AWS Community Nordics: Werner Vogels Keynote Live Session

To wrap up a year that had been anything but ordinary, the AWS Community Nordics organized a virtual watch party for Werner Vogels’ re:Invent 2020 keynote. With 55 attendees joining online, it was a nice way to close out the year and experience the biggest AWS event together as a community, even if we could not be in Las Vegas.

re:Invent 2020 was fully virtual for the first time in its history, spread across three weeks instead of the usual intense week in Las Vegas. The community stayed engaged on the aws-community-nordics Slack channel throughout the conference, but the peak activity came during Werner Vogels’ keynote, which is always one of the highlights for its deep technical content and forward-looking vision. We focused our watch party specifically on Werner’s session, and watching it together with fellow AWS enthusiasts made it far more enjoyable than watching alone.

The live chat during the keynote was a highlight in itself. As new services and features were announced, the reactions and discussions in real time added a layer of excitement and analysis that you just do not get when watching a recording by yourself. People were quick to spot which announcements would be relevant for their work and shared their initial impressions immediately.

Werner covered topics ranging from new compute options to machine learning services and container improvements. The announcements gave the community plenty to discuss and experiment with heading into 2021.

Looking back at 2020 as a whole, the AWS Finland community showed remarkable resilience. We went from packed in-person meetups in January and February, to a legendary Jeff Barr visit in March, and then pivoted entirely to virtual events for the rest of the year. Through it all, the community stayed active, engaged, and supportive of each other. The Nordic collaboration that emerged from the virtual format was an unexpected positive that would continue to shape the community in the years ahead.