I would like to extend a warm welcome to the newest AWS Community Heroes:

Ryan Kroonenburg

Aleksandar Nenov

Markus Ostertag

Cliff Lu

The Heroes share their knowledge and demonstrate their enthusiasm for AWS via social media, blog posts, user groups, and workshops. Let’s take a look at their bios to learn more.

Ryan Kroonenburg

Ryan is a UK-based Solutions Architect and the founder of A Cloud Guru, a community which is dedicated to teaching all aspects of the AWS platform. Together with his brother Sam, Ryan has taught AWS to over 50,000 students. They also designed one of the first Serverless Learning Management Systems and help to organize serverless conferences and meetups all over the world. Ryan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting & Finance from Australia’s Curtin University. He has also earned multiple IT certifications (ITILv3, MCITP, and MSSQL DBA to name a few) and four AWS certificates.

You can connect with Ryan on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter.

Aleksandar Nenov

Aleksandar is a Senior IT professional. He focuses on cloud operations and managed AWS services. He has a deep understanding of AWS from the business, technical, and service management perspectives. He has been using AWS since 2009, when he began to help dozens of small and large businesses move their operations to the AWS cloud. Aleksandar is the CEO and founder of CLOUDWEBOPS, the first APN Consulting Partner in Serbia and Southeast Europe. He created AWS User Group Serbia and has grown it to over 300 members, and has inspired AWS enthusiasts in Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina to create similar groups of their own.

His proudest achievement to date is his direct involvement in AWSome Day SEE, a free introductory event hosted by AWS experts. The event drew over 250 participants from Serbia, along with guests from Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina.

Connect with Aleksandar on LinkedIn to learn more.

Markus Ostertag

As Head of Development at Team Internet AG in Munich, Markus explores new ways to take advantage of highly scalable platforms to make ad-tech, real-time bidding, and online marketing more efficient. He leverages the cloud to solve scale and performance problems, and enjoys working with cutting-edge technologies. While working on his degree in Computer Science at the Technical University of Munich, Markus ran a large German movie review site and enjoyed his first contact with AWS, all the way back in 2008. Since then, he has focused on sharing his knowledge with other companies and users.

Markus co-founded and still runs the AWS User Group in Munich (over 800 members and growing). He speaks frequently on tech and cloud topics at meetups, universities, and conferences (including AWS re:Invent) and the 2015 AWS Berlin Summit.

You can connect with Markus on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter.

Cliff Lu

Cliff is a senior architect with 104 Corp. His work there drives business agility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. He’s been a Solutions Architect and a DevOps Evangelist at several enterprises and startups in Taiwan. He specializes in service migration, and has built tools and designed patterns that facilitate cloud adoption. Cliff has earned several AWS certifications and presented the 2015 Taiwan Recap at re:Invent 2015.

Cliff has served as the organizer of AWS User Group Taiwan since 2014. The group currently boasts over 4,500 members and has been meeting regularly since 2012.

You can read Cliff’s blog or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Welcome Aboard

Please join me in welcoming our newest AWS Community Heroes!

— Jeff;