, community leadership, or technical consulting.

Nora Schöner – Erlangen, Germany

DevTools Hero Nora Schöner is a senior cloud engineer with diverse industry experience who specializes in cloud architecture and DevOps. Her expertise in site reliability engineering and infrastructure as code helps teams build robust, accessible systems for both developers and stakeholders. Nora has been actively involved with AWS User Groups since 2016, co-organizing the AWS User Group Nuremberg and contributing to the AWS Community DACH Support Association. She founded She ‘n IT Nuremberg to connect women in tech and shares her unique blend of cloud technology expertise and manga art passion through her blog at wolkencode.de.

Learn More

Visit the AWS Heroes website if you’d like to learn more about the AWS Heroes program, or to connect with a Hero near you.

— Taylor

New year, new Heroes – March 2025

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-year-new-heroes-march-2025/

As we dive into 2025, we’re thrilled to announce our latest group of AWS Heroes! These exceptional individuals have demonstrated outstanding expertise and innovation, and are committed to sharing knowledge. Their contributions to the AWS community are greatly appreciated, and today we’re excited to celebrate them.

Ahmed Bebars – New Jersey, USA

Container Hero Ahmed Bebars is a Principal Engineer at The New York Times, where he leads the design and delivery of scalable developer platforms that enhance productivity and empower engineering teams. With deep expertise in containers, Kubernetes, and cloud-native technologies, Ahmed builds robust infrastructure solutions that streamline development workflows and support innovation. As an active member of the AWS and Cloud Native communities, he frequently shares his expertise at events like KubeCon, AWS re:Invent, AWS Community Days, and Kubernetes Community Days. Through his initiative, “Level Up with Ahmed,” he shares practical insights and resources to help engineers grow their skills and stay ahead in the evolving tech landscape.

Badri Narayanan Kesavan – Singapore

Community Hero Badri Narayanan Kesavan is an Engineering Lead and Solutions Architect with over a decade of professional experience, specializing in AWS Cloud solutions, platform engineering, and DevOps automation. Badri’s passion lies in learning and sharing with the community. He has delivered several talks at AWS Singapore Summit, AWS Summit ASEAN 2023, AWS Community Days, and various user group meetups. As an active AWS community leader, he organizes meetups and workshops under the AWS Singapore User Group where he regularly conducts sessions on diverse AWS topics, engaging a wide audience to foster innovation and collaboration. He has also authored the book “Mastering Amazon EC2)” which is a comprehensive guide to building robust and resilient applications on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

Marcelo Paiva – Goiânia, Brazil

Community Hero Marcelo Paiva has over 30 years of experience in technology and is the CTO at Softprime Soluções, leading product development and research in digital biometrics, facial recognition, and artificial intelligence (AI). With more than a decade working with cloud computing, he specializes in building scalable and innovative solutions using AWS. Passionate about tech communities, Marcelo founded the AWS User Group in Goiânia in 2018, helping grow the local community. Today, he organizes events such as JoinCommunity and Cloud Summit Cerrado, fostering learning and networking in the Cerrado region.

Raphael Jambalos – Quezon City, Philippines

Community Hero Raphael Jambalos manages the Cloud Native development team at eCloudValley Philippines. His team has implemented dozens of cloud-native applications across multiple industries for customers in the Philippines. He is active in helping the AWS User Groups grow in the Philippines, and is passionate about connecting with the community beyond Manila. In his free time, he loves to read books and write about cloud technologies on his Dev.to blog.

Stav Ochakovski – Tel Aviv, Israel

Container Hero Stav Ochakovski is a DevOps Engineer at Beacon and a cybersecurity expert, managing highly scalable multi-cloud environments. With a background in DevOps engineering and instruction, Stav seamlessly transitioned into the dynamic cybersecurity start-up scene. A champion of container technologies and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), she brings deep expertise in Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and logging solutions to the AWS community. Stav actively shares her expertise by speaking at AWS community events, as well as security and container conferences. She is also a leader of the Israel AWS User Group and is a pastry-chef school graduate and licensed skipper.

Learn More

Visit the AWS Heroes website if you’d like to learn more about the AWS Heroes program, or to connect with a Hero near you.

— Taylor

Introducing the last cohort of AWS Heroes this year – November 2024

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-the-last-cohort-of-aws-heroes-this-year-november-2024/

As we gear up ahead of AWS re:Invent 2024, we’re thrilled to announce our final cohort of new AWS Heroes! These individuals exemplify expertise and dedication to leveraging AWS technologies and sharing knowledge. Their contributions to the AWS community are greatly appreciated, and today we’re excited to celebrate them.

Ayyanar Jeyakrishnan – Bengaluru, India

Machine Learning Hero Ayyanar Jeyakrishnan is a Principal Engineer/Executive Director at Wells Fargo. He is a seasoned machine learning and cloud enthusiast with a strong focus on AWS technologies. Ayyanar’s expertise includes creating data platforms and architecting DevOps and MLOps solutions to streamline the deployment and management of machine learning models on AWS. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge and frequently speaks at industry events and community meetups on MLOps, generative AI, and machine learning applications.

