Are you a student? There are Student Builder Groups. An individual contributor looking to grow and connect with other builders? There’s the Community Builders program. Just starting your journey as a speaker? The AWS New Voices program is there to help. And for those who have gone above and beyond in sharing their knowledge and building communities, there’s the Heroes program.

But there’s one program I deliberately left out. Not because it’s less important, but because it’s particularly close to my heart: the User Groups program.

Why? Because it’s different from all the others.

Unlike many AWS community initiatives, User Groups weren’t originally created by AWS. They started organically, driven by passionate individuals who wanted to bring local cloud communities together. AWS eventually recognized their importance and began supporting the people behind them.

And that’s what makes this program so special. It’s built around the people who voluntarily dedicate their time and energy to making communities thrive.

The missing piece: bringing User Group Leaders together

AWS User Group Leaders regularly bring people together in their own cities and countries. They organize meetups, find speakers, book venues, welcome newcomers, and keep their communities alive.

But here’s the funny thing: while they’re busy connecting everyone else, they rarely get the opportunity to connect with each other.

Sure, there’s AWS re:Invent. For many of us, it’s the one time of the year when we get to meet fellow community leaders from around the world. But re:Invent is busy, hectic, and packed with activities. Finding time for meaningful conversations isn’t always easy.

And this is where an idea started to take shape.

How it all started

re:Invent is always the home of major AWS announcements, but for community leaders, it’s also where some of the best ideas are born.

Last year, I heard from Maria Encinar, AWS’s Global User Group Program Manager, that she was planning something special: regional User Group Leaders Summits.

Wow. That sounded amazing!

One of the things I appreciate most about AWS’s approach to its community is that it genuinely encourages feedback and new ideas. You can share your thoughts, propose something different, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, see those ideas become reality.

I decided to give it a try.

Since the goal was to bring community leaders together, I suggested connecting the summit to one of the biggest community events in my region: AWS Community Day CEE.

Why organize another standalone event when we could bring people together around an existing community gathering?

And AWS listened.

In May 2026, I received a message asking whether I’d be interested in partnering with AWS to host the first EMEA User Groups Summit, immediately following AWS Community Day CEE.

Of course!

What an honor.

Being from Budapest, I also loved the opportunity to show our beautiful city to fellow community leaders. For the venue, I proposed the European Youth Centre Budapest, a place that represents European unity, cooperation, and bringing people together.

I couldn’t think of a more fitting location for a gathering like this.

And so, together with AWS, we started planning something that would make history.

EMEA: Making history in Budapest

The result? 45 User Group Leaders from across EMEA came together for the first-ever EMEA User Group Leaders Summit.

For the first time, community leaders from across our region could meet in such numbers without having to cross the Atlantic to do so.

And it wasn’t just another networking event.

It was a day full of conversations, shared experiences, learning, and new connections. We brought together first-time User Group Leaders and seasoned veterans, people running communities of different sizes and facing very different challenges.

Yet we all shared something: the passion for bringing people together.

There were discussions about community building, program updates, exchanging best practices, and, most importantly, getting to know the people behind the groups we usually hear about from afar.

It was a milestone for our community, and I hope it was just the beginning.

If you’d like to get a more detailed perspective on the event from an attendee’s point of view, check out Hennie Francis’s recap.

But the story doesn’t end in Budapest.

Korea: Discovering that we’re more alike than different

I was fortunate enough not only to attend the EMEA summit but also to join the AWSKRUG User Group Leaders Summit 2026 in Seoul, South Korea.

And what an experience that was!

Held on October 24 at D.Camp in Seolleung, the event brought together 31 attendees from across the Korean AWS community.

The format was a little different, but the purpose was the same: bringing the people behind the communities together.

The day started with an introduction to AWSKRUG and its activities, followed by an update from Maria Encinar on the Global User Group program. We also got to hear about the Korean ecosystem, including student activities, individual study groups, and the wider community’s achievements throughout the year.

One particularly interesting aspect was learning how Korean User Groups organize and manage their activities centrally, and how supportive the different groups are of one another.

It was fascinating to see how a community ecosystem can develop in a different country and culture.

But perhaps the biggest takeaway wasn’t the differences.

It was the similarities.

Despite being on opposite sides of the world, we face many of the same challenges. Recruiting volunteers, keeping members engaged, finding speakers, organizing events, and making sure our communities remain welcoming and sustainable.

