AWS Community Day - South Africa
What an amazing day! For the first time in South African history, we had an AWS Community Day, all thanks to the hard work of Hennie Francis and the team working with him. The organization, swag, and content were all next-level. For a first-time event, it was stellar.
I skipped all the talks before lunch because I was having such a great time networking with the sponsors and catching up with friends. Before I knew it, it was lunchtime, followed by Dale Nunns doing his famous Duck Hunt talk (you can watch it on YouTube). Dale was amazing, as always.
The next talk I saw was from a new speaker to me, Louise Schmidtgen. She delivered my favorite type of talk: an honest review of a real-world failure, what was learned, and how they would avoid it in the future. I’ll absolutely be at her talks in the future.
The final talk of the day was Mark Birch's. I had zero interest in seeing this talk from the title, "Community as Code: Engineering Human Infrastructure," especially since, like most attendees, I hadn’t even read the description. But, as I’ve said before, conferences are a serendipity gold mine, and this is yet another example of it—but not the last one of the day.
For me, this talk felt like it was designed perfectly for me. I was wowed and definitely need to get his book—Community in a Box.
Following the day, I got an invitation to the speakers' dinner, and again, I just ended up in the right seat (thanks, serendipity) for an amazing night of discussion and inspiration. I got to hear from Jared Naude, Lindelani Mbatha, Roberto Arico, and Liza Cullis. I am still in awe of their skills and so grateful for them sharing their wisdom and stories with me.
This day wasn’t perfect, unfortunately. The venue had some rather short-sighted restrictions on movement and taking photos—which is why the images in my post are cartoons I "drew myself" (and not from photos I sneakily took and had an AI alter 🙄). The venue also extended lunch without consulting the organizers, which led to the last time slot of the day being canceled. I appreciate that the venue staff were trying their best, but decisions like that needed to be made by the organizers, not the venue. This meant that Candice Grobler, whose talks always blow me away, didn’t get to present—a huge disappointment for me.
I hope this serves as a lesson for the venue to improve, because their reputation is in bad shape right now. It was amazing to see how Hennie and the team coped with the challenges; they truly did an amazing job despite the venue.
I cannot wait for the 2026 event! I’ll be getting tickets as soon as they come out.