Ambassadors

I’m a Cloud Developer Advocate with Google. I co-lead the Cloud Native Compute Group of Casablanca, Morocco. I’m a co-host for the Kubernetes Podcast by Google and the Cloud Careers Podcast.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Learn from the community. Contribute to the Open Source and Cloud Native world and help inspire others to do the same

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.

Community leader and CNCF ambassador, Alessandro has spent the last few years building cloud native infrastructures for Microsoft customers, animating the Dutch community, and training others to pass the CKx exams. He has passion for all things cloud native, he’s been around open source for 25 years and recently moved to a new Developer Relations role. Twitter handle: @bongo

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Because I was before and it was awesome!

Ali is a Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat, where he focuses on developing and contributing to open-source software. He has a strong track record of contributions to various projects, communities, and foundations, and he is currently an active contributor to the Knative project. In addition to his technical contributions, Ali is also deeply committed to mentoring and promoting contributor growth within the CNCF community. He plays an active role in the Google Summer of Code program at CNCF, where he serves as an admin. He is also a frequent speaker on topics such as starting to contribute to open-source software and the projects he is working on.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Becoming a CNCF Ambassador is an exciting opportunity for me to expand my reach and impact within the community. As someone who is already involved in mentoring and contributor growth activities at CNCF, I’m eager to use the ambassador title to promote CNCF technologies, open-source software, and help interested individuals get started with contributing to CNCF projects. Additionally, being part of a network of other CNCF Ambassadors will allow me to collaborate and share ideas with like-minded individuals who are passionate about the same things. I’m excited to be part of this community and look forward to making a meaningful impact.

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: http://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.

Ananda Dwi Rahmawati is a Sr. Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, specializing in system integration between cloud infrastructure, CI/CD workflows, and application modernization. She is a regular technical speaker who delivers presentations using real-world case studies at several local community meetups and conferences, such as Kubernetes and OpenInfra Days Indonesia, GNOME Asia Summit, LibreOffice Conference, and many more.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Becoming an ambassador is such a huge dream. I love to open-source and cloud-native projects, willing do more contributions and spread the spirit of open-source enthusiasts to others.

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.

Angel Ramirez is a Kubernetes Certified Administrator (CKA) and curator of the Kubernetes CKA exam, with expertise in cloud computing, infrastructure, cloud and software architecture, DevOps, security, team building, leadership, and community building. With over a decade of experience in the industry, Angel is a skilled practitioner and evangelist of cloud native technologies. Angel has founded the Hispanic Foundation of Cloud Native, which aims to empower the Spanish-speaking community to adopt cloud native technologies, and currently runs two Kubernetes community chapters with over 1500 members, making him a valuable asset and true Kubernetes Ambassador. https://www.youtube.com/@fhcn https://community.cncf.io/kcd-colombia/ https://community.cncf.io/medellin/ https://community.cncf.io/south-florida/ https://www.meetup.com/lahoradekubernetes/ https://www.meetup.com/kubernetes-and-cloud-native-south-florida/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVCT1t69BF4&list=PLKR8WO9E9BlM_22CmbvsiBlWsXQK9l9R5

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: As the Kubernetes Ambassador, I am particularly excited to help the LATAM and Hispanic communities learn and adopt Cloud Native and Kubernetes. Cloud native technologies have the power to transform businesses and individuals alike, and I am passionate about sharing this potential with as many people as possible. By empowering the community to embrace these technologies, we can create a more equitable and prosperous future for everyone. I am honored to have this opportunity to make a difference in the lives of so many people.

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.

Ayrat (Archy) is a CNCF Ambassador, Cloud Native Tech Professor at Mcgill University and Cloud Native Architect at Google Cloud. As a CNCF Ambassador he has an opportunity to educate people and share knowledge about benefits of Cloud Native ecosystem via CNCF and Kubernetes Meetups, workshops or by helping customers to build modern cloud native applications that can run seamlessly on-prem or any cloud provider. Archy is passionate about community, he is a Founder and lead organizer of Canadian CNCF Meetups (Virtual, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, Waterloo, Halifax) and frequent speaker GDG, CNCF Meetups and CNCF related conferences. He is an organizer of Canadian Kubernetes Community Days (KCDs), Cloud Native Days Canada 2019 and GDG Cloud & AI DevFest 2019.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: To be part of amazing team of Ambassadors provides you opportunity to learn from other experts and meet new friends across the world who is passionate about same technology. Being Ambassador also gives you a life time opportunity to meet and learn with Cloud Native Community at Kubecons. Give back to community by organizing K8s Meetups, KCDs and sharing the knowledge with wider community.