Dzenana Dzevlan – Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Community Hero Dzenana Dzevlan is a co-founder and Technical Manager at allOps Solutions, an APN Partner company. She is an expert practice lecturer at International Burch University, and actively shares her knowledge in DevOps, generative AI, and other emerging technologies. Dzenana’s passion for technology extends beyond the classroom, as she actively mentors students in cloud and AI solutions. A dedicated advocate for diversity in tech, she champions women’s inclusion and empowerment in the industry. Through speaking engagements and mentorship programs, Dzenana inspires and equips the next generation of IT and cloud professionals.

Kenneth Attard – Valletta, Malta

Community Hero Kenneth Attard is an Enterprise Architect at Betsson Group in Malta with over 20 years of technical experience, including the past eight years specializing in AWS Cloud networking, security, and governance. As the leader of the AWS Malta User Group and organizer of the Malta AWS Community Day, Kenneth is passionate about fostering knowledge and learning among cloud enthusiasts and professionals. He is also a frequent speaker at both local and international events, including AWS Cloud Days, AWS Summits, and AWS Community Days across multiple countries.

Marcin Sodkiewicz – Wrocław, Poland

Serverless Hero Marcin Sodkiewicz is a Principal Software Engineer at Ryanair. He has been there since 2016 and was part of a giant technological leap, from the data center into the cloud and teams building with a serverless-first mindset. Over those years, he has seen and learned a lot—especially the difference the cloud makes in quickly delivering high-quality, scalable, reliable, and profitable software. The profitability aspect is super important to him, as he works at a low-cost airline with a mission of “making travel affordable for everyone,” which matches his interest in building cost-optimized solutions that bring competitive advantages. Marcin blogs and talks about AWS through the lens of his favorite topics: event-driven and serverless architectures, resiliency, cost optimization, and observability. Additionally, he is one of the organizers of the AWS User Group in his city – Wrocław.

Stephen Sennett – Melbourne, Australia

Community Hero Stephen Sennett is a Senior Consultant at Kinetic IT in Australia. As an experienced cloud technologist, he has worked with AWS for over a decade as an architect, consultant, engineer, and educator. Stephen was a member of the AWS Community Builders program between 2021 and 2024, acting as a mentor to others in the AWS community, and serving as a public speaking coach for upcoming thought leaders through the AWS New Voices program. He is an experienced keynote speaker, delivering sessions at AWS Community Days, AWS Summits, and other tech conferences around the world. Outside of his professional role, Stephen is an active volunteer emergency management officer, and non-profit board director.

Vadym Kazulkin – Bonn, Germany

Serverless Hero Vadym Kazulkin is Head of Development at ip.labs GmbH (a Fujifilm subsidiary), and brings over two decades of Java ecosystem expertise. His current focus is designing and implementing highly scalable AWS Cloud applications, with a passion for serverless architecture. As co-organizer of the Java User Group Bonn meetup, Vadym actively shares his knowledge at local and international events, including AWS and Java meetups, conferences, AWS Community Days, and ServerlessDays. He values community engagement, both for sharing insights and continuous learning in cloud and serverless technologies.

Learn More

Visit the AWS Heroes website if you’d like to learn more about the AWS Heroes program, or to connect with a Hero near you.

— Taylor

The latest AWS Heroes have arrived – September 2024

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/the-latest-aws-heroes-have-arrived-september-2024/

The AWS Heroes program recognizes outstanding individuals who are making meaningful contributions within the AWS community. These technical experts generously share their insights, best practices, and innovative solutions to help others create efficiencies and build faster on AWS. Heroes are thought leaders who have demonstrated a commitment to empowering the broader AWS community through their significant contributions and leadership.

Meet our newest cohort of AWS Heroes!

Faye Ellis – London, United Kingdom

Community Hero Faye Ellis is a Principal Training Architect at Pluralsight, where she specializes in helping organizations and individuals to develop their AWS skills, and has taught AWS to millions of people worldwide. She is also committed to make a rewarding cloud career achievable for people all around the world. With over a decade of experience in the IT industry, she uses her expertise in designing and supporting mission critical systems to help explain cloud technology in a way that is accessible and easy to understand.

Ilanchezhian Ganesamurthy – Chennai, India

Community Hero Ilanchezhian Ganesamurthy is currently the Director – Generative AI (GenAI) and Conversational AI (CAI) at Tietoevry, a leading Nordic IT services company. Since 2015, he has been actively involved with the AWS User Group India, and in 2018, he took on the role of co-organizer for the AWS User Group Chennai, which has grown to 4,800 members. Ilan champions diversity and inclusion, recognizing the importance of fostering the next generation of cloud experts. He is a strong supporter of AWS Cloud Clubs, leveraging his industry connections to help the Chennai chapter organize events and networking to empower aspiring cloud professionals.

