Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, hosted over 10,000 technologists from across the Asean region to share, learn, and collaborate on the very latest AWS features and services at the AWS Summit Singapore 2019 held April 10-11.

The inaugural AWS TechFest, took place on the first day of AWS Summit Singapore, a full day event dedicated to technical audiences such as developers, data scientists, application architects, and IT Professionals. There were hands-on labs, boot camps, certification information, and deep-dive technical training curated by subject matter experts who will share their real-world experiences and lessons learned.

Peter DeSantis, Vice President of AWS Global Infrastructure and Customer Support, gave the opening keynote on the second day of the summit, witnessed by AWS customers, Indonesian start-up “unicorn” company Traveloka, and Certis, Singapore-based leading advanced integrated security services company. There was also wide variety of technical breakout sessions, demonstrations, and hands-on workshops that will help professionals to better understand how they can successfully build their organization on AWS Cloud, be it a startup, small-medium business, traditional business, or a large enterprise.

AWS Summit Singapore also featured the interactive and experiential AWS Solution Expo, where AWS and AWS Partner Networks members presented the latest cloud solutions, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data analytics, and more to help customers get the most out of AWS Cloud.

“Cloud technology has paved the way for accelerated innovation, helping businesses remain relevant and competitive by lowering costs and providing the solutions to create and bring services to market quickly,” said Nick Walton, managing director of AWS, Asean. “AWS Summit Singapore 2019 aims to bring together over 10,000 thought leaders, subject matter experts, and customers to showcase the digital transformation of Asean businesses.”

Inaugural AWS DeepRacer League in Asean

This year’s AWS Summit Singapore saw the world’s first global autonomous racing league, DeepRacer League taking place in the Asean region. The live event provided developers with the opportunity to explore ML in a fun and highly entertaining way, as they raced using 1/18th scale AWS DeepRacer cars driven by reinforcement learning, which is a branch of ML that is ideal for training autonomous vehicles.

At a racing area in the Singapore EXPO Convention and Exhibition Centre, developers tested their models and had their lap times with their cars recorded onto a Speedway Leaderboard. Participants with the fastest times advanced to the AWS DeepRacer Championship at AWS re:Invent 2019 in Las Vegas, and compete for the coveted AWS DeepRacer Cup.

AWS Hackdays 2019 Grand Finale: Hack For Good

Six teams from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam took part in the grand finale of AWS Hackdays 2019, an annual education and hackathon event, where they spent 12 hours developing a relevant, real-world solution using AWS features and services.

Under this year’s theme of “Hack for Good”, builders in the region showcased their innovation and demonstrated skills as they developed solutions to potentially drive positive impact in the areas of HealthTech, AgriTech, Smart City, or FinTech.