These are universal challenges for anyone who has ever tried to build a community.

We also had the opportunity to share experiences from other regions. I had the chance to present The Community Flywheel and highlight how AWS User Groups across Europe are driving community growth through their local activities, initiatives, and collaborations, while Raphael Quisumbing, AWS Hero and long-time co-leader of the AWS Philippines User Group, shared his experience from the Philippines.

The day included an icebreaker, quizzes, a fireside chat, brainstorming sessions, networking, and even recorded interviews with the leaders.

And, of course, no great community event is complete without spending time together over food!

What struck me most was how different the conversations were from the ones we usually have at re:Invent. There, everyone is rushing between sessions, meetings, announcements, and activities. At a dedicated User Group Leaders Summit, you finally have the time to sit down, exchange experiences, ask questions, and discuss the challenges that really matter.

That’s something special.

Why these summits matter

You might wonder why we need dedicated events for User Group Leaders in the first place.

After all, aren’t we already meeting at re:Invent? Can’t we just exchange ideas online?

Well, I think these two summits demonstrated exactly why we need them.

Running a User Group means being deeply involved in your local community. You work closely with your co-organizers, members, and speakers, and over time, you develop your own ways of doing things.

But it’s easy to get caught up in your local bubble.

You don’t always know how other communities operate, what challenges they face, or what creative ideas they’re experimenting with elsewhere. You might have found a great solution to a problem that another User Group is still struggling with. Or perhaps another community has developed an approach that you never would have considered.

And that’s exactly why these summits matter.

They give us the opportunity to step outside our local bubbles, exchange experiences, discover new approaches, and learn from people who share the same passion but may have completely different perspectives.

They also remind us that we’re not isolated local communities. We’re part of a much bigger global ecosystem, and we can learn so much from one another.

Sometimes, all it takes is one conversation to spark an idea that can make a difference back home.

Looking ahead: 2026 was just the beginning

One thing I hope is that these summits won’t be a one-time opportunity.

The EMEA and Korean gatherings showed two different ways of bringing User Group Leaders together, but they shared the same underlying idea: the people who build communities deserve a community of their own.

AWS has taken an important step in recognizing this, and I hope we can build on that momentum.

Because at the end of the day, AWS communities aren’t just about technology, presentations, or cloud services.

They’re about people.

And sometimes, the best thing you can do for a community is bring its leaders together.

2026 User Groups Summits

Here are the two summits I was fortunate enough to be part of this year:

• EMEA – Budapest, Hungary: The first EMEA User Group Leaders Summit, held following AWS Community Day CEE, bringing together 45 community leaders.
• Korea – Seoul, South Korea: AWSKRUG Summit 2026, held on October 24 at D.Camp, bringing together 31 members of the Korean AWS community.

Here’s to more opportunities to connect, learn, and build stronger communities together!

A From Local Meetups to Global Connections: The AWS User Groups Summits 2026 bejegyzés először Road to AWS-én jelent meg.

There is no perfect CFP selection process. It’s one of the hardest jobs in event organization, and you’ll only truly understand this when you’re on the other side of the table. As a speaker, you’re left waiting, hoping for that approval email, never knowing what happens behind the scenes or why your carefully crafted proposal might get rejected.

Let me take you inside our selection process for AWS Community Day CEE. Perhaps this transparency will help other Community Days refine their own CFP processes — and maybe give future speakers some insight into what we’re really looking for.

The Foundation: Building Your Selection Team

The most critical decision isn’t your scoring system or evaluation criteria — it’s assembling the right team. Never decide alone or in pairs. The ideal selection team consists of 5-10 people, and diversity isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s essential for quality decisions.

We ensure at least two women are part of our selection committee. This isn’t tokenism; it’s about recognizing that diverse perspectives lead to better speaker lineups. The more evaluators you have, the clearer picture you’ll get of the top selections, but don’t exceed 10 people — that becomes ineffective and unwieldy.

Our Four-Round Selection Process

Round 0: Setting the Stage

Before any evaluation begins, we prepare the submissions for fair evaluation. We filter out duplicates, spam, and incomplete submissions to focus on legitimate proposals. Personal contact information like email addresses and phone numbers are removed from review materials for GDPR compliance, leaving reviewers with only the essential information: speaker names, talk titles, abstracts, speaker bios, and LinkedIn profiles.