Jaehyun Shin – Seoul, Korea

Community Hero Jaehyun Shin is a Site Reliability Engineer at MUSINSA, a Korean online fashion retailer. In 2017, he joined the AWS Korea User Group (AWSKRUG), where he has since served as a co-owner of the AWSKRUG Serverless and Seongsu Groups. During this time, Jaehyun was an AWS Community Builder, leveraging his expertise to mentor and nurture new Korea User Group leaders. He has also been an active event organizer for AWS Community Days and hands-on labs, further strengthening the AWS community in Korea.

Jimmy Dahlqvist – Malmö, Sweden

Serverless Hero Jimmy Dahlqvist is a Lead Cloud Architect and Advisor at Sigma Technology Cloud, an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner and one of Sweden’s major consulting companies. In 2024, he started Serverless-Handbook as the home base of all his serverless adventures. Jimmy is also an AWS Certification Subject Matter Expert, and regularly participates in workshops ensuring AWS Certifications are fair for everyone.

Lee Gilmore – Newcastle, United Kingdom

Serverless Hero Lee Gilmore is a Principal Solutions Architect at Leighton, an AWS Consulting Partner based in Newcastle, North East England. With over two decades of experience in the tech industry, he has spent the past ten years specializing in serverless and cloud-native technologies. Lee is passionate about domain-driven design and event-driven architectures, which are central to his work. Additionally, he regularly authors in-depth articles on serverlessadvocate.com, shares open-source full solutions on GitHub, and frequently speaks at both local and international events.

Maciej Walkowiak – Berlin, Germany

DevTools Hero Maciej Walkowiak is an independent Java consultant based in Berlin, Germany. For nearly two decades, he has been helping companies ranging from startups to enterprises in architecting and developing fast, scalable, and easy-to-maintain Java applications. The great majority of these applications are based on the Spring Framework and Spring Boot, which are his favorite tools for building software. Since 2015, he has been deeply involved in the Spring ecosystem, and leads the Spring Cloud AWS project on GitHub—the bridge between AWS APIs and the Spring programming model.

Minoru Onda – Tokyo, Japan

Community Hero Minoru Onda is a Technology Evangelist at KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation (KAG). He joined the Japan AWS User Group (JAWS-UG) in 2021 and now leads the operations of three communities: the Tokyo chapter, the SRE chapter, and NW-JAWS. In recent years, he has been focusing on utilizing Generative AI on AWS, and co-authored an introductory technical book on Amazon Bedrock with community members, which was published in Japan.

Learn More

Visit the AWS Heroes website if you’d like to learn more about the AWS Heroes program or to connect with a Hero near you.

— Taylor

Our brand-new cohort of AWS Heroes has arrived – June 2024

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/our-brand-new-cohort-of-aws-heroes-has-arrived-june-2024/

The vibrant AWS community is made up of millions of builders worldwide. Within this global audience, there are technical enthusiasts who are going above and beyond to solve problems and generously share their learnings and best practices to empower others—the AWS Heroes. These inspirational leaders make significant contributions, and the AWS Heroes program is our way of recognizing and highlighting their impactful efforts.

Please join us in celebrating our newest group of AWS Heroes!

Arshad Zackeriya – Wellington, New Zealand

Community Hero Arshad Zackeriya is a Senior Engineer at Xero, specializing in empowering organizations to deliver software at high velocity. He is well-known in the community as “Zack,” and his expertise primarily centers around Amazon EKS and developer tools. Zack is also a public speaker, and serves as one of the co-organizers and leaders for the Wellington Chapter in the AWS User Group Aotearoa New Zealand. Additionally, he was an AWS New Voices Coach and was an AWS Community Builder for five consecutive years, earning recognition as a nominee for the AWS Community Builder of the Year for 2022 and 2023 in the APJ region.

Julia Furst Morgado – New York, USA

Container Hero Julia Furst Morgado is a Global Technologist on the Product Strategy team in the Office of the CTO at Veeam Software. She is committed to diversity and inclusion, and her passion lies in making Cloud Native technologies and DevOps best practices easier to understand by sharing her knowledge. Julia excels in evangelizing and creating engaging content focused on Amazon EKS, and presenting at major events about Amazon EKS Blueprints and Amazon EKS security. Additionally, she co-organizes the AWS Community Day New York, Kubernetes Community Days, and the AWS User Group Lisbon – Women in Tech chapter, fostering vibrant collaboration and learning opportunities.

Paloma Lataliza – Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Community Hero Paloma Lataliza is a Cloud Engineer with over six years of experience. She has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, specialized in Cloud Computing, is an enthusiast of container technologies and passionate about technology and sharing knowledge. Paloma is a leader of the AWS User Group Minas Gerais, and she is dedicated to mentoring women by providing a supportive network and offering them free classes to make tech more accessible. This is further demonstrated as the organizer of the AWSome Women Community Summit Brazil, and founder of the Mulheres na Nuvem Minas Gerais (Women in the Cloud Minas Gerais) project. Previously, she was an AWS Community Builder, producing technical content, speaking at Cloud and DevOps events, and mentoring those eager to deepen their technical skills.

