Meet your Cloud Native Ambassadors (CNAs)!
Ambassadors are an extension of CNCF, furthering the mission of “making cloud native ubiquitous” through community leadership and mentorship.
Get the latest news on the program by following CNCF Ambassadors on Twitter!
Interested in becoming an Ambassador?
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Showing 55 of 231 Ambassadors
(He/Him)
Devtron Inc
Abhinav Dubey
(He/Him)
Devtron Inc
- Location: Gurugram, India
- Project Experience: Argo, Buildpacks, cert-manager, ContainerSSH, external-secrets, Helm, k3s, KEDA, Kubernetes, Kyverno
I’m a Kubernetes enthusiast with a traveling soul, passionate about open-source software and cloud-native technologies. As a Solution Architect at Devtron Inc., I specialize in managing cloud-native application deployments and actively contribute to the open-source project Devtron (https://github.com/devtron-labs/devtron). My mission is to make Kubernetes adoption as seamless as packing for a weekend getaway, sharing my experiences and insights just as eagerly as I share my travel stories.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m thrilled to be a CNCF Ambassador because it gives me the opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals in the community. Being part of CNCF not only opens new doors for collaboration but also allows me to reach a broader audience. This platform helps me share knowledge, raise awareness, and educate more people about the Cloud Native ecosystem and the tools and technologies that power it.
(He/Him)
Forrester Research
Aditya Soni
(He/Him)
Forrester Research
- Location: Jaipur, India
- Languages: English, Hindi
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, ContainerSSH, CRI-O, DevSpace, DevStream, Envoy, etcd, Fluentd, Flux, gRPC, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, Knative, Kubeflow, Kuberhealthy, Kubernetes, Kubescape, Linkerd, Litmus, Open Cluster Management, OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, Operator Framework, Serverless Workflow, Service Mesh Interface (SMI), Service Mesh Performance
DevOps & Cloud Engineer, Public Speaker, Tech Mentor, Lead Organizer CNCG Jaipur, OpenSource & Community Contributor, AWS Community Builder, AWS Community Leader, 1 x (AWS, GCP, Azure), 6 x RedHat, CKA, KCNA certified.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: It’s been more than three years, I am being part of CNCF programs actively contributing via blogs, and public speaking on different open source DevOps/Cloud technologies at virtual and in-person events, I want to expand my learning and contribution with a wide area of peoples and uplift them with like-minded folks I can grow at the same time can share & help with my ideas to build better community bonding & culture.
(He/Him)
Broadcom
Amim Moises Salum Knabben
(He/Him)
Broadcom
- Location: Florianopolis, Brazil
- Project Experience: Antrea, Carvel, cert-manager, containerd, Istio, Kubernetes
I am a Brazilian software engineer with focus on Cloud Native and Free and Open-Source Software and have been contributing to the Kubernetes community since 2020 mainly on SIG-Network and SIG-Windows initiatives. My writings and notes can be find here: https://opssec.in/.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Is a great honor to have the opportunity on collaborate and increase the community, I am very excited to be part and advocate in favor of this big community.
(He/Him)
Freelance - Crossover Engineering B.V.
Andrea Giardini
(He/Him)
Freelance - Crossover Engineering B.V.
- Location: Paris, France
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, cert-manager, containerd, CoreDNS, CRI-O, etcd, external-secrets, Fluentd, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, k3s, KEDA, Knative, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Prometheus
I am a freelance cloud-native engineer and trainer based in Amsterdam. When I am not coding, I enjoy helping the community by organizing meetups, Kubernetes community days, and workshops on cloud technologies.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Ambassadors are a point of reference in the cloud native community and help many initiatives come to life. I want to empower talented individuals to realize their ambitions and help the CNCF to reach a wider community through events, meetups, and mentoring. I want to make a difference by empowering others.
(He/Him)
Anurag Kumar
(He/Him)
- Location: Kolkata, India
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, Carvel, cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, Emissary-ingress, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, k3s, KEDA, ko, KubeArmor, Kubernetes, Kubescape, Kubewarden, Kyverno, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, ORAS, Pixie, Prometheus, Telepresence, zot
I’m contributor and maintainer of KubeArmor (A CNCF runtime security project). I’m interested in Kubernetes Security. You can read my blogs here https://kranurag.dev
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to be a CNCF ambassador because I’ll try to bring and educate more people towards CNCF ecosystem. CNCF is one of the most welcoming community. I also want to share my knowledge when it comes to Kubernetes and other CNCF projects to new peoples who’re getting started. Finally, I would love to meet and connect with fellow CNCF ambassadors.
(He/Him)
Okteto
Arsh Sharma
(He/Him)
Okteto
- Location: Panchkula, India
- Languages: English, Hindi
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Crossplane, Helm, Kubernetes, Kyverno
Arsh is a Developer Experience Engineer at Okteto. He has also been awarded the Kubernetes Contributor Award previously. Prior to joining Okteto, he worked at VMware. He has also been a contributor to the CNCF projects cert-manager and Kyverno. Arsh has written blogs and spoken about different topics in the cloud ecosystem. Recordings of some of his previous talks can be found at: https://arshsharma.com/speaking/
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I owe a lot to open source and the CNCF open source community in particular. I’m excited to be an ambassador to be able to give back to the community and help others get started on their journey of contributing! As someone who has firsthand witnessed the benefits in personal and professional life thanks to the community, I want others to be able to share these joys as well.
(He/Him)
Trendyol
Batuhan Apaydın
(He/Him)
Trendyol
- Location: Istanbul, Turkey
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, Buildpacks, cert-manager, containerd, Dex, Falco, Flux, Harbor, Helm, in-toto, ko, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Lima, Open Policy Agent (OPA), ORAS, SPIFFE, SPIRE, zot
Batuhan Apaydın a.k.a. developer-guy has been very active in the Software Supply Chain Security space. He is eager to learn more about it in all aspects because he knows this topic will become one of the utmost critical topics that everybody has to be concerned about. Towards that direction, he won the “Best Sigstore Evangelist” award and wrote a blog post about it to encourage to the next one and took an active role in the first-ever SigstoreCon by being one of the Program Committee members of the event and created a Twitter Community about Software Supply Chain Security and that community is now about 500+ people joined. He is also selected as Docker Captain Program 2023. In addition to that he is also a CDF (Continuous Delivery Foundation) Ambassador 2023. He also tries to be active in Turkey by organizing in-person, and virtual meetups, and workshops. He is the organizer of two important organizations in Turkey named DevOpsTr, CNCF Istanbul Chapter, and Cloud Native Turkiye. He is also one of the organizers of the KCD Turkey. He is also an active contributor to several CNCF projects including Ko, Flux, and Kyverno. He also enjoys writing technical blog posts and wrote 10+ blog posts and all of which are published on important official websites including Kyverno, CD Foundation, Flux, Sigstore, etc. • https://cd.foundation/blog/2022/10/18/tekton-chains/ • https://fluxcd.io/blog/2022/10/prove-the-authenticity-of-oci-artifacts/ • https://fluxcd.io/blog/2022/08/manage-kyverno-policies-as-ocirepositories/ • https://fluxcd.io/blog/2022/11/verify-the-integrity-of-the-helm-charts-stored-as-oci-artifacts-before-reconciling-them-with-flux/ • https://kubesimplify.com/the-secret-gems-behind-building-container-images-enter-buildkit-and-docker-buildx • https://blog.kubesimplify.com/getting-started-with-ko-a-fast-container-image-builder-for-your-go-applications • https://nirmata.com/securing_base_images/ • https://blog.sigstore.dev/how-to-verify-container-images-with-kyverno-using-kms-cosign-and-workload-identity-1e07d2b85061
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: First of all, I’m the first person from Turkey who has been selected as a CNCF Ambassador which is super great for me because I have the energy to spread all my knowledge with other people and I do really like to collaborate with people by organizing in-person, virtual meetups. I thought that I can waste my time and energy by becoming a CNCF Ambassador still continue organizing meetups and sharing knowledge because Turkiye has great potential of using CNCF projects to solve problems.