I’m a tester turned developer advocate. I work on & talk about Cloud native, Kubernetes & DevOps. I also create content – blog posts, Twitter threads – & host Twitter spaces. In addition, I’m one of the organiser of CNCF Hyderabad and strongly believe in collaborative learning and growth. When I am not working, I’m a food & travel blogger & love exploring eateries & going on road trips. You can find me at @TheTechMaharaj on Twitter.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am absolutely stoked to be a CNCF ambassador! Being a part of this community means I get to geek out with a group of like-minded individuals who are passionate about Cloud native technologies, Kubernetes, and DevOps. It’s an opportunity to keep learning and growing, while also sharing my knowledge and enthusiasm with people in Hyderabad. I’m excited to dive headfirst into the latest trends and developments, all while having a blast! I can’t wait to host fun events, share cool content, and help spread the word about CNCF and related technologies. Overall, this is not just a chance to contribute to a thriving ecosystem, but to also make connections, learn new things, and have a ton of fun along the way!

Aurélie is a DevRel at OVHcloud. She is a GDE (Google Developer Expert) for Cloud technologies, Docker Captain, CNCF Ambassador & GitPod Hero. Conferences and meetups organizer since 2016. She is a technical writer, a book author & reviewer. She is also a sketchnoter and a speaker at international conferences. She created a new visual way for people to learn and understand Cloud technologies: “Understanding Kubernetes/Istio/Docker in a visual way” in sketchnotes, videos and visual technical books. Blog: https://dev.to/aurelievache/ Conferences: https://noti.st/aurelievache YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AurelieVache Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Aur%C3%A9lie-Vache/author/B09WHB5YR6 Website: http://scraly.com/

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I have been a passionate and advocate of Cloud Native, especially CNCF technologies, for many years and I am very happy to be its ambassador. It’s an opportunity for me to share and spread knowledge, contribute to native cloud technologies and meet the community.

Transformation Architect, SECTION6 BMK is an inspiring and passionate DevOps Advocate and Value Stream Architect promoting DevOps, Lean and Value Stream Management principles & practices. He is also a New Zealand ambassador for the Cloud-Native Computing Foundation(CNCF), DevOps Institute and a Board Advisor for the Value Stream Management consortium(VSMC). He hosts the CNCF meetup in Wellington, New Zealand and is co-chair of Cloud-Native Summit A/NZ. He blogs about his experiences and learnings at https://bmk.nz/

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: 1. Promoting Open Source and Cloud-Native projects and ecosystem tools in our community. 2. Connecting with experts, maintainers, contributors and other Opensource and cloud-native thought leaders to amplify my learning 3. Use the ambassador program and help in bringing in the best to my community in terms of cloud-native learnings, education and training.

Bob is a Program Manager at the Google Open Source Programs Office with a focus on Cloud Native computing. He serves the Kubernetes project as a Steering Committee member and chair of the Contributor Experience Special Interest Group and has been involved in many other cross-cutting areas of the project. Bob comes from an academic background, spending 15 years at the University of Michigan with a later focus on computational research. He is passionate about Academic Outreach, and is an outspoken advocate of Open Source, Open Science and pets of the furry 4 legged variety.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Just happy to be a part of the new program and help other ambassadors 🙂

Carla has been managing events and communities since 2011. She started with experimental music festivals and eventually ended up in Tech, where she fell in love with its ecosystem. During her career she has produced and run many conferences (yes, also the virtual ones!), meetups, webinars and hackathons. She currently heads the Content, Events & Community Department at Container Solutions, driving and implementing the content and event strategy around the WTF is Cloud Native brand, the Software Circus meetup as well as all Container Solutions’ marketing campaigns. She is also one of the co-founders of the Flyless.dev meetup, one of the organisers of KCD UK, an OpenUK Ambassador and the 2022 CNCF Marketing Committee Chair. Carla drinks way too much tea (mainly green), has an unhealthy obsession for Japan and a big passion for art, music, cinema, philosophy and fashion. Recent blogs: https://blog.container-solutions.com/why-your-event-needs-a-code-of-conduct-and-you-need-to-enforce-it https://blog.container-solutions.com/how-hard-is-it-to-deliver-a-virtual-conference https://blog.container-solutions.com/tech-events-in-the-time-of-covid-19-5-tips-to-survive