Shaoyi Li – Shenzhen, China

Community Hero Shaoyi Li is a Lead Cloud Engineer focusing on cybersecurity and generative AI, advocating for cloud generative AI security and governance solutions to help the community build secure, compliant, and responsible generative AI applications. He is a regular speaker at AWS events, such as AWS Summits, AWS Community Days, and AWS User Group Meetups. Shaoyi also shares his insights into AWS technologies through various channels, including AWS case studies, AWS blogs, AWS WeChat channels, community.aws, and on his social networks.

Vishal Alhat – Pune, India

Community Hero Vishal Alhat is a Senior Software Engineer at Forcepoint, a leading cybersecurity company, where he leverages his 9+ years of experience to play a key role in cloud-based deployments. He focuses on cloud security and DevOps using AWS, implementing DevOps tools, AWS services, and best practices to automate deployments and ensure consistency across Forcepoint’s cloud infrastructure. Vishal is passionate about sharing his knowledge and was selected as the AWS Community Builder of the Year for the APJ region, which is a testament to his dedication. Furthermore, he is the AWS User Group Pune leader, and regularly speaks at conferences, meetups, AWS Community Days, and AWS Summits worldwide.

Learn More

Please visit the AWS Heroes website if you’d like to learn more about the AWS Heroes program or to connect with a Hero near you.

— Taylor

Introducing the newest Heroes of the year – March 2024

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-the-newest-heroes-of-the-year-march-2024/

AWS Heroes are inspirational thought leaders who go above and beyond to knowledge share in a variety of ways. You can find them speaking at local meetups, AWS Community Days, or even at re:Invent. And these technical experts are never done learning—they’re passionate about solving problems and creating content to enable the community to build faster on AWS. We’re excited to announce the first cohort of Heroes in 2024…

Let’s give a round of applause to our new Heroes!

Awedis Keofteian – Beirut, Lebanon

Community Hero Awedis Keofteian is a DevOps Engineer at Anghami. He has a strong background in DevOps practices, and he leverages modern technologies to enhance scalability, reliability, and efficiency in Anghami’s cloud-based architecture. His journey began as an AWS Community Builder, and over time, he took the helm as the leader of the AWS User Group in Beirut. Awedis is passionate about nurturing and supporting the growth of AWS communities, and shares his knowledge across DevOps, automation, serverless, and cloud technologies.

Daniel Aniszkiewicz – Wrocław, Poland

Security Hero Daniel Aniszkiewicz is a Senior Software Engineer at Algoteque International Hub. He co-organizes the Wrocław AWS User Group, and is passionate about contributing to the growth and engagement of the local AWS community. Daniel is also a seasoned speaker and loves to share his knowledge with others, such as presenting at re:Invent, AWS meetups, and AWS Community Days. He is particularly focused on promoting Amazon Verified Permissions and Cedar through workshops, blog posts, IaC templates, and open source projects.

Hazel Sáenz – Guatemala

Serverless Hero Hazel Sáenz is a Software Architect at Cognits. Her primary focus is modernizing on-premises applications to cloud environments using AWS, and predominantly designs high workload architectures in serverless frameworks. Hazel enjoys sharing her knowledge with the community through technical talks at local and international events, participating in AWS Summits, AWS Community Days, and meetups, as well as writing technical articles in both English and Spanish. Additionally, she is the leader of the AWS User Group Guatemala, where she excels at organizing inclusive events and sharing her knowledge with the community.

Kenta Goto – Tokyo, Japan

DevTools Hero Kenta Goto is a Backend Tech Lead and an enthusiastic contributor to AWS CDK. He has been selected as a top contributor and a trusted reviewer in AWS CDK, and serves as a maintainer for the community-driven CDK Construct Library. Kenta is also a conference speaker, having presented at the AWS Dev Day in Japan in 2022 and 2023. Furthermore, he actively contributes to the open source community by developing and publishing his self-made AWS tools and AWS CDK Construct libraries, which are used worldwide.

Martin Damovsky – Prague, Czech Republic

Community Hero Martin Damovsky is a Cloud Governance Lead at Ataccama.com, an AWS Partner providing Unified Data Management Solutions. He has been particularly interested in AWS Control Tower Account Factory for Terraform, Cloud Intelligence Dashboard, and security and govern tools, such as AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, and AWS Config. Martin is a leader for AWS User Group Prague, and he enjoys sharing his knowledge with the greater AWS community through his blog and speaking at meetups, podcasts, and conferences.

Rafał Mituła – Warsaw, Poland

Community Hero Rafał Mituła is a Cloud Data Engineer and Architect within the Data & AI division at Chaos Gears. He is actively involved in the AWS community, co-organizing the AWS User Group Warsaw meetups and the AWS Community Day Poland conference. In addition to his technical and organizational roles, Rafał shares his expertise by speaking at conferences and leading workshops aimed at introducing new builders to AWS and data analytics, such as the AWS Data Engineering Immersion Days.

