Apex

**Note - NEW location for this month only at the AWS Builder Studio!** IMPORTANT - the list of attendees will be provided the day before to security. Just go up the stairs / escalator to level 1 and check with your Photo ID to security. Please get in touch ASAP if you would like to talk at a future event, send us an email at Melbourne(at)serverless.org.au for more info! First time speakers are more than welcome and we can provide you assistance if you need with your presentation beforehand. Please reach out Melbourne(at)serverless.org.au. It can be a regular talk, lightning talk, demo, workshop, whatever is your thing our community will love it - as long as it is serverless related! Venue: AWS Builder Studio, Level 1, 555 Collins St. Melbourne 📅 Agenda 📅 5:30 PM - Doors Open! 6:00 PM - Welcome from the organizers / housekeeping 6:05 PM - **"Changing the engine mid-flight: A startup data pivot" - By Susan Brander, CTO Kaleida** What happens when your startup’s data model is held together with duct tape, but you still have to fly the plane, ship features, and act cool about it? Startups move fast, and sometimes that means making the best architecture decisions you can, and being utterly wrong because you don’t yet fully understand the domain you’re building for. At Kaleida, we chose DynamoDB as the cheapest way to get our product off the ground quickly, pushing relational logic into separate tables and thinking we’d gotten it right and assuming if we hadn’t that we’d clean it up later (if we survived). SPOILER! We survived and thrived! Later came around fast, and it looked like: \- bloated documents * Relational logic spread across tables * Queries dragging us down We knew we’d modelled it wrong, and that not changing it soon would only multiply the difficulties in the future. So, mid-flight, we changed engines. This talk is a candid case study of what it takes to evolve your architecture under pressure: * found our real data inside our current data * Pivoted to a One Table design * Pulled off a zero-downtime migration * Did it all while shipping features and pretending we weren’t panicking. If your team is battling tech debt, scaling pains, a data model that no longer reflects reality, (or you just want to hear about someone else’s war wounds) then come along. 6:35 PM - Pizza & Networking 7:00 PM - "**Let the Agent Read the Boring Reports: AI-Powered Database Auditing for PROTECTED Compliance on AWS**" - **By Christina Chen, Senior DevOps Engineer, Mantel Group** Nobody reads CSV audit reports. But under Australia's IRAP PROTECTED framework, organisations must continuously monitor and evidence database user activity — and assessors want proof. This talk builds a two-stage event-driven pipeline: Lambda extracts MySQL RDS user activity to S3, then a Strands Agent on Bedrock autonomously assesses findings against ISM controls, and generates assessor-ready output 7:30 PM - Networking and finish the Pizza! 8:00 PM - Doors Close, see you next time!

Welcome to the first 2026 meetup of **Melbourne 🇦🇺 MongoDB User Group**. The team at Mantel Group has kindly offered to host us for the evening at their office in Melbourne on Flinders Street. **Complimentary drinks and snacks, as well as some SWAG, will be available, proudly sponsored by the team at MongoDB and Confluent**. We're looking forward to seeing familiar faces and welcoming newcomers! Please note that we have limited spots this time, so RSVP early. You will not be able to enter the building after 6 PM, so please be on time. **Agenda** * 5:00 pm - Arrival & Networking * 5:30 pm - Welcome * 5:35 pm - Talk #1 - Stephen Ermann - Avoid the AI Monolith: Deploy Multi-Agent Systems with MongoDB and Confluent * 6:00 pm - Talk #2 - Alex Peng - Sharding in MongoDB * 6:25 pm - Quiz & Swag * 6:35 pm - Networking & Food **Speakers** **Speaker #1 -** **Stephen Ermann** is a **Senior Customer Success Technical Architect at Confluent**, where he helps large enterprises design and operate mission-critical event streaming platforms with **Apache Kafka,** **Confluent Platform/Cloud** and **Apache Flink**. Based in Australia and working closely with major organisations, he focuses on scalable architectures, secure integrations, and smooth cloud migrations. Stephen has deep, hands-on experience connecting operational data stores like **MongoDB** into real-time, event-driven systems—turning CDC streams and transactional data into streaming workloads that power modern applications. He’s passionate about making distributed systems practical, sharing field lessons, and helping teams move from batch to truly real-time data. **Presentation #1** \- Avoid the AI monolith and learn how to design **event-driven multi-agent systems** with Confluent and MongoDB. In this talk, we’ll unpack the shift from classic predictive models to generative and agentic AI, and show why data readiness and real-time context - not just bigger models - determine whether your agents are actually useful in production. You’ll see how treating agents as event-driven microservices with a “brain” helps you avoid brittle point-to-point integrations and instead build scalable, observable systems. We’ll then walk through how **Confluent Cloud, Apache Flink® Streaming Agents, and MongoDB Atlas** fit together to provide the streaming backbone, vector search, and RAG capabilities that modern agentic applications need. Using an automated insurance claims demo, we’ll illustrate how real-time embeddings, external tables, and vector search in Flink SQL work with MongoDB Atlas to power context-aware decisions and end-to-end workflow automation. We will also share practical pointers and resources so you can start experimenting with your own multi-agent architectures after the meetup. **Speaker #2 -** Alex Peng is a Technical Services Engineer at MongoDB, specialising in MongoDB Atlas Support. With deep expertise in cloud deployments, Alex is passionate about helping customers navigate complex challenges on MongoDB Atlas, ensuring they get the most out of MongoDB's products and services. **Presentation #2** explores the fundamentals of sharding in MongoDB, covering the core concepts and architecture that power horizontal scaling in MongoDB. Attendees will gain a clear understanding of sharding's strengths and how to leverage them effectively. We will also provide practical guidance on selecting the shard key to maximise your application's performance and scalability. Thanks, The Melbourne MUG Team!