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: This is an invaluable opportunity to support the CNCF and the Cloud Native community. I’m incredibly excited to help new joiners and spread more awareness around all the initiatives they can embrace within the CNCF, the various KCDs and the Cloud ecosystem in general.

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.

Chad is a DevSecOps Engineer for Raft (goraft.tech), and author of the book “Acing the Certified Kubernetes Administrator Exam”. Chad has been an instructor for over five years on platforms such as A Cloud Guru and INE. Through KubeSkills, he helps people find fun and interactive ways to learn Kubernetes.

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.

Daniel Oh is Java Champion and Senior Principal Developer Advocate at Red Hat. He works to evangelize building cloud-native microservices and serverless functions with cloud-native runtimes to developers. He also continues to contribute to various open-source cloud projects and ecosystems as a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) ambassador for accelerating DevOps adoption in enterprises. Daniel also speaks at technical seminars, workshops, and meetups to elaborate on new emerging technologies for enterprise developers, SREs, platform engineers, and DevOps teams.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: It will give me more opportunities to meet more technical folks who want to adopt/learn new cloud-native technologies and tools. Also, the ambassador makes me a more proactive person to evangelize non-tech people in terms of how/why they move forward to the cloud.

David Peter Hirsch is a Program Manager at Dynatrace’s Open Source Program Office, where he oversees the company’s open source initiatives. He is responsible for driving compliance and security efforts around open source software within the company, as well as supporting the creation and contribution to new open source projects. David also supports projects in their early stages, helping drive adoption and community development for Keptn, OpenFeature, and OpenTelemetry, and works closely with the engineering teams to ensure their success. David is a member of the InnerSource Commons and TODO Group, and he fosters collaboration with foundations and participation in the community and conferences. He is an enthusiastic advocate for open source software and is particularly interested in the intersection of open source and artificial intelligence. Currently, he is working towards his MBA and a degree in Artificial Intelligence to further his knowledge and expertise in these areas. Through his work and studies, David is helping to promote the growth and development of open source software and its impact on the tech industry as a whole.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m thrilled to become a CNCF ambassador because I believe in the power of this community to make a positive impact on the world. By supporting open source projects and encouraging adoption, I can help ensure that more people and organizations benefit from the values of open source software. In addition, I’m passionate about promoting open source to young students in Europe. By encouraging them to get involved, I can help create a new generation of open source enthusiasts who are equipped with the skills and knowledge to succeed in the tech industry. Overall, I’m excited to contribute my time and energy to this important cause and to help make a difference in the world of open source.

Executive Director at JPMorgan Chase & Co, Head of Cloud Architecture & Engineering for Asset & Wealth Management. Working with Kubernetes since 2014. Founded multiple meetups and currently involved in the North Dallas CNCF Meetup.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: My passion is growing the community by finding, creating and delivering meaningful content. I want members to feel skilled to do their work, and aware of the evolution and innovation in the space.

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 part of the AWS Community Builder Program within the Containers category and he is part of the HashiCorp Ambassador Program within the Open Source community. He is part of the organiser team of the official CNCF Istanbul Community Chapter (https://community.cncf.io/istanbul/). 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 Kubernetes Community Days Turkiye 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.

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.

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.

Harshita Sao is an engineering student and contributor to several areas of the upstream Kubernetes project through SIGs, including Release, Contribex, etc. She has been a member of the Release Team since Kubernetes v1.25 and has been Comms Lead for the v1.27 release cycle.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m thrilled to be an ambassador, as I’m learning about the CNCF ecosystem, contributing to its different projects, and sharing my knowledge and experience with others so that they, too, can begin their journey in this incredible ecosystem. Being an ambassador allows me to learn more about the ecosystem, work and network with amazing people, and find new ways and opportunities to share knowledge with others and help grow this wonderful community.