Sena Yakut – Izmir, Turkey

Security Hero Sena Yakut is a Senior Cloud Security Engineer at Lyrebird Studio. She has a master’s degree in cloud security, and builds security requirements for architectural designs, providing threat management and security concepts and services using AWS. Sena shares her knowledge through blog posts across various platforms, and engaging in discussions about cloud security at events, such as AWS Community Day Türkiye, and DevOpsDays Istanbul. As an active blogger and speaker, she enjoys learning new security features on AWS and informing others about them.

Tiago Rodrigues – Lisbon, Portugal

Community Hero Tiago Rodrigues is a Senior Cloud Consultant at tecRacer.com, an AWS Premier Partner and AWS Advanced Training Partner. He specializes in migrations from on-premises environments to the cloud, as well as modernizing architectures and implementing serverless solutions. Beyond his role, Tiago is deeply committed to knowledge sharing and actively contributes to the AWS community through engagements, such as the AWS User Group Lisbon, educational workshops, and guest lectures at universities. He is passionate about education and innovation, and developed an open source mobile app, AWSary, which is an AWS dictionary designed to provide solution architect diagram drawings and quick insights into AWS services.

Learn More

Please visit the AWS Heroes website if you’d like to learn more about the AWS Heroes program or to connect with a Hero near you.

— Taylor

Meet the final cohort of AWS Heroes this year – November 2023

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/meet-the-final-cohort-of-aws-heroes-this-year-november-2023/

As 2023 comes to an end, we’re celebrating our final Heroes cohort launch of the year! These technical experts are passionate about helping their local communities build faster on AWS—they’re focused on sharing best practices, solving problems, and even more. We’re thrilled to have them join the AWS Heroes program, and recognizing them for their contributions to the greater AWS community.

Please meet our newest Heroes!

Emin Alemdar – Izmir, Turkey

Container Hero Emin Alemdar is a Solutions Architect at Spacelift where he produces solutions related to Kubernetes, Cloud technologies, and Cloud Native Transformation. In general, his work focuses on these services and technologies, and he shares best practices with the AWS community. Additionally, Emin is a CNCF Ambassador and is part of the HashiCorp Ambassador Program within the open source community.

Richard Fan – Hong Kong

Security Hero Richard Fan is a Security Engineer at ExpressVPN. He is dedicated to helping builders easily adopt AWS, and shares best practices around streamlines for cloud governance. Richard has also developed different tools to simplify the experience with AWS security services, such as his nitro-enclave-python-demo project, which helps builders get started on AWS Nitro Enclaves and has been adopted by some AWS workshops. Furthermore, Richard promotes the concept and use cases of enclave technology by partnering with multiple companies to review their AWS Nitro Enclaves offering.

Takuya Tachibana – Misawa, Japan

Community Hero Takuya Tachibana is the CEO of Heptagon inc. and Director of DigitalCube Co. Ltd. Since 2012, he has been contributing to the Japan AWS User Group (JAWS-UG), and he was the leader from 2016-2017 for all of the JAWS-UGs, representing and overseeing every chapter in Japan. Tachibana has been a speaker at over 100 community and cloud events throughout all of Japan, including AWS Summit Seoul, AWS Summit Beijing, and AWS Community Day APAC.

Learn More

To learn more about the AWS Heroes program or to connect with a Hero near you, please visit the AWS Heroes website.

— Taylor

The newest AWS Heroes are here – September 2023

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/the-newest-aws-heroes-are-here-september-2023/

Each quarter, the AWS Heroes program recognizes technical enthusiasts who lift up the greater AWS community through various approaches. While these inspirational individuals are driven to knowledge share, they sometimes discover novel and fun ways of using technology, such as leveraging LEDs to create a magical display of holiday lights. Many are also contributing heavily in their local communities by leading user groups, bootcamps, and workshops, speaking at conferences to share solutions, and beyond.

Without further ado, we’re eager to introduce the latest cohort of Heroes to the world—let’s give them a grand welcome!

Alex Lau – Hong Kong

Community Hero Alex Lau is a Lead Instructor of Tecky Academy with a focus on full stack, mobile apps, and AWS technologies. Enthusiastic about teaching and sharing, Alex has been an active leader in the Hong Kong developer community since 2015. He has organized annual hackathons and founded a coding bootcamp, growing the community to over 1,000 members. Earlier this year, he took the stage at the AWS Summit Hong Kong to introduce the cutting edge of AWS technologies, and also led a session during the Hong Kong AWS GenAI Solution Day.

Brian H. Hough– Boston, USA

DevTools Hero Brian H. Hough is the founder of the Tech Stack Playbook®, a software engineering firm serving enterprise and startup clients, and a media brand with over 10k+ followers. His talks, presentations, and work have been featured by AWS, freeCodeCamp, MongoDB, and NASA. Brian has also served as a mentor for AWS’ All Builders Welcome Grant Program and other tech communities, as he enjoys lifting up the voices of builders and empowering everyone to build the future they want to see in the world. In addition, he has spoken about full-stack development, microservices, MLOps, and Infrastructure as Code at conferences including, AWS re:Invent, AWS Summit New York, Geekle’s Worldwide Software Architecture Summit, DataSaturday, and more.

