Some events feel like just another day on the calendar. This one didn’t.
When the lamp was lit at the CIMAGE campus to mark the inauguration of the AWS User Group Patna, something quietly shifted for the city. Bengaluru has tech communities. So do Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi. Patna, for the longest time, didn’t — at least not one plugged into a global network like Amazon Web Services. That changed this week.
The hall was full. Students, working cloud engineers, startup folks, a few curious faculty members, and community leaders who had been waiting for something like this to exist in Bihar. There was a cake too, because why not.
“Data is the wealth of this century”
Our Director, Prof. (Dr.) Neeraj Agrawal, opened the day with a talk he titled “Sovereign Racks, Local Intellect” — about why India needs to build and own its data centres instead of renting its digital future from elsewhere.
His argument was simple. Data is the biggest asset of the 21st century, and a country that doesn’t control its own data infrastructure doesn’t really control its digital destiny. “Technological self-reliance is the guarantee of our digital sovereignty,” he told the students, adding that he fully expects Bihar’s young people to be at the front of that mission — not watching it from the sidelines. Launching the AWS User Group in Patna, he said, is one concrete step in that direction.
The sessions: less jargon, more “here’s how it actually works”
What made the day work was that nobody talked down to the audience.
Tribhuvan Mishra took the first technical session and walked everyone from the absolute basics of AWS and cloud computing to how companies actually use it — in plain language. His larger point stuck with a lot of students: most of the digital services you use every day already run on the cloud, which means the demand for people who understand it isn’t coming. It’s already here.
Then Dr. Mahesh Kumar Kolekar from IIT Patna spoke on real-world Gen-AI vision systems built with AWS. No theory-for-theory’s-sake — he showed actual projects where Generative AI and computer vision are being used in healthcare, security, and industry. For students who’ve only heard “AI” as a buzzword, seeing it applied to real problems was a different experience altogether.
For the students: roadmaps, certifications, and a mindset shift
Vishal Shakti’s session was probably the most bookmarked of the day. He laid out learning roadmaps, hackathons, community programmes, and how AWS certifications work — the kind of practical detail students rarely get in one place.
Manish Kumar Ranjan spoke about startups and the MSME space, and left the hall with a line worth repeating: stop preparing only to ask for jobs. Prepare to create them.
And Deepak Kumar, co-founder of Bugendai Tech UK Ltd., brought an outside-in view. Every big tech hub in the world, he said, was built by its community before it was built by its companies. “The seed sown in Patna today will give this city a new identity on the technology map.”
Not all serious business
Between sessions there was a quiz (competitive, as these things always get), swag for the winners, and a product showcase. The open Q&A at the end ran long because students kept asking — about cloud careers, about certifications, about where to start. Honestly, that’s the best sign an event like this can have.
Centre Head Mrs. Megha Agrawal, Dean Prof. (Dr.) Neeraj Poddar, and our faculty were there through the day, cheering the students on.
So what happens now?
This wasn’t a one-off event. A user group means regular meetups, study circles for AWS certifications, hackathons, and a standing bridge between Patna’s students and people already working in cloud and AI. If you’re a student here — or anywhere in Bihar — this is your community now. Show up.
And if you’re still deciding where to study for a career in cloud and tech, have a look at our B.Tech, BCA and B.Sc IT programmes, or our placement record — 13,500+ students placed and counting.
The admissions page has everything else you need.
- Patna Now Has Its Own AWS User Group — And It Started Right Here at CIMAGE
- Three Days as a Cyber Detective: How CIMAGE Students Learned to Solve Digital Crimes
- How We Counted: The Method Behind the Alumni Audit
- The Alumni Footprint: What Independent Data Says About CIMAGE
- Fourteen Years On: Where the 2012–2019 Graduates Are Now
