By Juraj Hanták February 9, 2023

Community pots by Juraj Hanták

Four Years Ago, I Changed My Approach

The story of the Bratislava cloud native community started almost four years ago when I returned from KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2019 in Barcelona. My mind was bursting with ideas about community, cooperation, and volunteering. 

It made me start contemplating one thing – that throughout my professional life, I had only taken from the community. Not given back. All the software we were using in the company I helped build was open source, created with the power of the community.  

Suddenly, I knew I wanted to give back and help a cloud-native community.

No Community? Create one

To my great surprise, I couldn’t find one cloud native-kubernetes community in my surroundings of Bratislava. Not even in Vienna or other nearby larger cities. So I didn’t have a choice but to create a cloud-native group on my own. Yet, I had absolutely no idea how to create or run such a community. I mean, I was not even active on Facebook, Linkedin, or any other social media networks.

First, I started to learn from people who had already done it. I spoke to people from the Python and WordPress communities about how they did it, as well as read all the articles on the cncf.io about how to organize and run such  groups. 

Just after two weeks, I announced the first meetup. I remember it was June 25th, 2019, and it felt like a huge success with more than 50 attendees. It was at this first meetup that we put together a new organizational team, and I met Filip, a true cloud-native and open-source enthusiast, and my soulmate on this journey.

Almost 10 Meetups a Year

After the success of the first meetup, we started organizing regular gatherings, with almost 10 per year. The Covid-19 pandemic did not stop us. We simply switched the format to online, and now all our meetups and conferences are hybrid in nature.

Last year, we premiered our first KCD Czech & Slovak online conference, with 500 registrations and more than 350 online attendees. This event was only possible thanks to the help of our new devotees: Filip, Zdenek, and Tomas.

Now, 36 meetups later, we are announcing the second edition of our cloud-native Kubernetes Community Days event in Bratislava,and I would love to see and meet you there. 

Join us May 19 – 21, 2023, in Bratislava or online. See the details at the end of this article. 

This idea and its execution would not have been possible without close cooperation with other enthusiasts. That’s why I would like to say a big thank you to our team: Filip Pohronský, Zdenek Vana, Tomas Jamrich, Tomas Pytel, Tomáš Bočinec, and Fedor Zajac.

Event details:

All speakers are welcome to submit their presentation. 

The call for papers (CFP) is due March 1: https://kcd.smapply.io/prog/kcd_czech_slovak/