Dheeraj Choudhary – Maharashtra, India

Community Hero Dheeraj Choudhary is a lead engineer focused on the AWS cloud and the DevOps domain with over 10+ years of IT experience. He specializes in DevOps and build and release engineering, and software configuration management. As an AWS User Group Pune leader, he is passionate about co-organizing physical meetups and AWS Community Days. Additionally, Dheeraj is an active international speaker at AWS community events, and conducts guest lectures and workshops on AWS cloud computing at colleges and universities in Pune.

Evandro Pires – Blumenau, Brazil

Serverless Hero Evandro Pires is a CTO who started programming when he was 12 years old. His background is in technology and entrepreneurship, and he has led important projects in internet and mobile banking, and AI and low code for SaaS solutions. Since 2020, Evandro founded and hosts a podcast dedicated to serverless called, “Sem Servidor.” Evandro is also the organizer of the first ServerlessDays in LATAM.

Kazuki Miura – Hokkaido, Japan

Community Hero Kazuki Miura is a senior engineer at Hokkaido Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (HTB). He is involved in the development and operation of the company’s video on demand service and e-commerce service. Kazuki continues to share his knowledge gained through the development of web services widely with the Japanese AWS User Group (JAWS-UG).

Linda Mohamed – Vienna, Austria

Community Hero Linda Mohamed has been navigating the tech landscape for over a decade. She is currently at EBCONT where her primary focus and specialization is in cloud technologies, IT process optimization, and agile methodologies. Linda also holds the title of Chairperson for the AWS Community DACH Support Association, and is an active member of a funding advisory board. When she is not guiding companies on their cloud journey, she is diving into AI/ML services and technologies, and sharing her insights at AWS community events and other tech platforms.

Monica Colangelo– Milan, Italy

DevTools Hero Monica Colangelo is a principal cloud architect with 15-years in the IT industry. Her experience spans across operations, infrastructure, and notably, DevOps. Automation and operational excellence have always been central to her work, guiding her approach and solutions. Monica is also a regular speaker at tech conferences, sharing her expertise and insights. Furthermore, she is an advocate for diversity and emphasizes the need for a stronger representation of women in the tech sector.

Nick Triantafillou – Wollongong, Australia

Community Hero Nick Triantafillou is a cloud engineer, educator, User Group founder, and Christmas Light enthusiast. He was one of the original course instructors at the cloud education startup A Cloud Guru, having taught over 1 million students the fundamentals of AWS, and produced the world’s first AWS Certified DevOps Engineer course. He is also the founder of his local Wollongong AWS User Group, co-founder of the Sydney Serverless Meetup, and has assisted in the planning and operation of both the ServerlessConf and ServerlessDays ANZ conferences. He currently runs “NickExplainsAWS,” where he is attempting to make a video about every single AWS service on TikTok and YouTube. In addition, every December Nick brings traffic to a standstill by installing over 75,000 LEDs on his house for his serverless, AWS powered light show spectacular.

Learn More

If you’d like to learn more about the new Heroes or connect with a Hero near you, please visit the AWS Heroes website or browse the AWS Heroes Content Library.

— Taylor

Introducing the first AWS Security Heroes

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-the-first-aws-security-heroes/

The AWS Heroes program recognizes individuals who combine their deeply technical expertise with a passion for helping others to learn more and build faster. Over the years, trends have evolved in how the community develops and deploys solutions built on AWS, which has influenced the creation of specialized Hero categories. Today, we’re thrilled to officially recognize and acknowledge leaders in the security area of focus.

Security is often looked at in terms of impact and not how it enables teams to safely innovate. Our inaugural AWS Security Heroes have shown time and time again that a pragmatic approach, executed with the intent to inform and educate, delivers positive security outcomes. The initial cohort of AWS Security Heroes are experts at the forefront of their field, and share a mission to help others better understand security.

Please join us in welcoming our first AWS Security Heroes!

Chris Farris – Atlanta, USA

Security Hero Chris Farris has worked in IT since 1994, primarily focused on Linux, networking, and security. For the past eight years, he has been deeply involved in public cloud and public cloud security in media and entertainment, leveraging his expertise to build and evolve cloud security programs at Turner Broadcasting, WarnerMedia, Discovery Communications, and PlayOn! Sports. His current focus is on educating and empowering builders to understand core cloud security concepts, and to enable small and medium sized organizations to better secure and govern in the cloud.

Gerardo Castro – Callao, Perú

Security Hero Gerardo Castro is a Security Solutions Architect at Caleidos. He likes to write technical posts and talk about cybersecurity on his Medium blog. He also builds and leads videos, podcasts, online classes, and workshops focused on AWS. In addition, Gerardo is a community leader of the AWS UG Security Community in Latin America, and has inspired many people to begin and grow their career in the cloud.

