About us
Barnsley is the UK's first government-backed Tech Town. There's a lot of momentum here right now, The Seam, the South Yorkshire Institute of Technology, real investment in digital skills and AI adoption across local business. This group exists to make sure AWS is part of that conversation.
We're a community of people in Barnsley and across South Yorkshire who work with AWS, or want to. Some of us have been doing this for years and run production workloads day in, day out. Some of us are students or early in our careers. Some of us have never touched AWS at all, and are here because we run a business and can see that cloud and AI are about to matter to it. All of that is welcome, and talks are pitched so nobody is left behind.
Expect in-person evening meetups with technical talks, live demos and honest war stories, what worked, what cost too much, and what we'd do differently. We have a particular interest in AI and generative AI on AWS (Bedrock, agents, RAG, the whole moving target), but we cover the full breadth of the platform: architecture, serverless, data, security, DevOps and the full digital transformation workflow.
AWS Barnsley Tech Meetup is an independent community group. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Amazon Web Services, and any opinions expressed here or at our events are our own.
Featured event
Meetup #1: Enforcing AI Safety Controls with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails 🛡️
Hello Barnsley! 👋
🎉 This is meetup #1, the very first one. Come and help us set the tone 🚀✨
📍 DMC 02, County Way, Barnsley S70 2AG
🚗 PARKING: The Seam digital campus on County Way (S70 2JW) includes the newly redeveloped Lower Seam on-site car park, featuring improved spaces, EV chargers, and CCTV. Upper parking options and nearby alternatives are also available.
‼️ NOTE: There are two DMC buildings on County Way. We're in DMC 02, the newer one, opposite Barnsley College. Don't head for the Digital Media Centre.
Agenda 📆
- Doors open: 18:00
- Food, drinks & networking: 18:00-18:30
- Talks: 18:30 -19:10
- Q&A - 19:10 - 19:30
- Close & Networking: 19:30-20:00
Welcome and Networking 🤝
- Come early, grab something to eat and meet people before we start.
- Enjoy pizza 🍕 and refreshments while get-to-know fellow AWS and AI enthusiasts.
- We'll kick off with a short welcome and what this group is for.
Talk - Enforcing AI Safety Controls with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails
Description: LLM agents fail in ways that probabilistic system prompts cannot reliably prevent: prompt injections, data leaks, hallucinations, off-topic drift, harmful content, and governance breaches. Amazon Bedrock Guardrails addresses this as a deterministic, model-agnostic layer that screens both inputs and outputs while remaining fully auditable.
Whether you are building with AI, signing off on an internal deployment, evaluating a third-party software purchase, or simply trying to decode what your engineering team means when they say security is "handled," this session equips you to move past asking a vague "Is it safe?" You will leave understanding the precise boundaries between what can be strictly enforced versus passively detected, as well as the exact audit evidence available when something goes wrong, no prior Amazon Bedrock experience required.
Speaker: Vitor Correa is a Software and AI Developer at Binary Forge with 10+ years in commercial software development. Multiple AWS certifications, including AWS Certified Generative AI Developer – Professional. Currently leads AI development on Fulr.
Closing Remarks 🙌
- We'll wrap up around 20:00.
- As we conclude our meetup, we'll have some closing remarks and invite attendees to continue networking and discussions.
Important Information:
- This event is open to everyone: AWS enthusiasts, from beginners to experts, students, and business owners already on AWS or just looking into it. Talks are pitched so nobody gets left behind.
- Free to attend. Please RSVP so we can plan numbers, and update your RSVP if your plans change so someone else can take the spot.
- Don't forget to bring your questions, enthusiasm, and willingness to learn and connect with the AWS + AI community.
- 📸 We'll be taking photos on the night. Let an organiser know if you'd rather not appear in them.
AWS Barnsley Tech Meetup is an independent community group, not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Amazon Web Services. AWS is a trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
Upcoming events
1
Meetup #1: Enforcing AI Safety Controls with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails 🛡️
DMC 02, County Way, S70 2AG, Barnsley, GBHello Barnsley! 👋
🎉 This is meetup #1, the very first one. Come and help us set the tone 🚀✨
📍 DMC 02, County Way, Barnsley S70 2AG
🚗 PARKING: The Seam digital campus on County Way (S70 2JW) includes the newly redeveloped Lower Seam on-site car park, featuring improved spaces, EV chargers, and CCTV. Upper parking options and nearby alternatives are also available.‼️ NOTE: There are two DMC buildings on County Way. We're in DMC 02, the newer one, opposite Barnsley College. Don't head for the Digital Media Centre.
Agenda 📆
- Doors open: 18:00
- Food, drinks & networking: 18:00-18:30
- Talks: 18:30 -19:10
- Q&A - 19:10 - 19:30
- Close & Networking: 19:30-20:00
Welcome and Networking 🤝
- Come early, grab something to eat and meet people before we start.
- Enjoy pizza 🍕 and refreshments while get-to-know fellow AWS and AI enthusiasts.
- We'll kick off with a short welcome and what this group is for.Talk - Enforcing AI Safety Controls with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails
Description: LLM agents fail in ways that probabilistic system prompts cannot reliably prevent: prompt injections, data leaks, hallucinations, off-topic drift, harmful content, and governance breaches. Amazon Bedrock Guardrails addresses this as a deterministic, model-agnostic layer that screens both inputs and outputs while remaining fully auditable.
Whether you are building with AI, signing off on an internal deployment, evaluating a third-party software purchase, or simply trying to decode what your engineering team means when they say security is "handled," this session equips you to move past asking a vague "Is it safe?" You will leave understanding the precise boundaries between what can be strictly enforced versus passively detected, as well as the exact audit evidence available when something goes wrong, no prior Amazon Bedrock experience required.
Speaker: Vitor Correa is a Software and AI Developer at Binary Forge with 10+ years in commercial software development. Multiple AWS certifications, including AWS Certified Generative AI Developer – Professional. Currently leads AI development on Fulr.
Closing Remarks 🙌
- We'll wrap up around 20:00.
- As we conclude our meetup, we'll have some closing remarks and invite attendees to continue networking and discussions.
Important Information:
- This event is open to everyone: AWS enthusiasts, from beginners to experts, students, and business owners already on AWS or just looking into it. Talks are pitched so nobody gets left behind.
- Free to attend. Please RSVP so we can plan numbers, and update your RSVP if your plans change so someone else can take the spot.
- Don't forget to bring your questions, enthusiasm, and willingness to learn and connect with the AWS + AI community.
- 📸 We'll be taking photos on the night. Let an organiser know if you'd rather not appear in them.
AWS Barnsley Tech Meetup is an independent community group, not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Amazon Web Services. AWS is a trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
13 attendees