(He/Him)
Basiq
Brad McCoy
(He/Him)
Basiq
- Location: Coolum Beach, Australia
- Languages: English, Spanish
- Project Experience: Artifact Hub, Backstage, Buildpacks, cert-manager, CloudEvents, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, Crossplane, Falco, Flux, gRPC, Helm, Jaeger, Keptn, Kubernetes, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
Brad is originally from New Zealand now working in Australia as the Head of Platform Engineering, he has been involved in the DevOps space for a long time now and serves as a board member of the Continuous Delivery Foundation. Brad is a maintainer of the Keptn project and works on the Kubernetes Release team. And is involved in mentoring in GSoC projects. His favorite projects to work on from the CNCF are GitOps, Security and Observability projects. He is helping to organize the KCD Australia and also runs a meetup in Australia.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to be an ambassador to further help and mentor other folks coming into the cloud native space and guide them in the right direction. I’m also excited because I can continue working on the outreach of the CNCF and show organizations how they can contribute and help grow the projects and unlock innovation.
(She/Her)
Shopify Inc.
Cailyn Edwards
(She/Her)
Shopify Inc.
- Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- Project Experience: cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, CoreDNS, Crossplane, etcd, Falco, Fluentd, gRPC, Helm, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Prometheus, Vitess
Cailyn is a Senior Infrastructure Security Engineer, with a passion for Kubernetes and the open source world. She is an active contributor to Kubernetes SIG-Security, SIG-CLI and a 2022 Kubernetes Contributor Award recipient. Her current focus is on network, and Kubernetes multi-tenancy security and she gets to spend her working hours contributing up stream. It brings her great joy to spend time with the CNCF community and empower folks to become involved. Outside of work Cailyn can be found running, playing squash, walking her dogs or working in the garden.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am *so* excited to be a CNCF ambassador because this community has been incredibly impactful to my growth in the industry and I want to give back. I cannot wait to help share all the wonderful things happening at CNCF and organize events for members new and old. One of my favourite parts of my job is mentoring, and I look forward to being able to do this in the Cloud Native community! I want to ensure that each new member has the same welcoming and positive experience that I did!
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(He/Him)
AWS
Carlos Santana
(He/Him)
AWS
- Location: Raleigh, NC, United States
- Languages: English, Spanish
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Flux, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, Knative, Kubernetes, OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
Carlos Santana is a Senior Specialist Solutions Architect at AWS leading Container solutions in the Worldwide Application Modernization GTM team. He is experienced in distributed application architecture, emerging technologies, open source, serverless, gitops, devops. He is a contributor to CNCF projects such as Kubernetes and Knative. Find him on Twitter @csantanapr or his Kubernetes Bookclub https://santana.dev
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to work with the CNCF, and be able to help the CNCF to improve on how it works and get perceive by the community of contributors and consumer of cloud native tech. I’m excited to meet new folks and be able to collaborate on projects on enablement of projects such as Kubernetes.
(He/Him)
Civo
Chad M. Crowell
(He/Him)
Civo
- Location: Austin, TX, United States
- Languages: English, Spanish
- Project Experience: cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CoreDNS, CRI-O, Crossplane, CubeFS, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Flux, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Istio, k3s, KEDA, Kubernetes, KubeVirt, Linkerd, Longhorn, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Prometheus, Service Mesh Interface (SMI), Service Mesh Performance, Thanos, Virtual Kubelet
Chad is a Senior Platform Engineer at Civo, and author of the book “Acing the Certified Kubernetes Administrator Exam”. Chad has been an instructor for over six years on platforms such as A Cloud Guru (now Pluralsight) and INE. Through KubeSkills, he helps people find fun and interactive ways to learn Kubernetes, Linux, and containers.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I really enjoy helping people get involved in open source software. I have realized the power of community, in lifting others up and succeeding together, and I love to share it with others. I believe it is my duty in life to share what I’ve learned in order to make intellectual progress as a human race.
(He/Him)
Di Xu
(He/Him)
- Location: Shanghai, China
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, CoreDNS, CRI-O, Crossplane, CubeFS, Envoy, etcd, Fluentd, Flux, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, Karmada, KEDA, Kubernetes, KubeVela, KubeVirt, Lima, Open Cluster Management, OpenKruise, OpenTelemetry, Pixie, Thanos, TiKV, Vineyard, Virtual Kubelet, Volcano
Di Xu is passionate about open source projects and get involved in. He is a top-60 code contributor in Kubernetes community and founds CNCF Sandbox project Clusternet. He is also an avid speaker and has spoken many times at open source conferences and meetups, including KubeCon, Open Source Summit, etc. Nowadays he is specialized in cloud native, Kubernetes and infrastructure.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’ve been an active member of the Kubernetes community since 2016. I am eager to become a CNCF Ambassador to give back to the open source community and help drive cloud native adoption. My practical experience with CNCF technologies can provide valuable insights to users. As an ambassador, I look forward to mentoring new contributors, staying connected to the latest developments, speaking at events, creating tutorials, and connecting with the cloud native community. This role aligns well with my passion for open source software and interest in emerging cloud native technologies. I am excited by the opportunity to contribute meaningfully as an ambassador, share my knowledge with others and help advance the CNCF ecosystem.
(He/Him)
Spacelift
Emin Alemdar
(He/Him)
Spacelift
- Location: Izmir, Turkey
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CoreDNS, Crossplane, Envoy, etcd, external-secrets, Falco, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, KEDA, KubeArmor, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, Linkerd, Longhorn, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Prometheus, Thanos
Emin is working as a Solutions Architect and has undertaken tasks such as producing solutions related to Kubernetes, Cloud technologies and Cloud Native Transformation in general, and transferring best practices about these areas. He is also an AWS Container Hero and shares his experience with the community around these technologies. He is part of the organiser team of the official CNCF Istanbul Community Chapter (https://community.cncf.io/istanbul/). He is also part of the CNCF Glossary Turkish team and helps the local community to understand the Cloud Native terms in their native language. He publishes blog posts from his personal Medium page (https://medium.com/@eminalemdar) and also participates in Open Source and Cloud Native related conferences and delivers talks about these technologies. He is in the organiser team of KCD (Kubernetes Community Days) Istanbul conference.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Community activities have always been my biggest motivation throughout my career. Helping people and learning from the people by participating in community activities is extremely important for me. Cloud Native Community is really one of a kind and being part of this community is really like a dream coming true for me.