Hoon Jo is a Cloud Native and Cloud Solutions Architect at Megazone soft. He had several presentations on cloud-native technologies in Ubucon Asia, Openinfra Asia, HashiTalks, Openstack & Kubernetes Korea and so on. And he relays valuable information from the global to local community and makes clips to understand easily in Korea. My interests are highly are kubernetes and related cloud native products. I am fully sure cloud-native help to change the world as well as business model efficient way. Here is my channel. – Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/HoonJo/ – Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/HoonJo

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: In my view, Korea is not rapidly catching up with the latest information from worldwide due to the language barrier and other reasons. Thus, I hope I will relay a lot of highly valuable information from cloud-native resources to Korean communities. Plus, if cloud-native resources could be better digested after cooking, I will cook them to bite easily, such as clips. As an ambassador, it pushes me to be more active and be responsible. It is a really exciting journey in 2023 🙂 hopefully.

Hi, I’m Huabing Zhao, founder of the CNCF open-source project Aeraki Mesh(https://aeraki.net). I’m passionate about Cloud-Native technologies like Microservices, Kubernetes, and Service Mesh. I share my thoughts on Cloud-Native technologies through my blog(https://zhaohuabing.com https://medium.com/@zhaohuabing). When I’m not working, I enjoy watching movies, swimming, hiking, travelling, and skateboarding.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am thrilled to be a CNCF ambassador because it’s an opportunity for me to share my passion for Cloud-Native technologies with others who are interested in this space. In the meatime, I have the chance to connect with other experts in this field and learn from them.

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.

With over 25 years of experience, James Spurin is an industry veteran skilled in various technical fields and adept at leading Engineering teams in top-tier Financial Services organisations. He now focuses on creating online courses and Technical Educational Content in areas such as DevOps, Kubernetes, and Cloud Native, incorporating hands-on learning experiences through container-based lab environments and has reached over 100,000 students globally. As a CNCF Ambassador, James actively advocates for Container and Cloud Native knowledge, education, and Kubernetes-based orchestration. His company, DiveInto, champions Cloud Native and consistently shares fresh content on its YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/DiveInto James has also established an inclusive community dedicated to Cloud Native learning, which can be accessed at https://community.diveinto.com

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to be a CNCF Ambassador as it aligns perfectly with my passion for creating technical educational content on Cloud Native/Kubernetes whilst also Giving Back, a core-principle of the CNCF. The role supports me in more actively engaging with a diverse global community, enabling me to learn from others whilst also sharing my own knowledge and expertise. As an Ambassador, I will contribute to thought leadership in the cloud native space and hope to provide an instrumental role in fostering a culture of knowledge sharing, learning and innovation. Throughout this journey, I am also eager to support and encourage others in pursuing CNCF Cloud Native certifications – an endeavour I am both passionate about and an advocate for. Overall, being a CNCF Ambassador is a highly rewarding and fulfilling experience that allows me to give back to the community while staying updated on the latest developments in the field.

I am a cloud native believer and advocator with over 15 years of experience in cloud computing. I was an early contributor to Kubernetes and led its adoption at eBay for six years. I am currently working as a product and development owner of cloud native FinOps at Tencent Cloud, where I founded the open-source project Crane, which helps users optimize their cloud costs. I am also auther of “The Journey of Kubernetes Production Adoption Success”, translator of “Cloud FinOps”, and speaker on various cloud native topics including Cloud Native Campus in geektime.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to be an ambassador because I love cloud native and I want to share my passion and knowledge with others. I think cloud native is the future of software development and it can bring many benefits to users, developers, and businesses. I want to help the cloud native community grow and thrive by contributing to open-source projects, writing books and articles, and organizing events. Being an ambassador will give me more opportunities to connect with other cloud native enthusiasts and learn from their experiences. I hope to inspire more people to join the cloud native journey and make a positive impact on the world.

Staff Engineer at Alibaba Cloud, working on cloud native technologies, maintainer of KubeVela, a CNCF incubation project.

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.

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.

