When I stood before over 30 aspiring DevOps engineers in Cameroon, I saw something that no slide deck could capture. I saw hunger. I saw curiosity. I saw a room full of young people who had already decided that their future would be built on cloud technology. They just needed someone to show them the path.
That someone, on this day, was me. And it was one of the most fulfilling moments of my entire AWS Community Builder journey.
One Trip. Every Hat. Maximum Impact.
I traveled from Germany to Cameroon in April 2026 on a single ticket for multiple missions. The primary reason was International Women's Day. As a Google Women Techmakers Ambassador, I keynoted an IWD event at the University of Buea under the theme "Break the Pattern," speaking to students and young professionals about breaking the invisible barriers we carry, especially in the age of AI.
That same trip also marked the first anniversary of Mentorship Matters Africa, the organization I founded with the vision of mentoring one million Africans by 2030. We celebrated one full year of connecting mentors and mentees across the continent, and I used the occasion to reflect publicly on what Year One taught us and what Year Two will demand.
But I was not done. I also wore my AWS Community Builder hat. I connected with the local AWS cloud community and delivered a full technical presentation on DevOps to a room of aspiring cloud engineers. One trip. Three missions. Every hat I wear, fully expressed.
I am a Cloud Platform Engineer. I am a founder. I am a Google Women Techmakers Ambassador. I am an AWS Community Builder. And when I go home to Cameroon, I do not leave any of those identities at the airport. I bring all of them into every room I enter. Because the people in those rooms deserve the full version of what I have to offer.
Why Cameroon, and Why I Will Keep Going Back
Cameroon is home. I was born in Bota Limbe. I grew up watching talented young people struggle to find direction, not because they lacked ability, but because they lacked access. Access to mentors. Access to global knowledge. Access to someone who could look them in the eye and say: "I did it. You can too."
Three years ago, I became an AWS Community Builder. Not because I wanted a badge. Because I wanted a platform to give back. I wanted to connect with builders around the world, learn from the best, and most importantly, bring that knowledge home to the communities that need it most.
This was not a one-time visit. This is an annual commitment. Every year, I will return. Wherever there is a community with hungry students, hungry for knowledge, hungry for direction, hungry for someone who has walked the road they are about to walk, I will be there. That is not a promise. That is a plan.
The Presentation: From Waterfall to DevOps on AWS
While in Cameroon, I connected with the AWS Cloud Club Community and had the opportunity to be one of three speakers at a community session for students and aspiring cloud professionals. The event featured presentations on hybrid cloud and security from two other speakers, alongside my session on DevOps. It was a well-rounded program that gave the audience exposure to multiple domains within cloud engineering, and I was honored to be part of a lineup that covered that much ground in a single sitting.
The audience was between 25 and 40 young people, many of whom were hearing about the Software Development Life Cycle, Agile methodology, and DevOps culture for the very first time.
I titled my talk "From Waterfall to DevOps: Your Complete AWS Journey" and designed it as a 60-minute session that would take the audience through the entire evolution of how software gets built, deployed, and maintained.
The session was structured into three parts.
Part One
Mindset and History. I started with the SDLC as the umbrella framework that every software project follows, then walked the room through the Waterfall model and why its rigidity created bottlenecks. We explored the Agile Manifesto of 2001 and the cultural shift it introduced. Then I showed them the gap that Agile left behind: developers built faster, but operations was left behind. That gap created a wall between Dev and Ops. I used a visual slide to illustrate this wall, and the room immediately understood. The birth of DevOps in 2009, when Patrick Debois organized the first DevOpsDays conference in Ghent, Belgium, connected the dots. DevOps was not born as a tool. It was born as a movement. A culture. A way of working.
Part Two
The DevOps Lifecycle and AWS Toolchain. I broke down the eight phases of the DevOps lifecycle: Plan, Code, Build, Test, Release, Deploy, Operate, and Monitor. For each phase, I introduced both industry-standard tools and their AWS native equivalents. The students learned about CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CloudFormation, CloudWatch, ECR, ECS, EKS, and IAM. I emphasized that starting with CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CloudFormation covers 80% of what a junior DevOps engineer needs to understand on AWS.
Part Three
The Learning Roadmap. This was the part that generated the most engagement. I presented a three-level, twelve-month learning roadmap that gave each student a clear, chronological path from beginner to job-ready.
Level 1 (months one through three)
Covers Linux fundamentals, networking basics, Git, scripting with Bash and Python, and AWS Cloud Practitioner certification.
Level 2 (months four through six)
Introduces Docker, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code with Terraform, and the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification.
Level 3 (months seven through twelve)
Covers Kubernetes, monitoring and observability, DevSecOps, GitOps, and building a real portfolio project.
I did not just give them a list of tools. I gave them a sequence. I explained why Linux must come before Docker. Why Git must come before CI/CD. Why you do not touch Kubernetes until you understand what containers actually do. The students needed order, not overwhelm.
The Audience: Energy, Questions, and Real Ambition
What struck me most about this group was their readiness. These were not passive listeners. Across all three sessions, they asked questions, took notes, and stayed after the event to talk with the speakers. During my session, several students told me they had been learning on their own through YouTube videos and free courses but had never seen a structured roadmap that connected everything.
One student asked me, "How did you get into cloud engineering without a computer science degree?" That question opened the door for me to share my own story. I transitioned into tech in 2021 from a background in business economics and banking. I had no CS degree. I had conviction, consistency, and community. That answer resonated more than any technical slide I presented.