(She/Her)
Faseela K
(She/Her)
- Location: Aachen, Germany
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Envoy, Helm, Istio, Kubernetes
Faseela is a cloud-native developer, maintainer and steering committee member at Istio Service Mesh. She has served as the Program Chair for the Istio Meetups in 2023 including the IstioDays co-located with KubeCon Europe and NorthAmerica. She regularly contributes to the Istio blogs, helping all the latest news about Istio reach users and contributors worldwide.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Having done the work of an ambassador for Istio for several years now, I look forward to continuing this work officially now, making use of the support CNCF provides. I would love to provide more support for the women in cloud native community with this new opportunity I am provided with.
(He/Him)
AWS
Guy Menahem
(He/Him)
AWS
- Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, cert-manager, Helm, Istio, k3s, KEDA, Kubernetes, Kyverno, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
Guy was fortunate enough to experience hands-on the entire evolution of cloud-native computing, from bare-metal servers to VMs and ultimately to Kubernetes. He is passionate about sharing his vast knowledge by writing blogs, speaking at global events, creating video content, and contributing to open-source projects by the CNCF. Guy has been dubbed “The Good Guy” by his peers and members of the community for his persistent desire to help others. It’s no wonder then that his day job at Komodor revolves around helping organizations to adopt K8s and solve the challenges that come with it, while his free time is dedicated to building a local community for Solution Architects and maintaining his educational Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@the_good_guy
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to be an ambassador because it allows me to further my mission of sharing knowledge and driving the adoption of cloud-native technologies. As an ambassador, I will have the opportunity to create more resources, collaboration opportunities, and initiatives with the community & end-users to promote adoption and innovation.
(He/Him)
Halil Ibrahim BUGOL
(He/Him)
- Location: Istanbul, Turkey
- Project Experience: Antrea, Argo, cert-manager, Chaos Mesh, Chaosblade, Cilium, containerd, ContainerSSH, Falco, Fluentd, Harbor, Helm, Istio, k3s, Karmada, KEDA, Knative, KubeEdge, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, Kuma, Litmus, Longhorn, Nocalhost, Open Service Mesh, OpenEBS, OpenELB, OpenFunction, OpenTelemetry, Porter, Prometheus, Rook, Serverless Workflow, Strimzi, Virtual Kubelet, wasmCloud
I started my career in a data center in Istanbul, Turkey. I have been interested in the CNCF world since 2018. Although my main areas are generally technical aspects, there were companies where I took part in community and product management. I am currently in the role of Co-Founder at Kubezy. Apart from the commercial side, we have been organizing events as Organizers at CNCG Istanbul since last year, together with my friends in Turkey. I am also a member of the KCD Türkiye team. I have a community role as Technology Evangelist at KubeSphere and KubeSphere Products.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am in love with community and all things community. I have met so many people since I first joined the CNCF community. It is a great pleasure to contribute to this community with people from all over the world who believe in the same goal. One goal and hundreds of people contributing to this goal. I think my biggest excitement in being an ambassador is making new friends and representing my community in the best way possible. Also, ambassador swags are great 🙂
(He/Him)
NAV - Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration
Hans Kristian Flaatten
(He/Him)
NAV - Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration
- Location: Bergen, Norway
- Project Experience: Buildpacks, cert-manager, Cilium, Falco, Fluentd, Helm, Jaeger, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Linkerd, Litmus, MetalLB, OpenMetrics, OpenTelemetry, Operator Framework, Prometheus
Platform Engineer in the largest branch of the Norwegian Government (NAV) where I am tech lead for Cloud Native Application Observability. Public speaker and Co-Organizer of KCD Oslo, Cloud Native Bergen, GDG Bergen and Co-Host of Norway’s only Platform Engineering podcast Plattformpodden.
(He/Him)
Melio AI
Harry Lee
(He/Him)
Melio AI
- Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Dex, Envoy, external-secrets, Fluentd, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, Knative, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Longhorn, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Prometheus, Rook, Telepresence
Harry is a DevOps Evangelist and CTO @ Melio AI. He specialises in helping organisations navigate the cloud native landscape and adopt cloud native technologies. Harry runs the Cloud Native Computing Johannesburg Meetup which is part of the CNCF community groups in South Africa. https://www.meetup.com/cloud-native-computing-johannesburg/ https://community.cncf.io/johannesburg/
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Harry is excited to be an ambassador as he is able to bring local cloud native enthusiasts together. This creates a platform where everyone can share their experiences embarking on their cloud native journeys. Through frequent knowledge sharing, this advances the entire cloud native community as a whole.
(He/Him)
Harsh Manvar
(He/Him)
- Location: Rajkot, India
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), CoreDNS, Envoy, Fluentd, Flux, Helm, Istio, KEDA, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Strimzi, Thanos, WasmEdge Runtime
I am a distinguished Docker Captain based in India, recognized for my expertise in containerization and cloud technologies. As a Cloud Innovator Champion, I’m committed to driving innovation and best practices in cloud computing. Additionally, i am a Top Kubernetes answerer worldwide on StackOverflow, demonstrating my dedication to fostering knowledge sharing within the global tech community.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Becoming a CNCF ambassador is thrilling because it means actively shaping the future of cloud-native technologies, collaborating with industry leaders, and bridging gaps in the tech ecosystem. It’s an opportunity to contribute to a global community that’s driving innovation and setting standards for modern computing.
(He/Him)
Hangzhou HarmonyCloud Technology Co., Ltd
Huan Wei
(He/Him)
Hangzhou HarmonyCloud Technology Co., Ltd
- Location: Hangzhou, China
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Chaos Mesh, Chaosblade, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CoreDNS, CRI-O, Envoy, Falco, Fluentd, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Karmada, KEDA, Knative, KubeEdge, Kubernetes, KubeVirt, Prometheus, Volcano
Huan has more than 15 years of work experience, and his current focus is cloud-native edge computing, distributed cloud, and high-performance computing. He is currently working as a Senior Technical Director at HarmonyCloud, a company located in Hangzhou, China, providing leading cloud-native products and solutions for hundreds of enterprise customers, including Kubernetes, PaaS, edge computing, micro service visibility, DevOps, etc. In addition, Huan serves as a Technical Steering Committe member of the CNCF edge computing project KubeEdge. Huan is an open source technology enthusiast and is currently committed to building an open source technology ecosystem in China.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: The company I work for, HarmonyCloud, is an influential cloud native tehnology supplier in China and a long-term partner of CNCF. HarmonyCloud has helped many customers around the world complete the transformation of cloud-native technology. At the same time, I am currently working as a TSC member in the CNCF Project KubeEdge community, responsible for leading several SIG teams and working with other TSC members towards the graduation of the KubeEdge project. Over the years, I have also given speeches at conferences organized by CNCF. Therefore, I am familiar with the operation process of CNCF projects and understand the job responsibilities of CNCF ambassadors. If I become an ambassador, I will promote the maturity and promotion of Kubernetes, KubeEdge and more open source projects, and help users around the world to apply these advanced and open source cloud-native tenologies.