Julia Furst Morgado is a Global Technologist at Veeam Software. With over five years of experience in the industry, her focus is on simplifying Cloud Native technologies by sharing her expertise and experiences. She is also committed to empowering communities as the organizer of the NY Code & Coffee Meetup and KubeHuddle conference, and by being an AWS Community Builder, a Women Techmakers Ambassador and a Girl Code Ambassador.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I strongly believe in raising awareness about how people can help the CNCF community beyond just coding, and encourage more individuals to get involved in whatever capacity they can. I am excited to produce content, promote cloud native technologies, participate in major events, and connect with global communities.

Kunal is empowering communities via open-source and education. He finds passion in teaching and has taught thousands of folks online and in person. He is a developer relations manager at Civo, CNCF Ambassador, TEDx speaker and a GitHub Star. He is the founder of WeMakeDevs and also started the official Cloud Native Student Community group joined by thousands of folks, focussed on getting more young people involved in the ecosystem. In the past he has been a track chair of the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, Major League Hacking Coach and a Google Summer of Code mentor with Red Hat. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/KunalKushwaha Blog: https://blog.wemakedevs.org Community: https://wemakedevs.org

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am a strong believer in the importance of diversity and inclusion, particularly in the field of cloud native technology. My goal has always been to facilitate the learning and onboarding process for individuals interested in this ecosystem. Therefore, I believe that becoming a CNCF Ambassador would be a significant step towards achieving this objective.

Working as the CTO of LAB3, one of the fastest growing Microsoft Partners in the Southern Hemisphere, with a focus on leveraging Cloud-Native solutions for enterprise and regulated clients. Large background in the use of IaC especially Terraform and ways of working in the ANZ region. Extremely fortunate to run both the Melbourne and Brisbane HashiCorp User Group (Meetup)

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I can’t wait to connect with some of the most active and intelligent ambassadors for the CNCF space and learn from them

Lee Calcote is the Founder of Layer5, where the community helps organizations harness and exploit the value of service meshes. Previously, Calcote stewarded technology strategy and innovation across SolarWinds. He led software-defined data center engineering at Seagate, delivering predictive analytics and modern systems management. Calcote held various leadership positions at Cisco, where he created Cisco’s cloud management platforms and pioneered new, automated, remote management services.

In addition to his role at Layer5, Calcote serves in various industry bodies, including as a SIG chair in Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), and formerly, participated in the delivery of Redfish 1.0 in the Distributed Management Task Foundation (DMTF), and Docker Benchmark 1.0 in Center for Internet Security (CIS). He is a startup advisor, Docker Captain, Cloud Native Ambassador, O’Reilly author, and speaker in the cloud native ecosystem.

Calcote is a maintainer of open source projects, including Meshery, Service Mesh Interface, and Service Mesh Performance. Calcote holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a master’s degree in Business Administration from California State University, Fresno and retains a list of industry certifications.

Meetup: Cloud Native Austin

Lisa is a developer advocate and community architect, and Head of Developer Relations at Cockroach Labs (the company behind CockroachDB). Lisa is also a CNCF Ambassador and SF Bay Cloud Native Containers User Group organizer (with nearly 7000 members). Lisa is an advocate and frequent speaker for open source technology and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives, a writer, an avid sports fan, and loves wine and dogs. Follow Lisa on Twitter @SWDevAngel and LinkedIn @lnamphy.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: It has been a great pleasure to be a CNCF Ambassador for the past several years and I am thrilled to continue the journey. I love working with this particular group of colleagues to evangelize open source and cloud native technology, to mentor new community members, to give a platform and a voice and to encourage participation in ALL areas of the cloud native ecosystem. And to have the support of the CNCF to extend the reach of cloud native technology to “the last mile” has been an extremely rewarding experience that I am grateful and excited to continue! 🙂 Looking so much forward to working with all of you in the coming years! 🙂

Lukonde is a Senior Developer Advocate at AWS. He has years of experience in application development, solution architecture, cloud engineering, and DevOps workflows. He is a life-long learner and is passionate about open-source and developer communities. Nowadays, Lukonde spends the majority of his time contributing to the cloud-native ecosystem. He specializes in Kubernetes, service meshes, and GitOps (ArgoCD and Flux). YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/LukondeMwila

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to be an ambassador because it’s an opportunity to contribute to help provide enable for those who are part of the cloud native community, as well as those wanting to join. In addition to that, I’m excited to be a part of a group of individuals who are passionate about the development and adoption of cloud-native technologies. I’m also very keen to help expand the cloud-native footprint in Africa.

