AWS Finland November Meetup - Sponsored by Telia
This one was special. After nearly two years of online-only meetups, AWS User Group Finland finally gathered in person again on November 25th. Telia hosted us at their office near Pasila station in Helsinki, and what a wonderful office it was to have the event in. Doors opened at 17:30 with the program kicking off at 18:00, and an EU COVID certificate (koronapassi) was required at the entrance. Walking into a room full of familiar faces – and plenty of new ones – felt genuinely good. How nice it was to just meet people and talk in a meetup again.
Seats went fast when I opened registration. I asked people to be mindful of releasing their spots if they could not attend, because demand was high and people really wanted to meet. We needed to keep the attendance ratio up so as many people as possible could join. Around 65 people showed up in the end, which was a strong turnout for the first physical event since the long COVID hiatus.
The evening featured two talks. Roman Tuomisto from Telia presented “AWS Serverless and Gathering Analytics Data,” sharing how his team leverages serverless services for analytics pipelines. After that, Rolf Koski took the stage with “Road to re:Invent,” giving us a look at what to expect from the upcoming AWS re:Invent conference. Both talks had good energy, but honestly, the hallway conversations before and after the presentations were just as valuable. The spontaneous discussions over drinks, the crowd reacting to a live presentation – we had missed all of it, and it showed. People stuck around well after the formal agenda was done. Telia as a sponsor provided great refreshments and the venue worked perfectly for the crowd.
More than the technical content, this meetup was about the community itself. Seeing people who had only been Zoom thumbnails to each other for two years finally shaking hands and sharing stories was the real highlight. It marked a turning point – the AWS Finland meetup scene was back, and it felt like we were picking up right where we left off.
