Upcoming AWS Events for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in June / July.
Tags: aws
Published: 2020-06-30 07:34:03

The last month has been a blur, I’m still confused as to how we can be in June already, feeling like a time traveler as I’m busy booking out talks in September already and the weather making me think it is still April (nice 22C day here in South Africa for me today). This will be a quick listing of what events there are coming up in the next 1.5 months, it is fairly packed :)

## AWS EMEA Online Summit
First off, we had the [AWS EMEA Online Summit on 17 June](https://bit.ly/emea-summit), with 55+ sessions. Good news is if you missed it, you can watch all the sessions via the platform for the next 3 months. This was a first for our summit series (which are usually in-person events) and I am really excited to be able to watch all the sessions — prior to joining AWS I always had to pick only 5 on the day as you can’t clone yourself and attend all of them.

## AWS Africa Region Virtual Day
For those not yet away, the AWS Cape Town Region was launched on 22 April, and we have created a one-day event with 10 technical sessions to help you build your first cloud project and a business track focused on digital transformation and moving to the cloud. All the details and [RSVP can be found here](https://bit.ly/africa-virtual-day).

## AWS Africa Office Hours on Twitch
![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/nlc9tkc8bnx92vb4lcnu.png)

This is a new type of live, AMA style event we are trying out. Currently we are streaming it to [Twitch on channel](https://bit.ly/cobus-twitch), with the first 2 sessions on were just myself trying to answer questions, we’ve decided to make it more engaging by having some of my team mates join as well. We had the first one of these on 18 June, and you can [watch the session on Youtube](https://youtu.be/LSmivK7blag). If you want a reminder for the upcoming sessions, use this registration link, otherwise join us live on the following dates/times:
* [2 July @ 12:00 GMT+2 / SAST](https://bit.ly/cobus-twitch)
* [18 July @ 12:00 GMT+2 / SAST](https://bit.ly/cobus-twitch)

## Streaming on the Rocks
![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/8ax0s8ytp2ok41htbacp.jpeg)

Myself and Darko Mesaroš have been trying a new format where we discuss specific tech topics ([Ep 1: Infrastructure as Code](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z1-b-U45ds) and [Ep 2: T(w)ooling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofjpCCvjISE) *[My #dadjoke of tooling + episode 2 …]*) on a Friday evening while enjoying a beverage — “Streaming on the Rocks”. We are looking to also do versions of it called “Streaming Beans” / _Some other badly named event_ that will be roughly during office hours for most EMEA based timezones. Keep an eye on our social feeds for the next ones.

## Webinars

With the restrictions on in-person events, we have shifted a lot of focus to doing more digital content, and webinars are a great way for providing content and interacting with the attendees. We’ve been pre-recording them as it allows me to answer questions while the sessions are running. If you haven’t joined them yet, here is a list of the coming ones (the last Infrastructure as Code ones are being scheduled next week, will update with the link when it is ready):
22 June: [Multi-region architecture: Using data in more than 1 region](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webinars-18)
23 June: [Multi-region architecture: Using services in more than 1 region](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webinars-18)
24 June: [Getting started with Data Warehouses on AWS](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webinars-18)
25 June: [Getting started with Data Lakes on AWS](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webinars-18)
13 July: [Understanding your AWS bill](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webianrs-22)
14 July: [Understanding Total Cost of Ownership on AWS](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webianrs-22)
15 July: [Understanding Disaster Recovery using AWS](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webianrs-22)
21 July: [Understanding Operations: Add super powers to your operations](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webianrs-22)
22 July: [Understanding Operations: The 3 Ps (Preventing Patching Problems)](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webianrs-22)
23 July: [Understanding Operations: Operations in a hybrid world](https://bit.ly/aws-ssa-webianrs-22)
27 July: Infrastructure as Code: An overview
28 July: Infrastructure as Code: Amazon Cloudformation
29 July: Infrastructure as Code: Hashicorp Terraform
30 July: Infrastructure as Code: AWS CDK
And that is a what we currently(*) have lined up till the end of July. If you have any opinions / ideas / suggestions, please respond in the comments, or on social media via Twitter or LinkedIn. Hope to see you at some (all!?!?) of these events :)

(*) There are some French webinars & office hours as well, please let me know if you are interested in more French content, we are doing these as an experiment at the moment to gauge interest.