Posted on August 16, 2025 by Matthew Cascio, CNCF Ambassador and KCD Washington DC Organizer

We’re so thrilled to be organizing another year of cloud native community in the Nation’s Capital.  Past years have witnessed amazing presentations ranging from core Kubernetes topics to emerging trends in ML/AI, sustainability, virtual clusters and more.  This year promises to be even more amazing.  Our program is set, and includes two new innovations for our KCD:

  1. For the first time, we’re offering a hands-on workshop covering basic and intermediate topics on using Prometheus in your observability practice. The curriculum covers 20-25% of the Linux Foundation’s Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA) course.  While this workshop does not lead to certification, and is not a substitute for the PCA course, it will give you a solid working knowledge for getting started and perhaps help you decide if you’d like to pursue certification separately – if you do, you’ll be ahead of the game with this solid foundation.
  2. We’re adding a government-focused cybersecurity keynote by our special guest, Ashley Jones, Cybersecurity Advisor for Region III of the Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA.) 

Special Government & Cybersecurity Focus – and free admission for our government employee community members!

You won’t want to miss Ashley Jones’ keynote if you’re a cybersecurity professional or involved in government technology in any way. A limited number of free tickets will be available soon for our community members working for federal, state or local government agencies. You can request a free government ticket here: https://forms.gle/aLNfRwpvFn3vQ5Vo8 

Plus our regular program is amazing!
All of that rests on top of our regular program that includes presentations like:

….and a whole lot more, which you can see in the Full Schedule [https://kcd-washington-dc-2025.sessionize.com/]

And there’s plenty of food, drinks and networking

Once again, we plan on hosting an evening Social Hour free for all attendees where you can meet fellow attendees, speakers, and sponsors, in a relaxed, community environment while enjoying drinks and appetizers.  And, of course, you can enjoy all-day snacks, beverages (tea, coffee, soft drinks) and a nutritious lunch, all included with your one-day ticket.  That’s a pretty good value for $75, and to make it even more inviting, we’re offering 25% for all CNCF readers using code FRIENDS25 when you Get Tickets [https://bit.ly/KCDDC2025] today.

True community

Last but not least, we know the current job market and economic times are difficult for many of our most vulnerable community members.  We also want to encourage participation from under-represented minority (URM) groups.  Therefore, we’re proud to offer a number of free tickets to community members in need or who are in URM groups. You can request a free community ticket here: https://forms.gle/aLNfRwpvFn3vQ5Vo8 

Additionally, we have been collaborating with the CNCF Deaf and Hard of Hearing Working Group to ensure this year’s event has live captioning throughout the day and interpretation services for our special presentation on inclusivity.

In conclusion


This year’s KCD Washington DC promises to be our biggest and best yet, packed with insightful sessions, hands-on workshops, inclusive community and invaluable networking opportunities. 

We’re also once again co-locating with DevOpsDays DC for their auspicious 10th editioniteration in the DMV, and third annual event joining forces with us.

We look forward to seeing you on September 16th at the historic American Red Cross headquarters!