Since we’ve already secured AWS speakers for keynotes and special sessions, we focus our CFP exclusively on community voices for the Main Stage presentation track. This approach ensures we maximize the unique perspectives that make community events special — the real-world experiences, hard-won lessons, and honest insights that complement official AWS content.

Round 1: The Numbers Game

Each reviewer selects their TOP 10 speakers using our point system:

• 1st choice: 12 points
• 2nd choice: 10 points
• 3rd-10th choices: 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points

Here’s what’s interesting: each voter’s first two submissions count extra, allowing them to significantly influence the top selections. But here’s the surprising part — more than half of our selected speakers never received a single maximum score of 12 points.

We evaluate based on:

• Stage performance ability – Can they actually present well?
• Previous presentation quality – We watch recordings when available
• Content uniqueness – Fresh perspectives win over recycled content
• Regional diversity – Avoiding speakers who’ve recently covered similar ground in CEE

Round 2: The Reality Check

We aggregate scores and handle the messy reality of multiple submissions per speaker. Through majority vote, we select one talk per multi-submission speaker. We ensure topic diversity — because nobody wants a conference that’s 80% GenAI presentations — and identify three backup speakers for the inevitable cancellations.

Round 3: Confirmation Anxiety

Selected speakers get invitations, and we hold our breath. Cancellations happen, and we had two this year — painful for a conference of our size, but you have to adapt.

Round 4: Going Public

The final lineup goes live across awscommunity.eu, Eventbrite, LinkedIn, and our other channels.

What We Learned: The Good, Bad, and Surprising

The Anti-Bias Rule That Works

We implemented a crucial rule: speakers need votes from at least two different evaluators to make it to the final selection. Some submissions received maximum points from just one passionate advocate but were ruled out to prevent bias. This might seem harsh, but it ensures broader appeal.

What Our System Doesn’t Solve

Despite having women on our selection committee, we still struggle with speaker diversity. The pipeline problem is real — we can only select from who applies. Including diverse voices in your selection process helps, but it’s not a magic solution.

Our Honest Mistakes

Multiple Submissions Per Person: We didn’t limit submission numbers, leading to some speakers submitting up to five different abstracts. This diluted their scoring potential and made selection unnecessarily complex.

Workshop Wishful Thinking: We really wanted community workshops, but almost no one chose this category. Speakers come prepared for presentations, not interactive sessions.

Session Length Confusion: Offering 30, 60, and 90-minute sessions (mainly for workshops that didn’t materialize) was a mistake. People can’t focus that long, and you sacrifice having more diverse sessions. Next time: 30 or 45 minutes maximum.

Post-Selection Analysis: Understanding Our Biases

At the end of our process, we ran an AI analysis of our selection patterns. The results were eye-opening:

Reviewer Insights

• Linda Mohamed: Focused on security and advanced architecture
• Lucian Patian: Emphasized serverless and data solutions
• Lydia Delyova: Balanced approach across IoT and infrastructure
• Michal Salenci: Security and AI-focused selections
• Mihaly Balassy: Cost optimization and architecture emphasis
• Philipp Bergsmann: Technical depth and emerging technologies

Quality Indicators

• Strong representation across all AWS service categories
• Balanced mix of theoretical and practical sessions
• Good distribution of foundational to expert-level content
• High proportion of real-world case studies and experiences

The Bottom Line

Our selection process isn’t perfect, but it’s transparent, systematic, and constantly evolving. We prioritize community voices over corporate messaging, diversity over convenience, and real-world insights over marketing polish.

To future speakers: we’re not looking for perfection. We’re looking for authenticity, unique perspectives, and the kind of hard-won wisdom that only comes from actually building things in production. Your war stories, your failures, your “here’s what nobody tells you” moments — that’s what makes community conferences special.

To fellow organizers: steal whatever works from our process, but remember — the system is only as good as the people implementing it. Invest in your selection team, be transparent about your criteria, and don’t be afraid to evolve your process based on what you learn.

The CFP selection process will always be imperfect, but with the right approach, it can be fair, effective, and focused on what really matters: delivering exceptional value to the AWS community.

A Behind the Scenes: CFP Selection for AWS Community Day CEE bejegyzés először Road to AWS-én jelent meg.