Keisuke Usuda – Chiba, Japan

Security Hero Keisuke Usuda is a Senior Solution Architect at Classmethod and holds the CISSP certification. He is also a core member of the Japan AWS User Group focused on security (Security-JAWS), and regularly organizes events. Keisuke has a deep affection for AWS security-related managed services, and advocates for the enablement of Amazon GuardDuty across all AWS accounts worldwide.

Ray Lin (Chia-Wei Lin) – Taipei, Taiwan

Security Hero Ray Lin is an AWS and Security Consultant at iFUS System Consultants Ltd., and excels in building teams and developing new products from zero to one. His primary expertise spans software project management, Agile development, business and system analysis, SaaS product development, architecture design, cybersecurity, DevSecOps, and AI. Ray has also made significant contributions to the AWS community, particularly in cybersecurity and secure architecture design. His commitment to sharing knowledge is evident in his active involvement in the AWS User Group Taiwan.

Shun Yoshie – Yokohama, Japan

Security Hero Shun Yoshie is a Security Consultant at Nomura Research Institute, Ltd(NRI), and has been a Hero since 2021. He consults on operational design of security in multi-cloud environments, and has been focusing on themes related to multi-cloud, Cloud Native, CNAPP, and Security Observability. Additionally, Shun joined the Japanese AWS User Group (JAWS-UG) in 2013, and he has been running the JAWS-UG Tokyo chapter since 2019.

Teri Radichel – Savannah, USA

Security Hero Teri Radichel is the CEO of 2nd Sight Lab, a cybersecurity company that offers three services: cloud security training to organizations, penetration tests, and security assessments. She also answers cybersecurity questions for clients on consulting calls scheduled through IANS Research. Teri is the author of the book, “Cybersecurity for Executives in the Age of Cloud,” has been a Hero since 2016, and received the SANS 2017 Difference Makers Award for security innovation. Teri has 13 cybersecurity and pentesting certifications, including the GSE, which required a two-day hands-on in person test to pass at the time she obtained it.

Learn More

If you’d like to learn more about the new Security Hero category or connect with a Hero near you, please visit the AWS Heroes website or browse the AWS Heroes Content Library.

— Taylor

Announcing the latest AWS Heroes – June 2023

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/announcing-the-latest-aws-heroes-june-2023/

AWS Heroes dedicate their time to help others build better and faster on AWS. Heroes support and give back to the community in a variety of ways: contributing to open source projects, organizing AWS Community Days, speaking at conferences, leading workshops, mentoring builders, hosting meetups, and much more.

Please welcome and say hello to our newest AWS Heroes!

AJ Stuyvenberg – Boston, USA

Serverless Hero AJ Stuyvenberg is a Staff Engineer at Datadog, and has been a member of the serverless community since early 2017. His work focuses on serverless and distributed system observability. AJ is an open source author and maintains several projects, which improve the serverless developer experience. He has also spoken at multiple conferences, including AWS re:Invent and AWS Summits, and frequently writes about serverless topics on his blog.

Danielle Heberling – Hillsboro, USA

Serverless Hero Danielle Heberling is a software engineer with a background that includes being a musician, teaching at a K-8 public school, and working in technical support. She’s passionate about building things that make the world a better place, whether that be through social change or a good laugh. When she’s not coding or talking about serverless, you can often find her reaching back to her teaching roots by mentoring folks from underrepresented groups that would like to make a career switch into tech.

Dominik Grzywaczewski – Lublin, Poland

Community Hero Dominik Grzywaczewski is a Senior Cloud Site Reliability Engineer at Chaos Gears with more than 15 years of experience in IT. His primary objective is to assist companies in gaining a deeper understanding of Cloud Computing technologies, and effectively leveraging them to drive faster and more secure innovation. Dominik shares his passion by organizing technical meetups and workshops, and consistently collaborates with AWS community members. He also founded the AWS User Group in Lublin (Poland) and co-organizes the AWS Community Day conference in Warsaw (Poland).

Johannes Koch – Hessen, Germany

DevTools Hero Johannes Koch is a Sr. DevOps Engineer, Developer Experience, GTS at FICO where he contributes to the FICO®️ Platform. He shares his best practices related to Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) on his YouTube channel: cicdonaws. Johannes also founded the AWS User Group Bergstrasse, helped to start the AWS Community DACH Förderverein, and is part of the team that organizes the AWS Community Day in the DACH region.

Michael Walmsley – Melbourne, Australia

Serverless Hero Michael Walmsley is a Lead Technology Architect in the myWizard®️ Automation Group at Accenture, where he is focused on building event-driven products in the cloud. He is excited by the AWS Lambda Powertools open-source projects, and has been using and actively contributing to them since 2020. Michael is also a passionate AWS community member in Australia, supporting local meetups and conferences. He helps organize and run the AWS Programming and Tools Meetup in Melbourne, which focuses on running monthly hands-on training workshops that are open to everyone.