## Details **Ruby Meetup Melbourne will be run as a hybrid meetup.** **1\. What** Join us for an evening of talks on Ruby and related topics, plus socialising, food and drinks. You can find out about the **[Talks for the night here](https://github.com/rubyaustralia/melbourne-ruby/milestones?direction=asc&sort=due_date&state=open)** Alternatively, their will be announced on Slack, Twitter, Github & Meetup closer to the date **2\. Where 📍** \- In Person: meet us at the Ferocia in Melbourne CBD from 5:30PM \- Online: Click [Jump in Zoom Meet Call](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84834916944?pwd=SWlQOGJsbEZwNkNwVVk4Q25WaVNRZz09) from 6.30pm onwards **3\. Sponsors 🎉** This is a Ruby Australia supported meetup, with event sponsorship provided by our Major Sponsors: * [Ruby Australia](https://ruby.org.au/) * [Assembly Four](https://assemblyfour.com/) * [Gleam.io](https://gleam.io/) for our Drink sponsors for Melbourne Ruby Meetup * [Ferocia](https://ferocia.com.au/) for being our venue partner. **4\. Anything else ?** To suggest or vote on a talk, please look in[ Github repo](https://github.com/rubyaustralia/melbourne-ruby) **Come in from 5:30pm-6PM** for some early chatter, we'll kick the proceedings off properly around 6:15, hear from our presenters, and then socialise further after the talks. See you there 😄

Excited to announce our new ADVANCED openplay session during the week at KCARC! Welcome to Melbourne Volleyball Academy. 🤗 **[[WHAT]]** This session is specifically for games only (no training). There will be a cap of 18 players, allowing for 3 teams of 6. Games will be played to 15 points, with a cap at 18 points. These games are intended to be played at a high-intermediate(BB)/advanced(A) level. Please see an explanation of skill levels on our website here: [https://melbournevolleyballacademy.com.au/skill-levels-explained](https://melbournevolleyballacademy.com.au/skill-levels-explained) **[[WHO]]** The session is intended for Intermediate players. Players should be able to: * Have strong fundamentals for all volleyball techniques * Serve receive a majority of serves well & serve over the net consistently * Basic understanding of 5-1, and 6-2 systems (we do not play a pass middle 4-2 system in this session) * Have an understanding of base defense * Know all/most volleyball rules Players that are not of the intermediate(BB)/advanced(A) level will be asked to leave as we want to ensure that all players have an enjoyable time playing. **[[HOW MUCH $$]]** $21 card payment will be processed on the day via square reader (EFTPOS). **[[WHEN]]** The stadium is booked from 6:30 PM-9:30 PM weekly, every Thursday. However, feel free to come early and stretch as the Community Centre is open earlier. Last minute dropouts and no shows will have a zero-tolerance policy going forward. All players are expected to update their RSVP at least 24 hours in advanced if they are unable to attend. This applies to players on the going list and the waitlist. **[[OTHER DETAILS]]** Only those on the “going” list are permitted to play. If you are on the waitlist, or not registered at all, you will not be permitted into the gymnasium.

