Sheridan club first in North America to host AWS Student Community Day

Long before they ended up organizing the first event of its kind in North America, Computer Engineering Technology student Neelkumar Patel and the Sheridan AWS Student Builder Group were already dreaming big.

"For their inaugural meeting last winter, they booked an enormous lecture hall at Davis Campus. It had capacity to accommodate 200 people," says applied computing professor Simon Hood, a key supporter of the club from its inception as its faculty advisor. "Then only two or three people showed up who weren’t already part of the club’s executive."

Even if a heavy blizzard that night was to blame, the low turnout easily could have been reason for Patel and his team — then known as the Sheridan AWS Cloud Club — to give up. Instead, they continued to push forward with a series of workshops and community events that explored various ways to implement Amazon's cloud computing platform and integrate it into projects, eventually swelling the group's membership into the hundreds.

Last month, that vision and dedication culminated in becoming the first AWS Student Builder Group in North America to host an AWS Student Community Day. More than 130 students from numerous colleges and universities in the Greater Toronto Area registered for the event at Hazel McCallion Campus, which also attracted AWS professionals and representatives from Shopify, Wealthsimple, TD, Scotiabank, Cohere, BMO, IBM and Ernst & Young for a full day of technical learning, networking and career exploration.

"It was always my personal goal to organize an event like this. I knew if we could get students, AWS employees, industry representatives and interns in the same room, it'd be a great opportunity for our students to market themselves and network," says Patel, now a third-year student who drew inspiration from the success of Sheridan's Google Developer Student Club and other applied computing clubs.

Described by Amazon Web Services as 'for the community, by the community', AWS Community Days have been held around the world for nearly a decade, including student-focused editions in Asia, Africa and South America. Highlights of Sheridan's event included a keynote presentation, an interactive workshop using the AI-assisted coding platform Kiro, presentations on technology topics, and a custom networking system that enabled attendees to quickly connect with one another and share their LinkedIn profiles. The day concluded with an internship panel that ran nearly double its allotted time as students asked questions about finding internships, standing out to employers and building professional connections.

"The most encouraging part of our Student Community Day was the engagement," Patel says. "Roughly 90 per cent of the students stayed for the entire day, which showed that we'd created the right balance of learning, networking and community."

The event's attendees weren't the only ones who were impressed.

"Hosting a Student Community Day isn't something a group can do out of the gate," says Erin Kilduff, AWS dedicated Account Manager for Sheridan's AWS Student Builder Group. "The group has to earn its way there, including building an event track record, proposing and getting the event approved months ahead, securing funding, recruiting speakers and volunteers, coordinating the venue and logistics, promoting it to students and the wider community, running the day itself, and reporting on it afterward.

“Hosting a Student Community Day isn't something a group can do out of the gate... It's genuine project management, budgeting, outreach and partner coordination, which is what makes being first in North America such a standout achievement.”

– Erin Kilduff, AWS dedicated Account Manager for Sheridan's AWS Student Builder Group

“It's genuine project management, budgeting, outreach and partner coordination, which is what makes being first in North America such a standout achievement."

Those skills and experiences can serve as key differentiators for Patel and other club organizers as they prepare to launch their careers. “I have learned so much from running this club and from delivering workshops from my team,” Patel says. “I want to take that with me after graduation: leading and coordinating a team, communicating clearly, and delivering something real within tight deadlines.”

Sheridan's AWS Student Builder Group has since organized another community event, recently collaborating with AWS YouthTech to host a four-hour bootcamp that included a presentation explaining artificial intelligence and machine learning terminology, a hands-on workshop exploring coding with Kiro, and a panel discussion about hiring practices. To learn more about Sheridan's AWS Student Builder Group and upcoming events, please visit the club's website.