(He/Him)
Iceber Gu
(He/Him)
- Location: Shanghai, China
- Project Experience: cert-manager, Clusterpedia, containerd, Harbor, Helm, k3s, Karmada, kube-rs, KubeEdge, Kubernetes, NATS, Open Policy Agent (OPA), wasmCloud
I love open source and am involved in many CNCF projects such as Containerd, Kubernetes,Kubeedge, WasmCloud & KasmCloud. I also created Clusterpedia and promoted its contribution to the CNCF Sandbox project. I organized KCD Beijing and KCD Shenzhen in China, and have been a speaker at Kubecon and many other events. I maintain my blog at https://icebergu.com/ and when I have time I share my thoughts on technology!
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am delighted to be a CNCF Ambassador. I am very grateful to CNCF for recognizing my work in the cloud native community. The influence of being a CNCF Ambassador allows me to better promote cloud-native technologies and the CNCF projects, make it easier to organize cloud-native events, and attract more people to participate in cloud-native construction. I will make more contributions to CNCF as an ambassador!
(She/Her)
Trice
Jessica Andersson
(She/Her)
Trice
- Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
- Languages: English, Swedish
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, external-secrets, Kubernetes, Prometheus, Thanos
Jessica runs the Gothenburg chapter for CNCF communities and is an active part in Cloud Native Nordics. She’s building platforms to improve developer experience and passionate about empowering teams to build great products!
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to continue creating an open community for sharing and learning around cloud native technologies and to get a chance to meet other amazing people doing similar work all around the world.
(He/Him)
Jim Angel
(He/Him)
- Location: Austin, TX, United States
- Languages: English
- Project Experience: Argo, Buildpacks, cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CoreDNS, Dex, Dragonfly, Envoy, etcd, external-secrets, Falco, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Knative, ko, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Prometheus, Tinkerbell
I’m Jim Angel. I love solving problems and working with incredible people! I’m primarily involved with upstream Kubernetes (SIG-Release and SIG-Docs). Currently working on restarting our local Austin meetup and a Texas KCD. You can follow my latest projects at jimangel.io
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: It’s awesome to get to know so many great people and work with leading technology that’s responsible for changing multiple industries. The community that keeps Kubernetes open and welcome is a special thing, and I hope to maintain such standards myself. I also enjoy helping connect the folks using open source tooling with the resources they need to be successful, and being an ambassador keeps me connected.
(He/Him)
Intel
Joe Searcy
(He/Him)
Intel
- Location: Atlanta, GA, United States
- Project Experience: Carvel, cert-manager, Envoy, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, Kubernetes, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenTelemetry
Joe is a Staff Software Engineer working within the Software & Advanced Technology group at Intel. He’s a passionate technologist and loves solving complex problems. Joe leads the Kubernetes Atlanta Meetup and is an active contributor to many CNCF projects (Kubernetes, Istio, Carvel, etc.). Outside of technology, Joe is an audiophile, a lego enthusiast, and a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
(He/Him)
Peak Scale
Johann Gyger
(He/Him)
Peak Scale
- Location: Bern, Switzerland
- Project Experience: Argo, Buildpacks, cert-manager, Cilium, Flux, Helm, in-toto, Istio, k3s, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenTelemetry, ORAS, Prometheus, SPIFFE, SPIRE, Strimzi
Johann is a passionate software engineer living in Switzerland. He has over 20 years of industry experience working as a developer, architect, trainer, and consultant in various domains and for different customers. Johann is enthusiastic about the cloud-native movement and organizes the Swiss Cloud Native day (https://cloudnativeday.ch) and the Cloud Native Bern Meetup (http://www.cloudnativebern.ch).
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Bringing engineers together at meetups and conferences is a fulfilling and inspirational task. I love to connect with this thriving community on a local and international level. And I would like to raise awareness of environmental sustainability.
(He/Him)
SCRM Lidl International Hub
Jorge Turrado Ferrero
(He/Him)
SCRM Lidl International Hub
- Location: Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
- Languages: English, Spanish
- Project Experience: Backstage, cert-manager, Helm, KEDA, Kured, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
I have been working around software development for more than 6 years. Involving development, infrastructure architecture, monitoring, etc. Currently, I work as SRE at SCRM Lidl International Hub. Also, I have been awarded with Microsoft MVP for 4 years in a row and nowadays, I invest the majority of my free time contributing to KEDA. I’m proud about my puppies and my wife, and I use the rest of the time with them.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: The program provides a platform for ambassadors to connect and collaborate with other cloud-native enthusiasts and promote the adoption of cloud-native practices. By becoming a CNCF ambassador, one can contribute to the open-source community and help shape the future of cloud-native computing.
(He/Him)
Josh Gavant
(He/Him)
- Location: Chicago, United States
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, Backstage, Buildpacks, Carvel, CDK for Kubernetes (CDK8s), cert-manager, CloudEvents, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CoreDNS, CRI-O, Crossplane, Dapr, Devfile, Dex, Distribution, Envoy, etcd, Flux, gRPC, Helm, Jaeger, KEDA, Keptn, Knative, Konveyor, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, KubeVela, KubeVirt, KUDO, Kyverno, Open Cluster Management, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, Operator Framework, ORAS, Porter, Prometheus, Rook, sealer, SPIFFE, SPIRE, Strimzi, Thanos, zot
Josh is passionate about enabling project builders and end users to succeed with cloud computing. He’s a solution architect for Red Hat and leader of CNCF’s TAG App Delivery and WG Platforms. He also leads the CNCF Chicago community group and other Chicago-area groups. Check out Josh’s blog at https://blog.joshgav.com/!
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m thrilled to continue enabling beginners and experts alike to make the most of cloud computing! As an ambassador I’ll be even more empowered to educate and support Chicago-area developers in our local communities. I’m looking forward to sharing knowledge myself, but most of all I’m looking forward to enabling people in my communities to share their knowledge with each other!
(He/Him)
Kemila De Silva
(He/Him)
- Location: Sri Lanka
- Project Experience: cert-manager, Helm, Istio, k3s, KEDA, Kubernetes, Prometheus, Thanos, wasmCloud
An experienced DevOps Engineer with a solid background spanning over 5 years, specializing in CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) technologies. I’ve excelled in developing and implementing robust infrastructures for seamless application deployment, with a focus on optimizing availability through industry best practices. Additionally, actively contribute to the CNCF community by organizing significant events like KCD Sri Lanka 2022, KCD Sri Lanka 2023, and hosting monthly Kubernetes Sri Lanka live streams on YouTube, fostering knowledge sharing and keeping professionals updated with the latest advancements in cloud-native technologies.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Each ambassador may have their unique reasons for their excitement, but the chance to influence, connect, contribute, and learn often serves as significant driving forces behind their enthusiasm for taking on this role.
(He/Him)
Apple
Kohei Ota
(He/Him)
Apple
- Location: Japan
- Languages: English, Japanese
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, Contour, CRI-O, Envoy, etcd, external-secrets, Falco, Fluentd, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Jaeger, KEDA, Kubernetes, KubeVirt, Lima, Longhorn, OpenTelemetry, Pixie, Prometheus, Telepresence, Tinkerbell
Kohei Ota is a Senior Field Engineer at Apple. He is a CNCF Ambassador and contributes to Kubernetes SIG Docs as the Japanese localization owner in the CNCF communities. He also organizes Docker Meetup Tokyo and CloudNative Days Tokyo; some of the biggest “container/cloud native” communities and conferences in Japan.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’ve been involved with local cloud native community based in Japan. Unfortunately not many folks from Japan have tightened relationship with international community. I’m excited to be part of organizers of both sides and would love to help local experts become part of the international community!