The energy in the room reminded me why community matters. These students do not need pity. They need pathways. They do not need charity. They need clarity. And when you give them both, they move fast.
The Seven Women in the Room
Of the 30+ students in attendance, seven were women. Seven. In a DevOps and cloud engineering session in Cameroon. That number might seem small on paper, but anyone who understands the reality of women in STEM on the African continent knows that seven women in a room full of aspiring cloud engineers is not a gap. It is a beginning.
What impressed me even more was that most of these women were not beginners in the way I expected. They already had GitHub accounts. They were already collaborating with their teams remotely, pushing code, reviewing pull requests, and working with version control as part of their daily practice. These were not women who needed to be convinced that cloud engineering was for them. They had already decided. They were already building.
That moment brought my entire trip full circle. Days earlier, I had stood on a stage as a Google Women Techmakers Ambassador, keynoting an International Women's Day event about breaking the patterns that hold women back in technology. Now I was standing in a classroom watching seven young women who had already broken those patterns without waiting for anyone's permission.
Representation is not a buzzword. It is a lever. When I walked into that room wearing my AWS Community Builder shirt, those seven women did not just see a speaker. They saw a woman who looks like them, who comes from where they come from, who works in cloud engineering in Europe, and flies home to teach what she knows. That image stays with you. It rewires what you believe is possible.
I will be watching their journeys closely. And I fully expect to see some of their names in the AWS Community Builder program in the years ahead.
After the presentation, I had the privilege of sitting down with Guy Asong, the Cloud Captain of the AWS Cloud Club Community, for a recorded interview. The conversation lasted nearly six minutes and covered several important topics.
We discussed the state of cloud adoption in Cameroon and the growing interest among young professionals in AWS services. Guy Asong shared insights into how the community is structured, the challenges they face in accessing resources and mentorship, and the role that AWS Community Builders play in bridging that gap. I shared my perspective as someone who lives in Europe but remains deeply connected to the African tech ecosystem, and we talked about how cross-border collaboration between AWS communities can accelerate growth for builders on the continent.
The interview reinforced something I have always believed: the AWS Community Builder program is not just about what happens at re:Invent or in Slack channels. It is about what happens when a Community Builder shows up in a room where their presence changes the trajectory of someone's career. That is the real value of this program.
What This Means for My AWS Community Builder Journey
This is my third year as an AWS Community Builder, and this trip captures what I believe the program is truly about: taking your knowledge, your experience, and your platform to the places where it creates the most transformation.
In three years, I have spoken at All Day DevOps 2024, AWS Community Day DACH, the AWS User Group meetup in Cologne on two occasions, and AWS community events in Cameroon. I have mentored career transitioners from Cameroon to France to Germany. I helped one of my mentees successfully apply and get accepted into the AWS Community Builder program herself. I have built content, created presentations, and shared knowledge across LinkedIn, YouTube, and community platforms.
What made this particular trip different is that it brought every dimension of my work together in one place. I was not just an AWS Community Builder teaching DevOps. I was also a Google Women Techmakers Ambassador keynoting an IWD event. I was also the Founder of Mentorship Matters Africa celebrating our first anniversary. I was also a Cloud Platform Engineer sharing production experience with students who needed to hear what the job actually looks like. All of that happened in one week, in one country, because I refuse to compartmentalize my impact.
Standing in that room, wearing my AWS Community Builder shirt, teaching the DevOps lifecycle to 30+ young Cameroonians who are ready to build, was the most tangible proof of why this program exists. It is not about credentials. It is about reach. It is about making the global cloud community truly global.
A Call to Fellow AWS Community Builders
If you are an AWS Community Builder reading this, I want to encourage you to think beyond your immediate geography. Think about where your knowledge can make the most difference. It might be a meetup in your city. It might be a virtual workshop for a community in another country. It might be a flight back to where you started.
The AWS ecosystem is vast. The tools are powerful. The certifications are valuable. But none of it matters if it does not reach the people who need it most. Our role as Community Builders is to be the bridge. Not just between services and solutions, but between possibility and people.
What Comes Next
I am not done. This was Year One of what I intend to be an annual tradition. Every year, I will return to Cameroon. Every year, I will go deeper. The first visit plants seeds. The second visit waters them. The third visit starts to see fruit. That is how real foundations are built, not through single appearances, but through sustained presence.
My plan is to build deeper relationships with AWS communities wherever I find them. Wherever there are students who are hungry for knowledge, hungry for direction, hungry for someone who has been where they are and made it to the other side, I will show up. Not once. Repeatedly. Consistently. Because that is what real community building looks like.
Through Mentorship Matters Africa, I am building a mentorship ecosystem that connects experienced professionals with aspiring builders across the continent and the diaspora. The goal is ambitious: to mentor one million Africans by 2030.
Every presentation I give, every blog post I write, every mentee I coach, and every community I visit brings that number closer. This is not a hobby. This is a calling. And the AWS Community Builder program has given me a platform to pursue it with credibility, resources, and a global network of builders who share the same spirit.
To the students I met in Cameroon: your journey has already begun. Push your first commit. Launch your first EC2 instance. Write your first Bash script. Build in public. Share what you learn. And when the world tells you that cloud engineering is not for people like you, remember that someone who looks like you, who comes from where you come from, is doing it every single day.
I am proof that it is possible. Now it is your turn.
If you feel the need to speak to someone who can guide you, contact me here
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