AWS re:Invent 2025 - Empowering communities - create fun events on AWS services (DEV344)

Source: Dev.to

Overview

AWS re:Invent 2025 – Empowering communities – create fun events on AWS services (DEV344)

In this session, Pri Santos and Dan Rezende from AWS User Groups in Brazil demonstrate how they built a centralized platform to manage community events using AWS. Starting from a simple MVP with Amplify, S3, and API Gateway, they evolved to a production‑ready architecture that includes Route 53, CloudFront, WAF, ECS Fargate, Aurora, and more.

The platform, Party Community, increased event engagement by 27 % in views and 28 % in likes through WhatsApp messaging and saves over 70 hours per year by consolidating 10+ platforms into a single console, allowing organizers to focus on community interaction rather than administrative overhead.

Watch the video on YouTube

Introduction: Streamlining AWS User Group Event Management in Brazil

Hi everyone, welcome! We’re part of the AWS User Groups in Brazil and face the challenge of organizing fun events that involve many tasks and processes. Our goal was to use AWS services to centralize everything while keeping our energy focused on community engagement.

• Pri Santos – Business Developer at Claro Brazil
• Dan Rezende – Solutions Architect and AWS Community Leader

We manage more than 400 AWS User Groups worldwide, with over 20 groups in Brazil. Organizing events involves defining details, speakers, dates, registrations, design, and many other tasks—often more than 20 individual steps.

During the AWS Summit in São Paulo we ran a special MVP that sent WhatsApp messages to attendees, driving high interaction in the community lounge. The results were striking:

• 119 views for the first event (no platform)
• 27 % increase in views for the second event (with platform)
• 28 % more likes on social posts after WhatsApp outreach

We also used memes and QR codes to make the experience more engaging.

Key Metrics

From MVP to Production: Evolving the Platform Architecture

MVP Phase

• Amplify – rapid front‑end development
• S3 – static asset storage
• API Gateway (inside EC2) – simple event triggers and messaging
• CloudWatch – basic monitoring

This setup allowed us to quickly test the concept but lacked scalability, security, and flexibility for future growth.

Transition to Production

As more communities joined, we needed a more robust solution. The production architecture now includes:

• Amazon Route 53 – DNS management
• Amazon CloudFront – CDN for low‑latency content delivery
• AWS WAF – web application firewall for enhanced security
• Amazon ECS Fargate – container orchestration without server management
• Amazon Aurora – highly available relational database
• Additional services for CI/CD, logging, and observability

We engaged developers from Brasília, Goiânia, and other regions to collaborate on the platform, leveraging community talent to accelerate development and feature delivery.

Architecture Diagram (simplified)

┌─────────────┐   ┌─────────────┐   ┌─────────────┐
│   Users     │←→│ CloudFront  │←→│  Route 53   │
└─────┬───────┘   └─────┬───────┘   └─────┬───────┘
      │               │               │
      ▼               ▼               ▼
┌─────────────┐   ┌─────────────┐   ┌─────────────┐
│  WAF (ACL)  │   │  ECS/Fargate│   │   Aurora    │
└─────┬───────┘   └─────┬───────┘   └─────┬───────┘
      │               │               │
      ▼               ▼               ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                Application                │
│  (Event management, messaging, analytics) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Benefits Achieved

• Scalability: Handles spikes during major events.
• Security: WAF and IAM policies protect data and APIs.
• Operational Efficiency: Centralized console reduces manual effort.
• Community Involvement: Open collaboration accelerates feature rollout.

This article was auto‑generated from the original presentation content. While we strive for accuracy, minor typographical errors may remain.