(She/Her)
Tietoevry, Public 360° unit
Kristina Devochko
(She/Her)
Tietoevry, Public 360° unit
- Location: Oslo, Norway
- Languages: English, Norwegian, Russian, Ukrainian
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Chaos Mesh, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), Dapr, Helm, k3s, KEDA, Kepler, Kubernetes, Kubescape, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
Kristina Devochko is a platform engineer, tech content creator, speaker and tech community contributor based in Norway. She focuses on all things cloud native and green tech. Kristina is an owner of kristhecodingunicorn.com tech blog, a CNCF Ambassador, Microsoft Azure MVP, Green Software Champion, CNCF TAG Environmental Sustainability chair, co-organizer of multiple meetup groups and mentor. In her free time Kristina enjoys doing CTF challenges, reading and cuddling with her four cats.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I love giving back to the tech community and I hope that my actions and contributions can inspire others to create software with sustainability, security and cloud native principles in mind. Another important goal for me is to contribute to even stronger diversity, equality and inclusion in the cloud native space by creating a non-judgemental, open, safe and welcoming space for everyone. By being an ambassador I can focus even more on doing just that! I’m also very excited to meet all the fantastic ambassadors and members of the cloud native community and collaborate on making a positive impact in the CNCF space together 🙂
(He/Him)
Civo
Kunal Kushwaha
(He/Him)
Civo
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, Dapr, DevSpace, Helm, k3s, Knative, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, Prometheus, Thanos
Kunal Kushwaha is a Developer Relations Manager at Civo, where he fosters a deep connection between developers and innovative cloud-native technologies. With a passion for empowering others, Kunal has taught thousands online and consulted numerous companies on their DevOps journey. Recognized as a community leader, he has delivered keynote speeches at global conferences, embodying empathy in all aspects of his work and life.
(She/Her)
Solo.io
Lin Sun
(She/Her)
Solo.io
- Location: Cary, NC, United States
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Envoy, Helm, Istio, k3s, Kubernetes, Prometheus, SPIRE
Lin is the Head of Open Source at Solo.io, also serving as a CNCF TOC member and ambassador. She has been actively involved with the Istio service mesh since its inception in 2017, holding positions on both the Istio Steering Committee and Technical Oversight Committee. Prior to her current role, she was a Senior Technical Staff Member and Master Inventor at IBM for 15+ years. She is the author of the book “Istio Ambient Explained” and has more than 200 patents to her name.
(He/Him)
OpenMeter
Márk Sági-Kazár
(He/Him)
OpenMeter
- Location: Budapest, Hungary
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, containerd, Curiefense, Dex, Distribution, Emissary-ingress, Flux, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Kubernetes, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenTelemetry, Operator Framework, Prometheus, zot
Márk is a SWE/SRE from Hungary with years of experience in various Cloud Native technologies as well as contributing to and maintaining Open Source Software. He is one of the core maintainers of Dex, a Cloud Native identity federation solution and a number of Go libraries (Viper being the most prominent among them). Márk also organizes several tech meetups in Hungary (Go Budapest, Kubernetes and Cloud Native Budapest, Microservices Budapest) and regularly appears as a speaker in the region at meetups, workshops, conferences and podcasts. You can occasionally find him posting to his blog (https://sagikazarmark.hu/), but chances are his GitHub profile is more interesting. In his free time, Márk likes riding a bicycle, reading books, but his favorite hobby for more than 20 years has been Hungarian folk dance.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I always liked learning/building new technologies and then sharing the knowledge with others. By working on various Open Source projects for more than a decade I also learned to appreciate the opportunity to learn from people coming from different backgrounds. By being an ambassador I hope that I’ll have more opportunities to connect with people, learn from them and maybe share some of my knowledge as well.
(She/Her)
RELEX Solutions
Maryam Tavakkoli
(She/Her)
RELEX Solutions
- Location: Helsinki, Finland
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, external-secrets, Helm, Kubernetes, Kured, Linkerd, Prometheus
Maryam Tavakkoli is a senior Cloud engineer at RELEX Solutions, specializing in the design and implementation of Cloud and Kubernetes infrastructure. She is also one of the organizers of the CNCF meetups in Finland. With a strong passion for open-source cloud-native solutions, Maryam actively engages in collaborative efforts and idea-sharing within this domain.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’ve had the fortune to learn from world-class cloud native leaders, and I want to pay it forward by organizing, speaking at and participating in cloud native events. In addition, I’m excited to make the cloud native concepts more tangible through my research.
(He/Him)
Liquid Reply
Max Körbächer
(He/Him)
Liquid Reply
- Location: Munich, Germany
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Cloud Custodian, Confidential Containers, Container Network Interface (CNI), Crossplane, Dapr, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Helm, Keptn, KubeEdge, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Linkerd, Longhorn, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenFeature, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Service Mesh Interface (SMI), wasmCloud, WasmEdge Runtime
Max is Co-Founder and Cloud Native Advocate at Liquid Reply. He is Co-Chair of the CNCF Environmental Sustainability Technical Advisory Group and served 3 years at the Kubernetes release team. His focus is on designing and building cloud-native solutions on/with Kubernetes anywhere and the platform engineering to simplify the current challenges of complex systems. He runs the Munich Kubernetes Meetup as well as the Munich and Ukraine Kubernetes Community Days.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Being an ambassador is a sign that working with the community and being part of the community is a high value, empowering anyone to join and be part of it. And as ambassadors, we are potentially the enabler to guide people but also motivate others to share their experiences to create a synergy. I’m also excited to meet other ambassadors in person and maybe create new ideas and events.
(He/Him)
Michael Levan
(He/Him)
- Location: Mount Arlington, NJ, United States
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, Backstage, Buildpacks, CDK for Kubernetes (CDK8s), cert-manager, Chaos Mesh, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CoreDNS, CRI-O, Crossplane, Emissary-ingress, Envoy, etcd, Fluentd, Flux, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, KubeEdge, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, Kyverno, Linkerd, Longhorn, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Open Service Mesh, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, rkt, SPIFFE, SPIRE, Thanos, Tinkerbell, Virtual Kubelet
Michael Levan is a seasoned engineer and consultant in the Kubernetes and Platform Engineering space who spends his time working with startups and enterprises around the globe on consulting, training, and content creation. He is a trainer, 3x published author, podcast host, international public speaker, and was part of the Kubernetes v1.28 Release Team.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: The avenue that’s now opened to work with more people around the world. I’ve been giving back to the community, creating free content, and contributing to projects for 5+ years. I’m now excited to work with others who are passionate about doing the same.