Smashing! Try something new Interactive workshops - Become the charismatic leader Why is Smashing different to other speaking clubs? Passion!!! 1. **Everyone talks** many times during interactive workshops 2. **FAST LEARNING** 3\. Relaxed and fun **IMPORTANT: Be on time, as doors close at start time** Multicultural Hub, 506 Elizabeth St (Opposite Queen Vic Market) Level 1, Purple Room (End of corridor) More to come...

**Ready to build AI agents for the real world?** Join NEXTGEN and AWS for a **hands-on half-day workshop** on building **production-grade AI agents** with **Amazon Bedrock AgentCore**. Designed for technical **AWS partners**, this session will help you move beyond prompts and start building agents that can **reason, take action, use tools, connect to data, and run multi-step workflows**. You’ll hear directly from AWS experts, get hands-on in guided labs, and learn how to design, test, and prepare agent-based applications for production on AWS. **Who should attend:** This workshop is geared towards technical professionals, software engineers, solution architects, IT consultants and AI specialists. Experience working with Python is helpful but not essential. **You’ll walk away with:** * Practical hands-on experience with Bedrock AgentCore * A clear understanding of agent architecture and workflows * Guidance on building secure, scalable AI agents * Real examples of how agentic systems are being applied today **For all attendees please complete the official registration form [here](https://share.hsforms.com/1Y7G0uyy3SD69M8uT9h5OxQccl9o?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9Qzcg9ArhVhcB4Eu599PPVLksuWkmDEAnnlhxJbXeeTs0xBA2lJFxJZU4gZ_6cD44DNldH) for entry on the day!**

**Welcome to Badminton Social (羽球匯友) Meetup!** Join us for regular badminton, social meetups, and a great time on the court around Caulfield. Let's build a welcoming badminton community and make some amazing memories together! Whether you are a beginner or a pro, this event is perfect for anyone looking to stay active, make new friends, and enjoy some friendly plays. Our group is made up of both local and international members, creating a diverse and welcoming atmosphere for everyone to join in. Not only will you have the chance to improve your Badminton skills and stay fit, but you'll also have the opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals who share a passion for healthy living and staying active. Come and be a part of our community in Melbourne, where friendships are made on and off the court. **Details as below:** When: 2 May, this coming Saturday Time: 5pm - 6.30pm Where: Monash Sport Caulfield (1-min walk from Caulfield Station / free parking around the Station) Fee: $12 per head (PayID to the organizer) *#Limited spots - first come first served (RSVP)* *#Please bring your own racket(s); or you can rent it from the Centre (if needed)* ***#Please kindly update your RSVP as soon as possible if you need to cancel, so hopefully others can still get a spot to join. Cancellations within 24 hours or no-shows will be charged the full rate - Many thanks for your understanding and cooperation.*** *#Please let the organizer know after the first play, if you'd like to play regularly with the group ongoing and enjoy exclusive offer - Organizer will add you to our Whatsapp group for the regulars :)* *DISCLAIMER:* *By* *attending any event hosted by this Meetup group, you acknowledge and accept that participation involves inherent risks, including injury or loss of property, and you assume full responsibility for your safety. The organizers are not liable for any damages, injuries, or losses that occur, regardless of cause. You agree to follow any event guidelines, act responsibly, and understand that you are responsible for your own well-being. By attending, you accept these terms.*

\*\*\*\*NEW SESSION!!\*\*\*\* Welcome to Melbourne Volleyball Academy. 🤗 **[[WHAT]]** This session is specifically for games only (no training). There will be a cap of 18 players, allowing for 3 teams of 6. Games will be played to 15 points, with a cap at 18 points. These games are intended to be played at a high-intermediate(BB)/advanced(A) level. Please see an explanation of skill levels on our website here: [https://melbournevolleyballacademy.com.au/skill-levels-explained](https://melbournevolleyballacademy.com.au/skill-levels-explained) **[[WHO]]** The session is intended for ADVANCED players. Players should be able to: * Have strong fundamentals for all volleyball techniques * Serve receive a majority of serves well & serve over the net consistently * Basic understanding of 5-1, and 6-2 systems (we do not play a pass middle 4-2 system in this session) * Have an understanding of base defense * Know all/most volleyball rules Players that are not of the intermediate(BB)/advanced(A) level will be asked to leave as we want to ensure that all players have an enjoyable time playing. **[[HOW MUCH $$]]** $12 card payment will be processed on the day via square reader (EFTPOS). **[[WHEN]]** The stadium is booked from 12:30 PM-2:15 PM weekly, every Saturday. However, feel free to come early and stretch as the Recreation Centre is open earlier. Last minute dropouts and no shows will have a zero-tolerance policy going forward. All players are expected to update their RSVP at least 24 hours in advanced if they are unable to attend. This applies to players on the going list and the waitlist. **[[OTHER DETAILS]]** Only those on the “going” list are permitted to play. If you are on the waitlist, or not registered at all, you will not be permitted into the gymnasium.

