About us
AWS User Group Cape Town is the Mother City's home for everyone building on Amazon Web Services, run by the community, for the community, as part of AWS Community South Africa (NPC), and one of 590+ independent AWS User Groups worldwide.
Our purpose
We exist to make cloud knowledge accessible in Cape Town. Every meetup is a space for peer-to-peer learning: real technical talks, live demos, hands-on sessions, and honest conversations about what works (and what doesn't) in production, followed by time to network with people who do this work every day.
Who should join
Developers, architects, DevOps and platform engineers, data and ML practitioners, security folks, students, career-switchers, and anyone genuinely curious about cloud computing. You don't need to be an expert. Some of our best questions come from first-timers. What matters is that you're here to learn, share, and engage with the community and our speakers.
Why join
Learn AWS from practitioners, not marketing slides. Meet hiring managers, mentors, and future colleagues in Cape Town's cloud industry. Get speaking experience in a friendly room. First-time speakers are actively encouraged. Connect to the wider AWS community: AWS Heroes, Community Builders, AWS Community Day South Africa, and Cloud Clubs at UCT, Wits, and UWC. And yes, there is always good company.
Good to know
Our events are free, but registration is required, no RSVP, no entry, as our venue hosts need an attendee list for access and security. All events run under our Code of Conduct and Event Terms and Conditions. We keep this community welcoming, safe, and worth everyone's time.
Right of admission reserved.
We're an independent, community-led group, not operated by Amazon Web Services.
Questions or want to speak? Connect with us
Upcoming events
1
Building CrimeSpots: A Privacy-First Crime Awareness PWA on AWS
BBD Cape Town, 3rd Floor, Northbank Building, No. 1 N Bank Ln, Century City, Cape Town, ZAJoin AWS User Group Cape Town in September 2026 for the monthly meetup, where we focus on all things AWS! We deep dive into topics related to the cloud on AWS!
🗓️ When 🗓️: Tuesday, 29 September 2026 | 18:00 SAST
📍Where 📍: 3rd Floor | BBD Cape Town
Northbank Building, No. 1 N Bank Ln, Century City · Cape Town, ZA
How to find us: Walk-in instructions | Parking instructions📋 Agenda 📋:
18:00 - 18:30: Arrival and Networking
18:30 - 19:00: Welcoming & Community Updates
19:00 - 20:00: Building CrimeSpots: A Privacy-First Crime Awareness PWA on AWS
20:10 onwards: Networking and SnacksPrizes to be won, food and drinks on us!
🎤 Topic 🎤: Building CrimeSpots: A Privacy-First Crime Awareness PWA on AWS
👤 Speaker 👤: Malachi Mathins
CrimeSpots is a POPIA-compliant crime awareness PWA built for Cape Town, designed around one hard constraint: aggregate the data, never identify anyone. This talk is a practical walkthrough of taking that idea from a personal passion project to a live app running on AWS. It's not a polished case study. It's the real build, rough edges and all.
I'll cover how the pieces fit together: a Next.js 15 frontend hosted on AWS Amplify, MapLibre for the map, Supabase (PostgreSQL with PostGIS, running on AWS infrastructure) for the spatial data, and an ASP.NET Core ingestion API that uses generative AI to turn raw reports into structured, aggregated data. I'll also share the token optimization work that cut projected AI spend, and the privacy-by-design decisions that shaped the data model from day one, because "aggregate, don't identify" changes how you structure everything downstream.
For the demo, I'll run the ingestion API in Docker, show how raw reports become map-ready data, and walk through the live app on Amplify, including what it took to deploy a Next.js 15 app there on a zero budget.
This is for developers who want to see how a solo passion project can go live on AWS without spending money.
We look forward to seeing you at the meetup!
Please keep your RSVP updated if your plans change. This will help us make sure we have the right amount of space and refreshments. We appreciate your help in ensuring a great event for everyone!
"By RSVPing to this event, you are acknowledging that you have read and agree to abide by our code of conduct"
7 attendees
Past events
50
