AWS UG Mannheim #3 — Now Official, With Pizza and a LEGO Starship

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.

🧱 Win a LEGO Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise
Hepta Technologies is sponsoring a LEGO Icons Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D — 3,600 pieces, nine minifigures, 60 cm long once built.
To take part, three things: enter on the prize page, follow this group — on Meetup or on LinkedIn, either one is enough — and follow Hepta Technologies on LinkedIn. That is the whole list.
Drawn live on stage at 20:25. You have to be in the room to win — no exceptions, nothing posted out.
👉 Enter the draw here
🔗 Share it, and bring someone along - On our **event page **you will find the full programme, the speakers and how many seats are still free. From there you can share the evening on LinkedIn, download a ready-made Instagram story with a QR code, and invite colleagues by email — the invitation goes out in your name and you get a copy.
None of that earns you anything in the draw. But the fuller the room, the better the evening.

💡 Important Info & RSVP
This event is open to all AWS enthusiasts, from beginners to cloud experts. Bring your questions, your curiosity, and your appetite for networking with the Rhine-Neckar cloud community!

📅 Date: Tuesday, October 21st, doors 18:00
📍 Location: Mannheim — announced here in the group as soon as it is confirmed

🎟️ Seats are limited. Your RSVP decides how big a room we book.

See you in Mannheim!