(He/Him)
Nabarun Pal
(He/Him)
- Location: Bengaluru, India
- Languages: Bengali, English, Hindi
- Project Experience: Carvel, cert-manager, containerd, etcd, k3s, kcp, Kubernetes
Nabarun is a Staff Software Engineer at VMware by Broadcom, a maintainer of the Kubernetes project, a Kubernetes SIG Contributor Experience chair and an emeritus member of the Kubernetes Steering Committee member. He is a Release Manager for Kubernetes and has been the Kubernetes 1.21 Release Team Lead. Nabarun has been an active member of 8 releases since 2019. He is an emeritus member of the Kubernetes Code of Conduct Committee. Nabarun continuously mentors newcomers in the community through various means. He has been featured multiple times in the Times of India and other publications for his work in the Kubernetes and Python communities. Nabarun has spoken at multiple KubeCon events in the past, as well as other CloudNative-focused conferences like Kubernetes Community Days.
(He/Him)
Desotech
Nicola Marco Decandia
(He/Him)
Desotech
- Location: Altamura, Italy
- Project Experience: Antrea, Carvel, CDK for Kubernetes (CDK8s), cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, Contour, CoreDNS, Dex, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, KEDA, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Longhorn, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenEBS, OpenELB, rkt, Rook, Vitess
I am a seasoned cloud-native professional with over 20 years of experience in the industry, specializing in Kubernetes, containerization, and DevOps practices. As the founder and organizer of the Bari and Matera CNCF Cloud-Native Meetup, I have fostered a strong local community committed to sharing knowledge and best practices. My technical expertise spans across multiple CNCF projects, including Prometheus, Envoy, and Helm. I regularly share my insights and experiences on my blog at www.tanzu.eu, where I explore emerging trends and innovative solutions in the cloud-native ecosystem. Passionate about continuous learning and collaboration, I am excited to contribute to the community as a CNCF Ambassador.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am thrilled to be an Ambassador because it allows me to actively contribute to the growth and development of the cloud-native ecosystem, which I am truly passionate about. This role provides a unique platform to engage with a diverse and talented community, enabling the exchange of knowledge and ideas that drive innovation. Furthermore, being an Ambassador presents the opportunity to mentor and inspire others while learning from the collective experiences of fellow professionals. It is an honor to serve as a bridge between the CNCF and the broader community, fostering collaboration and mutual support.
(He/Him)
Harness
Pablo Fredrikson
(He/Him)
Harness
- Location: Mendoza, Argentina
- Languages: English, Spanish
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, Dragonfly, etcd, Fluentd, Helm, k3s, Knative, Kubernetes, Prometheus, Telepresence, Thanos
Professional Nerd, SRE and Content Creator. Love advocating for Open-Source and container technologies. I’ve been running a YouTube channel where I share and teach the technologies and good practices I use every day as an SRE.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I love teaching and helping people to become better engineers. I love everything open source and what it stands for, knowledge must be shared and everyone should have the opportunity to become better at their jobs.
(He/Him)
sevensphere
Rachid Zarouali
(He/Him)
sevensphere
- Location: Lyon, France
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, ContainerSSH, CoreDNS, Cortex, CRI-O, Crossplane, Curiefense, DevSpace, etcd, external-secrets, Falco, Fluentd, Harbor, Helm, k3s, KEDA, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, Kured, Kyverno, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenMetrics, OpenTelemetry, ORAS, Parsec, Pixie, Prometheus, Telepresence, Thanos, zot
Freelance cloud architect, OSS addict, huge fan of k8s, cilium, argocd and friends. I speak regularly about cloud tech, security and OSS projects I use or implement for my clients. I run several meetups in my city Docker, CNCF Lyon, DevSecCon France, co-organize conferences (KCDFRANCE) and involved regularly as conference MC and member of CFP committee , more importantly I’m a happy husband and dad
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m freaking excited to join the ambassador community.To meet new friends, help growing communities, sharing the skills I’ve learned and give back to the CNCF community. Being an ambassador will allow me to what i love the most, mentoring, i can’t wait to jump in !
(He/Him)
kubernetes@.com
Ramesh Kumar
(He/Him)
kubernetes@.com
- Location: Sacramento, United States
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), CoreDNS, Crossplane, Emissary-ingress, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, gRPC, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, Lima, Linkerd, Network Service Mesh, Open Cluster Management, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Open Policy Containers, Open Service Mesh, OpenCost, OpenEBS, OpenELB, OpenGitOps, OpenMetrics, OpenTelemetry, OpenTracing, Service Mesh Interface (SMI), Service Mesh Performance, Virtual Kubelet, Vitess
I’m Ramesh Kumar, a dedicated advocate and mentor in the dynamic realm of cloud-native technologies. With a genuine passion for empowering others and a commitment to fostering meaningful connections, my journey is not just about the technology, but about the profound impact I make on the lives of those around me.
At the forefront of my endeavors are the CNCF/Kubernetes meetups I lead in Sacramento and Penang. These gatherings are not just about technical learning, they are about building a community where individuals find support, encouragement, and a strong sense of belonging. I aim to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing, especially caring for the newbies navigating the landscape. Through my patient guidance and steadfast support, I help over 500+ students and professionals navigate the complexities of Kubernetes certifications, empowering them to achieve their goals and pursue their passions.
My specialties lie in mentoring, teaching, training, and collaborating, and I take pride in my ability to inspire and guide others in their learning journey. I love encouraging and inspiring others to reach for their dreams and embrace new opportunities using CNCF Technologies. Whether guiding a career transition or championing initiatives using CNCF technologies, my compassionate approach has a lasting impact on all who encounter me.
Join me on my mission to build a more inclusive and supportive tech community with the help of CNCF. Let’s create a future where collaboration thrives, knowledge is freely shared, and everyone is supported and empowered on their journey to success.
(He/Him)
Isovalent
Raphaël Pinson
(He/Him)
Isovalent
- Location: Lausanne, Switzerland
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), Falco, Flux, Helm, k3s, Kubernetes, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenTracing, Prometheus
Raphaël Pinson is a seasoned Solutions Architect with over 15 years of experience in the tech industry. He specializes in Kubernetes, Terraform, and Cilium, and currently works at Isovalent. Raphaël is passionate about bridging the gap between DevOps and Cloud Native communities, and he’s excited to represent CNCF as a co-organizer of the Swiss Romandie (Lausanne chapter) CNCF meetup and regular speaker at industry events. Raphaël has contributed to various CNCF projects. His public work can be found at https://polywork.com/raphink.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m thrilled to become a CNCF ambassador because it allows me to expand my impact and bring Cloud Native technology to a wider audience. By representing CNCF and bridging the gap between Cloud Native and other communities, I hope to further advance our industry’s growth and adoption. It’s an honor to be part of a community of talented and passionate advocates who are driving innovation and making a difference in the tech world.
(He/Him)
Sopra Steria
Roberth Strand
(He/Him)
Sopra Steria
- Location: Oslo, Norway
- Languages: English, Norwegian
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), CoreDNS, Dapr, Envoy, external-secrets, Fluentd, Flux, gRPC, Helm, k3s, KEDA, Keptn, Knative, Kubernetes, Kured, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Open Service Mesh, OpenGitOps, Operator Framework, Prometheus, Service Mesh Interface (SMI), Thanos
I am a self-proclaimed “cloud automator”, and I work at Sopra Steria based out of Oslo, Norway. I have been granted the title of Microsoft MVP for my work with Azure, and I have been an active contributor in the CNCF for which I earned the title Cloud Native Ambassador. I initiated Cloud Native Norway, a non-profit that works to build up and enable Cloud Native adoption and development in Norway. I also co-founded the Azure Cloud Native User Group, and founded the Norwegian PowerShell User Group. In the CNCF, I have been active for years in TAG App Delivery, and currently serves as co-chair for the TAG, maintainer on the OpenGitOps project, and as co-chair of the Platforms Working Group.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: For many years, the CNCF has continued to impress me. The way that the foundation has supported the community and the projects is truly admirable. Even though I have other honorary titles, the CNCF Ambassador title is one that I value very much. While I don’t do community work for the titles, I am happy for the recognition. I have big plans for my work in the CNCF, and I look forward to seeing how the ambassador program will help me achieve more for the community.
