The first AWS Heroes in 2024 has been announced!
The AWS Heroes program celebrates the very best thought leaders, educators, and inspirations from across the global AWS community who are passionate not just about mastering the tech, but also empowering their peers to do the same.
Whether you catch them at a local meetup, attend one of their talks at an this year, or simply drop them a ‘follow’ online, these are the professionals with a passion for learning who are leading by example.
Let’s meet the latest cohort of AWS Heroes…
Tiago Rodrigues
AWS Community Hero
Lisbon, Portugal
Tiago Rodrigues is a Senior Cloud Consultant at tecRacer.com, where he specializes in cloud migrations from on-premises environments, modernizing architectures, and implementing serverless solutions from idea to production. With a diverse range of experiences working on both start-up and enterprise projects, Tiago has extensive knowledge of AWS that he’s keen to pass onto others. Enthusiastic about promoting a culture of learning, he regularly partakes in the AWS User Group Lisbon, in addition to leading educational workshops and guest lectures at universities. When he’s not offering his insights in-person, Tiago can often be found sharing his AWS adventures on his blog or at global online events, fueled by his desire to help everyone across the community reach their full potential. In fact, this passion for education and innovation has even seen Tiago develop an open-source mobile app, AWSary—a fun yet informative AWS dictionary that helps to draw diagrams and provide insight into AWS services.
Martin Damovsky
AWS Community Hero
Prague, Czechia
As Cloud Governance Lead at Ataccama.com, Martin Damovsky has spent over a decade building on AWS. Most recently, his primary focus has been on maximizing business value through FinOps, establishing AWS Partner programs, and evangelizing AWS cloud, with a particular interest in AWS Control Tower Account Factory for Terraform, Cloud Intelligence Dashboard, and security and govern tools. But Martin doesn’t just keep this wide-spanning expertise all to himself. On the contrary, he regularly shares his knowledge and experience with the wider AWS community—whether that’s through writing blog posts, speaking at meetups, podcasts, and events, or leading the AWS User Group Prague. (Oh, and if all that wasn’t enough, he was also an AWS Community Builder from 2023-2024!)
Daniel Aniszkiewicz
AWS Community Hero
Prague, Czechia
Daniel Aniszkiewicz is a Senior Software Engineer at Algoteque International Hub, having thrived in his AWS career since launching it in 2017. His passion for bringing together like-minded professionals goes back further still, having been actively involved in organizing IT events since his university days—and nowadays, this same passion has led Daniel to co-organizing the Wrocław AWS User Group. But that’s not the only way Daniel is actively contributing to the growth and engagement of the AWS community. As a seasoned speaker, he’s given talks at many AWS events, meetups, and Community Days, as well as creating a wide range of insightful workshops, blog posts, open-source projects, IaC templates, and more, with a particular focus on promoting Amazon Verified Permissions and Cedar
Sena Yakut
AWS Security Hero
Izmir, Turkiye
As a cloud security expert with a Master’s degree, Sena Yakut is a Senior Cloud Security Engineer at Lyrebird Studio with a wealth of experience understanding cloud security concepts. Deeply involved in the security technology stack, Sena specializes in building security concepts and services on AWS, and specifying threat management and best practices for AWS solutions. But this expertise isn’t reserved solely for her role at Lyrebird. Instead, Sena generously shares her know-how a variety of ways, from blogging across many platforms to partaking in discussions about cloud security at events like AWS Community Day Türkiye and DevOpsDays Istanbul. Sena believes that cloud security is an endless journey. As such, she embraces the mindset of continuous learning that sees her not only keep up with all the latest in AWS and cloud security, but also empowers her peers to do the same.
Kenta Goto
AWS Dev Tools Hero
Tokyo, Japan
Kenta Goto is a Backend Tech Lead at mates Co. Ltd, recognized as a Top Contributor and a Trusted Reviewer in AWS CDK. He remains super-active in the open-source community, developing and publishing self-made AWS tools and AWS CDK Construct libraries which are utilized worldwide, and serving as a maintainer for the Community-Driven CDK Construct Library. When he’s not pursuing his daily commitment as an OSS contributor, Kenta can be found showcasing his expertise as an active conference speaker, having given insightful talks at events like AWS Dev Day in Japan. In fact, at the 2023 Dev Day, Kenta was awarded first place among nearly 200 CfP submissions
Awedis Keofteian
AWS Community Hero
Beirut, Lebanon
Awedis Keofteian has a strong background in DevOps practices, and currently holds a position as a DevOps Engineer at Anghami, where his expertise is leveraged to enhance scalability, reliability, and efficiency in the company’s cloud-based architecture. Outside of the office, Awedis actively engages and nurtures one of the most active AWS communities in the Lebanon region, leading the AWS User Group in Beirut after beginning his journey as an AWS Community Builder. Driven by a love for supporting the growth of his peers, Awedis is a dedicated enthusiast who’s not just thriving in his own career journey, but helping others across DevOps, Automation, Serverless, and Cloud achieve their utmost potential too.
Hazel Sáenz
AWS Serverless Hero
Guatemala, Guatemala
Hazel Sáenz is a Software Architect at Cognits with over two decades of experience in software creation and design. Right now, she’s mostly focused on designing high workload architectures in Serverless frameworks and modernizing on-premise applications with AWS. But that’s not all that makes Hazel a celebrated AWS Serverless Hero. With a love for sharing her high-level expertise with the community, Hazel regularly gives technical talks locally in Guatemala, as well as at AWS events around the world. Whether she’s leading the AWS User Group Guatemala, creating technical articles in English and Spanish, or organizing inclusive events to ensure everyone gets to pursue exciting opportunities in AWS, Hazel is the epitome of what the AWS community is all about.
Rafał Mituła
AWS Community Hero
Warsaw, Poland
Rafał Mituła is a Cloud Data Engineer and Architect at Chaos Gears. Working within the Data & AI division, Rafal prides himself on his expertise in solutions architecture, his dedication to constant learning, and his eagerness to find innovative and effective solutions to tackle new challenges. But Rafal isn’t just talking the talk; he’s also walking the walk! As an active member of the AWS community, he’s a co-organizer of both the AWS User Group Warsaw meetups and the AWS Community Day Poland conference. Rafal also regularly speaks at conferences, and leads workshops introducing novices to AWS and data analytics at events like the AWS Data Engineering Immersion Days. And if all that wasn’t proof enough of Rafal’s genuine passion for knowledge sharing, he also creates content about AWS and data engineered that he regularly shares online. In other words, Rafal does a whole lot for the community and his peers, rightly earning him recognition as an AWS Community Hero!
Psst, don’t forget to check out previous AWS Heroes across the following posts—there’s a whole host of inspiring community legends you need to have on your radar!