Mikey Fan – Beijing, China

Community Hero Mikey Fan is a Cloud-native Application Architect and SDN Developer. Since 2020, he has been actively exploring how to build innovative applications based on AWS EKS, Private 5G, and SD-WAN technology, and then applying them to 5G Edge Computing scenarios. Mikey is also a cloud-computing technology evangelist and an open-source enthusiast. He enjoys contributing code to open-source projects, such as Kubernetes and Tungsten Fabric, and he likes to demo how these open-source technologies can be combined with AWS cloud computing to create greater value.

Ran Isenberg – Kfar Saba, Israel

Serverless Hero Ran Isenberg is a principal software architect at CyberArk, where he designs and builds serverless services. He is passionate about CI/CD and AWS CDK, and has contributed several utilities to the AWS Lambda Powertools open-source project. Ran also maintains numerous serverless related open-source projects on his GitHub account, such as the AWS Lambda cookbook – a serverless service template that gets you started in the serverless world with all of the best practices in seconds.

Sabiha Ali – Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Community Hero Sabiha Ali is a Solutions Architect at ScaleCapacity. She specializes in Amazon Connect, architecting resilient and secure systems in the cloud. As an Amazon Connect Ambassador, she helps businesses enhance their customer experiences. Her unwavering passion for learning has earned her numerous AWS certifications (9X), solidifying her expertise in the field. She became an AWS User Group Leader in Dubai after starting out as an active AWS Community Builder. Sabiha is also committed to empowering women in the tech industry, making her a valued professional and an advocate for change.

Tomasz Dudek – Wroclaw, Poland

Machine Learning Hero Tomasz Dudek works as a Data & AI Team Lead and a Solutions Architect at Chaos Gears. He guides customers on how leveraging machine learning powered solutions can help their businesses thrive. He also designs AWS architectures and manages a data-focused team. Additionally, Tomasz co-organizes the AWS Community Day Poland, and as well as hosts the AWS User Group in his hometown Wroclaw. He often conducts workshops, such as SageMaker Immersion Days, speaks at conferences, and shares his knowledge in the form of short posts on LinkedIn, and longer ones on his blog, ‘MLOps and how you tame it.’

Wojciech Dąbrowski – Katowice, Poland

Community Hero Wojciech Dąbrowski is Head of Cloud Architecture at DTiQ, where he leads the team responsible for the architecture of cloud solutions and the cloud adaptation strategy in the organization. He has been an AWS User Group Silesia leader since 2019, and has managed to organize multiple online and offline meetups. In addition, Wojciech leads workshops and presents cloud computing and software engineering topics at various events.

Learn More

If you’d like to learn more about the new Heroes or connect with a Hero near you, please visit the AWS Heroes website or browse the AWS Heroes Content Library.

— Taylor

Meet the Newest AWS Heroes – March 2023

Post Syndicated from Taylor Jacobsen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/meet-the-newest-aws-heroes-march-2023/

The AWS Heroes are passionate AWS experts who are dedicated to sharing their in-depth knowledge within the community. They inspire, uplift, and motivate the global AWS community, and today, we’re excited to announce and recognize the newest Heroes in 2023!

Aidan Steele – Melbourne, Australia

Serverless Hero Aidan Steele is a Senior Engineer at Nightvision. He is an avid AWS user, and has been using the first platform and EC2 since 2008. Fifteen years later, EC2 still has a special place in his heart, but his interests are in containers and serverless functions, and blurring the distinction between them wherever possible. He enjoys finding novel uses for AWS services, especially when they have a security or network focus. This is best demonstrated through his open source contributions on GitHub, where he shares interesting use cases via hands-on projects.

Ananda Dwi Rahmawati – Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Container Hero Ananda Dwi Rahmawati is a Sr. Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, specializing in system integration between cloud infrastructure, CI/CD workflows, and application modernization. She implements solutions using powerful services provided by AWS, such as Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), combined with open source tools to achieve the goal of creating reliable, highly available, and scalable systems. She is a regular technical speaker who delivers presentations using real-world case studies at several local community meetups and conferences, such as Kubernetes and OpenInfra Days Indonesia, AWS Community Day Indonesia, AWS Summit ASEAN, and many more.

Wendy Wong – Sydney, Australia

Data Hero Wendy Wong is a Business Performance Analyst at Service NSW, building data pipelines with AWS Analytics and agile projects in AI. As a teacher at heart, she enjoys sharing her passion as a Data Analytics Lead Instructor for General Assembly Sydney, writing technical blogs on dev.to. She is both an active speaker for AWS analytics and an advocate of diversity and inclusion, presenting at a number of events: AWS User Group Malaysia, Women Who Code, AWS Summit Australia 2022, AWS BuildHers, AWS Innovate Modern Applications, and many more.

Learn More

If you’d like to learn more about the new Heroes or connect with a Hero near you, please visit the AWS Heroes website or browse the AWS Heroes Content Library.

— Taylor