Join us at this mischievous bar and eatery to meet people and chat 🧚‍♀️ With fairies overseeing everything, let's hang out and socialise. Don't worry if you are coming along by yourself or don't know anyone - new people are always welcome. We have all been the new person at some point in time. 📍 **Location:** Arcane Fairies, Ground Floor, 185 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne Vic 3000 **How often do we have events? Weekly!** Join us at a different bar/pub each week to meet new people and see the familiar faces of the regular members. This is a regular weekly group for socialising and unwinding for the weekend. Events are also on: Meet New People, Make Real Friends [https://www.meetup.com/casual-catchups-and-cool-connections/](https://www.meetup.com/casual-catchups-and-cool-connections/) Bartopia [https://www.meetup.com/bartopia/](https://www.meetup.com/bartopia/) Bartopia [https://www.facebook.com/groups/bartopia/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/bartopia/) Follow us on Instagram: [https://www.instagram.com/bartopia.melbourne/](https://www.instagram.com/bartopia.melbourne/) This week's venue: [https://arcanefairies.com.au/](https://arcanefairies.com.au/)

Thursday Futsal in Footscray! ⚽⚽⚽ 5-a-side Futsal (indoor soccer), played on an indoor pitch. Cost: $10 (pre-pay) 10 players min/max. Court booked for 1 hour. RSVPs only please. Normal Runners/Sneakers or Futsal shoes are fine (no studs). Location: Victoria University Footscray Park Campus - 3rd Floor (court 3), Corner of Ballarat rd and Geelong rd, Footscray (near the Flemington Racecourse). Located in Footscray, which is just 5km from the CBD. Plenty of Parking available. Also serviced by public transport. It is a 15 min walk from Footscray train station. https://www.vu.edu.au/campuses/footscray-park Refund Policy: Please be aware that if for some reason you cannot attend, that you provide at least 24 hours notice to allow a sufficient replacement. Failure to not attend or withdraw in a timely manner will lead to removal from the group. https://youtu.be/iF65zrwsIaY

Join us at this mischievous bar and eatery to meet people and chat 🧚‍♀️ With fairies overseeing everything, let's hang out and socialise. Don't worry if you are coming along by yourself or don't know anyone - new people are always welcome. We have all been the new person at some point in time. 📍 **Location:** Arcane Fairies, Ground Floor, 185 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne Vic 3000 **How often do we have events? Weekly!** Join us at a different bar/pub each week to meet new people and see the familiar faces of the regular members. This is a regular weekly group for socialising and unwinding for the weekend. Events are also on: Bartopia [https://www.meetup.com/bartopia/](https://www.meetup.com/bartopia/) Raiders of the Lost Bars [https://www.meetup.com/barraiders/](https://www.meetup.com/barraiders/) Bartopia [https://www.facebook.com/groups/bartopia/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/bartopia/) Follow us on Instagram: [https://www.instagram.com/bartopia.melbourne/](https://www.instagram.com/bartopia.melbourne/) This week's venue: [https://arcanefairies.com.au/](https://arcanefairies.com.au/)

3 Teams. 3 Goals. Hexagonal Pitch. A game of alliance and betrayal in equal measure. We are looking for new players and returning players alike to come play a match. Players of any ability, fitness level or background are welcomed - the game is intended to be fun for a Sunday morning rather than super competitive. If you've never played before, that's okay - the rules are as simple as this: * There's no offside - roam where you will * Defend your goal at all costs * No hands (this is soccer-style football after all) Come down for 9:00am, we make some balanced teams and warm up for the match starting at 9:15. Three thirds are played of 25 minutes each so we're usually done by about 11:00am. All fitness and soccer skill levels more than welcome and encouraged! A note regarding junior players: We very much enjoy and encourage junior players to come along and play however please be aware of the following: * As most attendees are adults, all players must be a minimum of 1.5m tall and 13 years of age. Soccer may have incidental contact when contesting a ball, and we would hate for someone small to be injured as a result of running into someone larger than them. * Any players under the age of 16 must be accompanied by a playing parent or guardian. How to find us - We meet on the astroturf pitch near the Baselball and Hockey clubs in Albert Park. The main location we use is called "Dorothy Coleman Field". If we aren't there then there may be a couple of other locations, [as noted on this dynamic map](https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1JdDwV4AOV5e-xP5d56m16-eu29GlnZQ&usp=sharing) \- generally we will follow in number order\.

