AWS User Group Mannheim

Hello AWS UG Mannheim! 👋

Big news: we are now an officially recognised AWS User Group. 🎉 For our third meetup on October 21st we are marking it properly — three talks, an hour of networking, and a LEGO set given away live at the end.
🍕 And instead of one caterer: a pizza tasting. Three or four Mannheim pizzerias deliver through the evening, everyone tastes, everyone votes, and we announce the winner at the end together with the LEGO winner.
📍 About the location: we book the room once we see how many of you are coming, and announce it here in the group. Seats are limited, so please RSVP early — that number is what decides how big a room we take.

📆 Agenda
18:00 – 18:30 | Doors Open: Pizza, Drinks & Pre-Event Networking
18:30 – 20:30 | Welcome & Tech Talks (including Q&A and breaks)
20:25 | LEGO draw and the pizza vote result
20:30 – 21:30 | Networking, Deep Dives & Discussions

🎙️ Our Speaker Line-up

🌐 Talk 1: AWS Community Programmes (~25 min)
Heroes, Community Builders, User Groups, Cloud Clubs — who runs which programme, how you get in, and what it is actually worth. Johannes has walked that whole path himself, which is why he opens the evening.
Speaker: Johannes "Lockhead" Koch – AWS DevTools Hero, AWS User Group Bergstraße
Short Bio: An AWS DevTools Hero since June 2023 and an AWS Community Builder before that. A DevOps enthusiast and a builder by heart, working in TypeScript, Angular and Java, convinced by full CI/CD automation and infrastructure as code — which is where he learned to love AWS CDK. Member of the AWS DACH Community Förderverein.

⚙️ Talk 2: Amazon EKS Auto Mode (~30 min)
Running a Kubernetes cluster without managing the node infrastructure yourself. AWS provides compute, storage and networking, scales dynamically, and picks instance types automatically from your workload and NodePool requirements.
Speaker: Armin Bube – Solutions Architect at AWS
Short Bio: Armin is a Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services with a passion for multi-region setups, databases and containers.

🚀 Talk 3: AWS for Startups (~20 min)
Activate credits, the accelerator programmes, access to Solutions Architects, and the route through Marketplace. Practical: what you can apply for, in what order, and what realistically comes out of it.
Speaker: Anindita Mazumder – Business Development, Hepta Technologies
Short Bio: Business Development Manager with over 15 years driving partner growth, AI-led solution sales and SMB account expansion across Australia, New Zealand and EMEA. Combines enterprise experience at Dell Technologies with hands-on startup exposure, ecosystem events and early-stage partnerships.