Students Launch AWS Cloud Club

The AWS Cloud Club at USTP – University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten is the first community format for cloud computing and artificial intelligence initiated by students in the entire German-speaking area. Its objective is to convey practically relevant knowledge, develop future skills, and promote the exchange between students and experts – with the support of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the higher education institution.

Ahmad Alsayad, a student of the bachelor degree programme Smart Engineering at USTP, successfully applied for the establishment of an AWS Cloud Club. Together with a core team of five students from different technical study programmes, he organised the first event as Cloud Captain – and approximately 20 USTP students took part in it.

Florian Ettinger, Solutions Architect at AWS, held a lecture on the topic of “Agentic AI” with a focus on concrete programming examples and their integration into own services and apps.

“With the AWS Cloud Clubs, we give students the opportunity to develop practical skills in cloud technologies and AI – competencies that are explicitly demanded in the Austrian digitalisation agenda. Together with USTP, we thus contribute to the training of future experts and to covering this demand”, says Sebastian Eckler, Country Manager AWS Austria.

Unique Opportunity

“It makes me particularly proud that we, as students, were the first in the German-speaking area to implement such an event. It was my goal to establish a team made up of people from different study programmes so that we might learn from each other and strengthen the community at USTP”, explains Alsayad who works at the IT company CANCOM Austria alongside his studies.

“USTP stands for the teaching of practically relevant knowledge. The long-standing cooperation with AWS and the commitment of our students demonstrate how we implement innovative formats together and promote exchange across the borders of study programmes”, says Andreas Jakl, Deputy Academic Director of Digital Healthcare.

There are plans to expand the format in future – for example, through bigger events that could also be open to small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition to Alsayad, the organising student team consisted of Aruzhan Saduakaskyzy (bachelor Creative Computing), Sofiia Prishchenko (bachelor Creative Computing), Weronika Ostrowicka (bachelor Creative Computing), Sebastian Hutter (master Information Security), and Mahmut Dadali (bachelor Creative Computing).

The students were supervised by USTP Lecturer Andreas Jakl.

• Further information on AWS Cloud Clubs