AWS re:Invent 2024 Watch Party

We closed out 2024 with the biggest event of the year. The AWS re:Invent 2024 Watch Party at Epicenter Helsinki drew 135 people, making it the largest gathering for AWS User Group Finland in 2024. The agenda ran from 15:30 all the way to 21:00, making it a proper afternoon-to-evening event.

Mika Pyhamaki, CEO of Grand Iceberg Group, hosted the evening and kept things running smoothly. Sari Uusitalo, Country Leader for Finland and the Baltics at AWS, opened with greetings from AWS, which set a good tone for the event. DoiT contributed a partner keynote and workshop session, and Sampo Vehkaoja and Henri Heinola from Slack ran a lounge session that drew an engaged crowd. The main highlight was streaming Matt Garman’s keynote live from Las Vegas – watching it together with 135 people who all care about AWS makes the experience completely different from sitting at home alone.

The 2024 re:Invent announcements gave us plenty to talk about. Every year AWS manages to pack the keynotes with a mix of expected updates and genuine surprises, and this year was no exception. Conversations around the room were animated, with people already thinking about how the new services and features would affect their work.

With 135 attendees, Epicenter was buzzing. The venue handled the crowd well, and the atmosphere felt like a proper community event. Food and drinks were flowing, and the networking continued long after the keynote stream ended.

A huge thank you to Mika Pyhamaki for hosting, to Sari Uusitalo for representing AWS, and to everyone who joined and helped make this the best-attended event of the year. A fitting way to close out a strong 2024 season for AWS User Group Finland.