It feels like we just saw each other 🤷. Join members of the local design and UX community for our monthly breakfast. For May we’re stopping in for Rooh’s popup breakfast/cafe concept. You know someone is getting the lobster yuzu croissant, and that’s not even the prettiest thing on the menu!.

Come out to Improving for our monthly iOS and Mac meetings. This Month's Presentation: Nothing yet. (You should volunteer). What is Cocoaheads (http://cocoaheads.org/)? CocoaHeads is a group devoted to discussion of Apple Computer's Cocoa Framework for programming on MacOS X and iOS (including the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch). During monthly meetings, members present on their projects and offer tutorials on various programming topics. What is BuckeyeCocoa (http://buckeyecocoa.org/)? BuckeyeCocoa is a group of Objective-C/Swift developers/enthusiasts. We host monthly Cocoaheads and near-weekly NSCoder meetings in Columbus, Ohio. The meetings are free to attend. Presentations! Presenters welcome! We are always in need of people willing to present material. Any Swift and/or Objective-C related topic is welcome. Times can be 5 minutes (i.e. lightning talks) to a maximum of 2 hours. Interested? Contact info is on the BuckeyeCocoa website. To volunteer for a presentation contact us at @BuckeyeCocoa on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter! @BuckeyeCocoa (https://twitter.com/#!/Buckeyecocoa/) For more information: http://buckeyecocoa.org/

**This month’s Creativity Circle is very timely. We will be making our own craft flowers out of paper, coffee filters, popsicle sticks, sparkles, cupcake liners, pipe cleaners and more! All ages welcome, show up as you can, bring a friend or a few if you would like to! Excited to see you there! Seats Limited. Held at the Westerville Public Library Meeting Room B.**

FREE event [https://www.ccad.edu/chroma](https://www.ccad.edu/chroma) Friday, May 15, 3–7 p.m. CCAD campus, 60 Cleveland Ave, Columbus, OH Join Columbus College of Art & Design for *2025* *Chroma: Best of CCAD*, our annual campuswide exhibition showcasing outstanding student work from across the college’s academic programs. This faculty-juried show features select work from CCAD students of all class years, and is a can’t-miss end-of-year campus celebration recognizing their tremendous achievements. It’ll be a night of fun and entertainment, with interactive games, animation and film screenings, art symposiums, poetry and prose readings, and more (along with some of the best local food trucks). *Chroma* is free and open to all. Many exhibitions including... **Game Art & Design:** **DSB, first floor, Welcome Center lobby and Room 115**

Columbus Code & Coffee is an inclusive, informal co-working session. People of all skill levels attend, and we love it that way. Many people (optionally) bring projects to work on, and many other people (optionally) socialize the entire time. It's entirely up to you! **What to Expect at the Intro Circle** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ Near the beginning of the event (1:30 pm), we do a standup: * Organizer announcements, updates, and logistics Round 1 - (7 secs max): * Your name * What you're working on * What you can help others with Round 2: * Community events you wanna plug. If none, that's cool too. Round 3: * Job opportunities you're hiring for OR announce that you are looking for one. If none, that's cool. After the introduction circle, everything is self-organized! Feel free to work alone, pair up, attend one of our workshops/presentations, or mingle!

Practical AI for Power BI Developers A year ago, “agentic AI” was mostly hype for Power BI teams. Today, it deserves your undivided attention. For Power BI pros, there is now a real opportunity to reduce repetitive development work, accelerate delivery, and help developers do more, but only when strong DataOps practices are in place to make AI workflows effective. This session is a no-nonsense introduction to effective AI patterns for Power BI and Fabric development. Along the way, we will make sense of the growing pile of terminology, including skills, plugins, hooks, and MCP. You will see examples of how modern AI tooling can help with development tasks across Power BI and Fabric, along with the prerequisites, guardrails, and DataOps principles needed to use it responsibly. Whether you're burned out on AI hype or already using Copilot CLI daily, this session will show you the foundations that are finally making AI-assisted development genuinely useful.