First AWS Heroes Cohort of 2026 Announced

The 2026 first cohort of the AWS Heroes program has welcomed 3 people. These are leaders who go beyond sharing technical knowledge—they have built local communities and nurtured the next generation through education and mentoring.

• Maurizio Argoneto is a CTO based in Pignola, Italy, and the organizer of AWS User Group Basilicata, who has built a tech ecosystem from scratch where none existed before. He has held international tech conferences in a mountain town, organizing sessions spanning cloud architecture, DevOps, and web scaling, while continuing cross-generational mentoring.

• Ray Goh is an Artificial Intelligence Hero based in Singapore who has consistently participated in AWS community programs since 2018. In 2024, he founded The Gen-C, a generative AI learning community, upskilled more than 3,100 employees through the AWS DeepRacer program, and in 2025 trained over 1,300 ASEAN students in LLM technology.

• Sheyla Leacock is a Security Hero based in Panama City, an IT security expert, mentor, technical writer, and international speaker. She has presented at more than 20 international conferences, including AWS Summit Mexico, AWS Summit LATAM in Peru, and PeerTalk sessions at re:Invent, and contributes to cultivating cloud and cybersecurity talent through the Panama AWS User Group and local community activities.

More details can be found on the AWS Heroes webpage.