Posted on July 3, 2019

Guest post by Semah Mhamdi originally posted on Medium

At the beginning of May in Barcelona, the sun shines, the birds sing … but the experts, they continue to work! Since the morning, a little more than 8000 people have gathered at Fira Gran Via for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon EU 2019 hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

I’m one of the lucky people who were there in Barcelona thanks to the CNCF Diversity scholarship.

My introduction to the world of containers happened one year ago, when I stumbled upon one of my now great friends at a technical workshop, in Tunisia.

I am very grateful for the introduction to this world that happened on that fateful day. The day I found Kubernetes (amongst many other things).

I have been working with Kubernetes and containers as a user and a developer, building tools around it. I really wanted to dig deeper into the world of cloud-native architecture and apps. The scholarship gave me an opportunity to interact with amazing communities who work on cloud technology. I’ve learned a lot from them. It also helped me get started on one of my biggest goals of contributing back to these amazing communities.

Name tag of Kubernetes Contributor Summit Barcelona 2019 - Semah Mhamdi as new kubernetes contributor

From day one, I found myself talking to experts as well as beginners. Everyone I approached was willing to talk about their ideas and work. They also listened to my ideas and offered me advice. I even got some really cool swag.

I was present for the new contributor workshop which helped me learn a lot about how to contribute to Kubernetes. It has now led me to join the Kubernetes community.

The next three days worth of keynotes were really amazing, especially when we meet people that we’ve been following for a long time like Kris Nova, Joe Beda, and Paris Pittman. The list of projects under CNCF is growing, and it was amazing to see the various stages in which the projects were featured on.

Overall, Kubecon was a dream for me to attend.

Semah Mhamdi take a selfie with Paris Pittman with a white flower on her ear
Kubernetes: Up and Running book signed by Joe Beda with sticker of Kubernetes + Charmander and Panda

I have also started on the path to contributing more to amazing upstream projects.

Thanks again, to the Linux Foundation and to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, for giving me this opportunity to expand my horizons, to meet great people, to make cool, amazing friends. To learn and to grow … and to look forward to KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2019.