Sessionize: https://sessionize.com/roberth-strand
(He/Him)
Nordcloud, an IBM company
Robin Smorenburg
(He/Him)
Nordcloud, an IBM company
- Location: Almere, Netherlands
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, Buildpacks, cert-manager, Chaos Mesh, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CoreDNS, CRI-O, Crossplane, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, gRPC, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, KEDA, Knative, KubeArmor, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Open Service Mesh, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
Hello! I’m Robin Smorenburg, a passionate technologist with an eye for detail who turned his passion for technology into a career. Throughout my career, I’ve become a respected thought leader in the industry, sharing my knowledge and expertise with others, being recognized by Microsoft, and receiving the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional or MVP Award in the Azure category. With Kevin Evans, I run the StreamingClouds live stream, where we engage with inspiring individuals—our industry’s thought leaders—spreading positivity and sharing their knowledge and advice. And the StreamingClouds Community is a safe place where we’re helping each other, supported by a fantastic group of moderators we can call friends.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m really excited about joining the CNCF on the mission of “making cloud native ubiquitous”. Enhancing my efforts of leading by example, inspiring and helping as many people as possible while being open and inclusive, and treating everyone with the utmost respect. Making a difference through community building and mentoring, impacting the lives of others, leveling the playing field, and fostering community collaboration and relationships. And last but not least, the technologist in me loves cloud-native!
(He/Him)
Ronit Banerjee
(He/Him)
- Location: Kolkata, India
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CoreDNS, CRI-O, etcd, gRPC, Helm, Istio, k3s, Knative, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Linkerd, Longhorn, Meshery, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Prometheus, Thanos
I am Ronit Banerjee, a pre-final year Computer Science Engineering Undergraduate student. Along with my academics, I have maintained a strong portfolio being an Open Source Developer at the projects incubated and graduated from The Linux Foundation and Cloud Native Computing Foundation. My enthusiasm with DevOps and Cloud Native helped me to secure scholarships like Travel Funding Scholarship and Dan Kohn Scholarship by The Linux Foundation and Cloud Native Computing Foundation to attend flagship conferences such as KubeCon + CloudNativeCon + Open Source Summit China 2023 at Shanghai and Open Source Summit Europe 2022 at Dublin. I also worked as an Open Source Developer in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) at DBpedia Association. Apart from my technical experience, I got my hands dirty in fostering the Cloud Native Ecosystem. I am also the Chapter Lead at Cloud Native Hooghly which is an official CNCF Chapter listed amongst 40 such clubs in the Asia Pacific Region. Right now, with the proliferation of the Cloud Native Tools, I successfully turned the chapter to be the fastest growing in the entire Eastern India, catering 250+ Active members. I am also a Sig Contribex’s Comms Volunteer for Kubernetes Contributors Summit North America 2023 at Chicago, United States of America primarily looking into the “Call for Proposal” emails and notifying about the updates to the KubeCon co-located event attendees. I have significant experience in pitching tech products to Venture Capitalists and have successfully secured grants from Government of India twice for my deep-tech startup.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I always wanted to boost Cloud Native Ecosystem in my locality whereas I felt there is a gap of awareness. Being an ambassador, it would really help me to reach areas where I couldn’t do by myself just being a CNCG chapter lead of Hooghly. With CNCF’s support it would be possible.
(He/Him/They/Them)
Rafay Systems
Saim Safdar
(He/Him/They/Them)
Rafay Systems
- Location: Rawalpindi, Pakistan
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, CDK for Kubernetes (CDK8s), cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, Crossplane, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Fluentd, Helm, Istio, KEDA, Kubernetes, Kubescape, Kyverno, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Open Service Mesh, OpenFeature, OpenTelemetry, Paralus
Hello, my name is Saim Safdar, working as a Developer Relations Manager at Rafay Systems, host of the cloud-native podcast (https://www.youtube.com/@cloudnativefm), co-founder of Cloud Native Islamabad (https://community.cncf.io/islamabad/), Organizer of KCD Pakistan (https://www.cncf.io/blog/2023/03/10/from-community-group-to-event-a-kcd-pakistan-experience/). Maintainer of the cncf Sandbox project, Paralus (https://www.paralus.io/).
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I love sharing my Open Source jourey with others, currently there’s a desparate need of mentorship within the community, as cloud native eco-system constantly equipped with new tooling, students, tech pro, difficult to find and map existing knowledge to work with OS and communities, I’m hoping my time as an Ambassador, I’ll get on-board and shortened the loop for code to contribution to outreaching new OS tooling to the world.
(He/Him)
Red Hat
Sascha Grunert
(He/Him)
Red Hat
- Location: Leipzig, Germany
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Confidential Containers, CRI-O, gRPC, Kubeflow, Kubernetes
Sascha works on many different container related open-source projects like Kubernetes and various container runtimes. He joined the CNCF community back in 2018, having gained container experience before. Sascha’s passions include contributing to open source, as well as giving talks and evangelizing Kubernetes-related technologies.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m thrilled to act as CNCF ambassador because mentoring and onboarding new people into the community is one of my passions! The CNCF ambassador program provides me a bigger context to connect with new and existing community members. It also makes it easier for me to boost the visibility of open source projects while evangelizing best practices, code of conduct and openness.
(He/Him)
Sebastien Prune THOMAS
(He/Him)
- Location: Levis, Quebec, CANADA
- Project Experience: Argo, CDK for Kubernetes (CDK8s), cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, Cortex, Crossplane, Envoy, external-secrets, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, Knative, Kubeflow, Kyverno, Lima, NATS, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenTelemetry, OpenTracing, Operator Framework, Prometheus, Service Mesh Performance, SPIFFE, Strimzi, Thanos
I’ve been involved and passionated by the CNCF community for many years ! I’m co-organizing the Canadian CNCF & Kubernetes meetups for Canada (virtual) and Quebec City / Montreal meetups in person with other wonderful Organizers and Ambassadors ! I’m also a speaker in other meetups, at 2022 KubeCon US and at KubeCon’s Rejeks 2023. I love sharing my experience and documenting. I try to blog my projects and experiences. Check at https://medium.com/@prune998 I’m invested in some CNCF or OSS projects linked to K8s and I’m maintaining an official fork of KubeColor that was unmaintained for years: https://github.com/kubecolor/kubecolor I’ve been patching a lot of projects, OSS or CNCF, like ArgoCD, Cilium, Kafka tools…
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: My goal as an ambassador is to promote Kubernetes and the wonderful ecosystem under the CNCF banner. Being involved in the Ambassador community will help me grow my skills at communicating and hopefully inspire others to join the movement.
