The Journey So Far as the West African AWS User Group

AWS Cloud Security User Group West Africa

What we’re about!

We are a User Group with a focus on holding regular meetups for infosec enthusiasts (new and experienced) in West Africa who are interested in AWS Cloud security from all aspects: attack and defense research, limitations of security features, the pros and cons of different security strategies, best practices, and experiences in implementation.

How it all started

1. The first introduction email was sent out by Veliswa Boya on Fri, July 29, 2022, to the AWS team.
2. A follow-up email was sent on July 30 and August 6, 2022, by David Okeyode.
3. A response to the follow-up email was received from María Encinar on August 8, 2022.
4. An introductory meeting was held on Tue, August 9, 2022, at 2 PM WAT and the email confirming the official recognition of the User Group was received on August 9, 2022, at 10:35 PM WAT.
5. Thembile Ndlovu, Community Manager for Africa introduced to us as the main point of contact for all things community in the region, working together with other regional DAs, such as Veliswa Boya (Sub-Saharan Africa) and Mohammed Fazalullah Qudrath (North Africa) on November 17, 2022. Since Thembile was introduced to the User Group, she has done amazing work in supporting the User Group in various capacities such as introducing us to existing and new opportunities within Africa and beyond.

Achievements so far

1. Since official recognition, we have successfully hosted 30 virtual study series and 1 in-person summit, bringing the number of events we have held since inception to 31 plus 3 scheduled events yet to take place. See the Meetup event page.
2. We have been recognized as part of the Global AWS User Group Community Meetup Group
3. We have served as mentors and onboarding buddies to Maputo UG leaders in Mozambique
4. We have been featured on AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials Day powered by the AWS Certification and Training Team.
5. We have chatted paths to several partnership opportunities, such as with AWS — BEN Team (Amazon Black Employees Network), AWS Startups Team, AWS Training and Certification and other third-party organizations.
6. We were the first User Group to speak at the first Africa Office Hour Call hosted by Thembile where we shared about how we self-organize as leaders, how having a group of co-organizers to lead the UG is beneficial as we have multiple individuals to work with and each brings their talent and skills and how it ensures the success of the UG and distributes the work with other User Group Leaders in Africa.
7. We have had new CBs in West Africa introduced to join the User Group.

Membership Growth

Although we are yet to be where we intend to be as a community, which is to train and empower 5000 young cloud security enthusiasts to the AWS Cloud by the year 2025, it may interest you to know that this User Group is not yet a year old since it was founded and recognized officially by AWS as one of the Global AWS User Groups.

The User Group currently has over 1,000 active members on its Meetup page. See the image below

Leadership Structure

Behind every success we have recorded so far, there are people with dogged courage who work tirelessly to drive progress for the User Group.

The User Group has three leadership structures. They’re:

1. The Core Leadership — This team oversees the general activities of the User Group and reports back to the AWS team.
2. Co-Organizing Team — This team is responsible for the day-to-day running of the user group activities and reports back to the core leadership. It is made up of 27 members inclusive of the core leadership team.
3. Event Organizing Team — This is a temporary team usually put together in the build-up to an in-person event to act as volunteers to help make in-person events such as the upcoming AWS Community Day a success. Members of this temporary group are usually selected based on their level of enthusiasm and added to the co-organizing team after each physical event.

Leadership Style

The User Group runs a 4-month rotational leadership style. The idea is to keep impacting our members by constantly holding virtual study series to keep them engaged, help them pass their AWS Certification exam, and solidify their hands-on experience on the typical use cases and application of AWS services in real-life scenarios.

The User Group is currently led by Imoh Etuk, a successor to David Okeyode. David, who led the group from December 2022 to March 2023, did tremendously well in holding a 2-month study and win-a-prize certification study series and exposing the User Group to several levels of partnership opportunities.

Currently, there is an ongoing study and win-a-prize certification study series that started in the first week of April and will run until May 30, 2023. The study series is designed to run for two days (Mondays and Tuesdays), one hour per day, each week. Register on our Meetup event page if you haven’t done so already.

Social Media Growth

The social media and graphics team has done an excellent job shaping the social media presence of the User Group. The social media team is led by Blessing Ogechi Nwojiji, while the graphics team is led by Abiodun Eniola.

Follow our social media pages to see the progress we have made so far and to stay up-to-date with our current and upcoming events using the below links.

Meetup- https://rebrand.ly/awssecwestafrica-meetup

Twitch — https://rebrand.ly/awssecwestafrica-twitch

YouTube — https://rebrand.ly/awssecwestafrica-youtube

Twitter — https://rebrand.ly/awssecwestafrica-twitter

Medium — https://rebrand.ly/awssecwestafrica-medium

LinkedIn — https://rebrand.ly/awssecwestafrica-linkedin