(He/Him)
San Carlos of Guatemala University
Sergio Méndez
(He/Him)
San Carlos of Guatemala University
- Location: Guatemala
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, cert-manager, Chaos Mesh, Contour, Flux, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Jaeger, k3s, KEDA, Keptn, Knative, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Longhorn, NATS, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Strimzi
Sergio Méndez is a DevOps Engineer at 8gears and professor of operating systems at USAC university. He is getting involved students into the CNCF Ecosystem and hosting a Cloud Native Community group and KCDs in Guatemala. He has been a speaker at several conferences such as KubeCon, WTFisCloudNative, and Kubernetes Community Days. He is also a Linkerd Ambassador and author of the book Edge Computing with Kubernetes with Packt. His website is https://sergiops.xyz.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited because I can help others to learn new technologies and getting involved to participate, also gives me the opportunity to help Latinamerican people to participate in the CNCF ecosystem and students to start contributing in open source. As an Ambassador I can reduce the gap of language creating content in Spanish.
(He/Him)
Simon Forster
(He/Him)
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, containerd, CRI-O, external-secrets, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Kubernetes, Prometheus
Simon Forster is a cloud native technology architect and engineer based in London. Simon has extensive experience working in heavily regulated financial institutions on the design, delivery and security of critical cloud native applications. He has a specific focus on ensuring cloud native technologies deliver against business goals. As co-chair of the CNCF Cartografos Group, Simon developed and co-authored the CNCF Cloud Native Maturity Model and the CNCF children’s book “Admiral Bash’s Island Adventure”. He has contributed to both the Business Value Subcommittee and Financial Services User Group.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: As a longtime member of the cloud native community, I’m excited to evangelise its mission. I look forward to mentoring and training members of the community, no matter the technical skill set, to better understand why cloud native serves digital innovation and meets business goals. I strongly believe that every person in the community can help drive cloud native forward and am excited to help achieve this goal.
(He/Him)
ITQ
Stéphane Este-Gracias
(He/Him)
ITQ
- Location: Luxembourg
- Project Experience: Antrea, Artifact Hub, Backstage, Buildpacks, Carvel, cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, Contour, Distribution, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Kubernetes, Kured, Lima, OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, Operator Framework, Prometheus, Teller, zot
For many years now, I have been a strong advocate for the development and promotion of free and open-source software. My passion for this cause has led me to actively participate in various initiatives, such as organizing the Cloud Native Luxembourg meetups and being part of the French localization team of CNCF Glossary. I’m dedicated to promoting the benefits of open-source software, believing it to be more secure, reliable, and conducive to innovation. Additionally, I leverage my expertise to help teams harness cloud-native technologies, fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Drawing from my passion for open-source, I will strive to promote the ethos of collaboration, emphasizing the merits of open-source projects within the CNCF landscape and encouraging more entities to contribute and participate. I am committed to guiding the next generation of cloud native enthusiasts. Through mentorship programs and hands-on training sessions, I aim to reduce the learning curve for newcomers and ensure they have the necessary tools and knowledge to thrive within the ecosystem. In essence, as a CNCF Ambassador, my overarching goal is to be a catalyst for growth, learning, and innovation within the Cloud Native community, ensuring that it remains at the forefront of technological progress while upholding the values of collaboration, inclusivity, and open-source spirit.
(He/Him)
karriere.at
Thomas Schuetz
(He/Him)
karriere.at
- Location: St. Pölten, Austria
- Project Experience: Argo, Carvel, cert-manager, Crossplane, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, k3s, K8sGPT, Keptn, Kubernetes, KubeVela, OpenFeature, OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, Operator Framework, Prometheus
Thomas is a Enterprise Architect, Advocate and Educator enthusiastic about making cloud-native more comfortable. As a CNCF/CDF Ambassador and Open Source Contributor, he is always eager to find ways to deliver software and troubleshoot issues more efficiently.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am very passionate about cloud-native technologies and working with them is cool. In the last few years, I got more and more involved in the cloud-native community and learned that it’s not only about technical things, it’s also about the people and the community. I am excited to be an ambassador because I like to bring people into the cloud-native world but also educate and teach them how to use products and technologies.
(He/Him)
Thomas Vitale
(He/Him)
- Location: Aarhus, Denmark
- Languages: Danish, English, Italian
- Project Experience: Backstage, Buildpacks, Carvel, cert-manager, Contour, Crossplane, Flux, Keycloak, Knative, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Microcks, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
Thomas Vitale is a software engineer with a focus on building cloud native solutions, currently working at Systematic in Denmark. He is the author of the “Cloud Native Spring in Action” book and plays an active role in the cloud native ecosystem as a CNCF Ambassador, Co-Chair of the CNCF Application Development Working Group, Oracle ACE Pro, and Testcontainers Community Champion.
A strong advocate of open source collaboration, Thomas contributes to various projects in the Java and cloud-native space, including Spring AI, Testcontainers, Carvel, Dapr, and Buildpacks. He is also passionate about sharing his expertise with the community through talks, workshops, and writing on technical topics.
(He/Him)
Canonical Ltd.
Tiexin Guo
(He/Him)
Canonical Ltd.
- Location: Chengdu, China
- Languages: Chinese, English
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), DevStream, external-secrets, Falco, Flux, Helm, Istio, Kubernetes, Linkerd, NATS, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Prometheus
Founder and PMC chair of DevStream@CNCF, ex-AWS senior DevOps, ex-Huawei tech expert, cloud architect for Daimler, Tesco, Credit Suisse, and other Fortune 500 corps. Writer at DevOps.com, guest expert at GitGuardian (DevSecOps), blog@Medium: https://medium.com/4th-coffee. Key speaker at the 1st Lisbon K8s meetup. Keynote speaker of BuildStuff 2022. I specialize in DevOps and cloud-related technologies, like CI/CD, developer tools, Terraform, AWS, etc., and I blog on DevOps/DevSecOps.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am truly excited and honored to be an ambassador for the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). This opportunity allows me to contribute to the promotion and adoption of cutting-edge cloud-native technologies, which play a crucial role in shaping the future of software development and infrastructure. Being an ambassador also connects me with a vibrant, passionate community of professionals who share insights and experiences, fostering collaboration and innovation. I am genuinely grateful for this chance to learn from others and help drive the industry forward, making a meaningful impact on the cloud-native ecosystem.
(He/Him)
Prusa Research a.s. / Freelance Cloud Consultant
Zdeněk Váňa
(He/Him)
Prusa Research a.s. / Freelance Cloud Consultant
- Location: Prague, Czech Republic
- Languages: Czech, English
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Crossplane, Dex, etcd, external-secrets, Helm, Jaeger, KEDA, Knative, Kubernetes, Kyverno, OpenCost, OpenGitOps, Thanos
My agenda is taking care of team serving cloud platform and design it’s architecture. I’m a cloud enthusiast who missed events and community in my area. So I have relaunched Cloud Native Prague meetups and I co-organize Kubernetes Community Days Czech & Slovak.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m honored to be an ambassador as I can help with spreading knowledge about fantastic cloud native technologies and connecting people with the same interest. It can help them to solve their issues instead of reinventing the wheel over and over again.