Mario is a Senior Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat. He works on container-based developer tools. He co-maintains the CNCF Devfile project and leads the Eclipse Che project. He has been a speaker at conferences such as KubeCon, LinuxCon, JavaOne and FOSDEM.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to be part of the CNCF ambassador program because that will help share my knowledge and my experience as a developer using and developing Kubernetes with others. I am also looking forward to meet with other ambassadors.

I’m passionate about Cloud Native Computing technologies driven by Cloud, Security, Kubernetes and Platform Engineering. I’m one of the co-organizers of the CNCF&K8s Meetup in Quebec city (Canada). You will find some of my learnings in my personal blog: https://mathieu-benoit.github.io/ and in my Medium space: https://medium.com/@mabenoit.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Being a Cloud Native Ambassador will allow me to be closer to the CNCF community, and be connected to more mentors to grow my knowledge and as an individual too. It will also allow me to find more tips to promote content related to CNCF projects, and hopefully I will be able to help and inspire others to be more involved in this community.

I am a member of the technical oversight committee for Istio, where I have worked full time for four years. I regularly contribute to the Istio blog and lead conferences like IstioCon, helping new users and veterans alike to get connected.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I have been unofficially doing the work of an ambassador for Istio for several years now, and look forward to continuing this work officially now that Istio has joined the CNCF.

Neependra is the Founder and Principal Consultant at CloudYuga. He provides training in Cloud Native Technologies like Kubernetes, Prometheus and others. He authored the first Kubernetes introduction course for the CNCF on Edx. Currently he runs the Kubernetes & Cloud Native Online meetup and one of the organiser of KCD Bengaluru. He writes blogs and hands-on lab at https://cloudyuga.guru .

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to be an ambassador to do more events in Bengaluru and India in general. Be an ambassador would give me opportunities to collaborate with folks across to globe to bring the best content out for community.

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.

I’m Obinna Odirionye. I work on Kubernetes Tooling, Infrastructure, and Distributed Systems. I write and speak about Serverless, Containers, and Kubernetes. I am a Co-Maintainer and Member of Helm working on ChartMuseum. I write my thoughts on https://iamobinna.com

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: As a CNCF ambassador, I am passionate about bringing more individuals into the African ecosystem to contribute to the cloud-native community. I have seen the impact that becoming a co-maintainer and member of Helm has had on my career, and I am eager to extend these opportunities to others in my region. By leveraging the resources available through my role as a CNCF ambassador, I can support and mentor curious individuals in their transition into SRE and Kubernetes roles. My goal is to help grow the cloud-native community and positively impact my region.

Oleg is a passionate open source advocate and community builder. He works on user and developer communities around WireMock and WireMock Cloud. He is a core maintainer and board member in Jenkins, maintainer in Keptn and OpenFeature, and a TOC member in the Continuous Delivery Foundation. Oleg has a PhD degree in electronics design and volunteers in the Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation. He helps to organize Jenkins, CDF and CNCF meetups in Switzerland.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: CNCF is a driver behind many open source initiatives and industry-wide projects in the areas of observability, software delivery and virtualization. For years I’ve been a user and contributor of many projects, and also advocated for CNCF projects and best practices in my talks. It is an honor to join the CNCF Ambassadors. There are many great folks there, and I am happy to join the team. Looking forward to participating more!

Sessionize profile: https://sessionize.com/onenashev/

Phil is a Principal Engineer for Amazon Web Services (AWS), focused on core container technologies that power AWS container compute offerings. Phil is currently an active contributor and maintainer for containerd, a graduated CNCF project, and participates in the Open Container Initiative (OCI) as the member of the Technical Oversight Board (TOB). Phil enjoys helping others understand and implement container and cloud native concepts and speaks worldwide at industry conferences and meetups on behalf of AWS and his open source roles.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to be a CNCF ambassador for the express purpose of helping others understand the world of containers and, specifically, the core container runtime technology and standards that enable and power that world. Having been involved in the CNCF since nearly its beginning, I know that it can be an overwhelming place for newcomers at it has grown, and as an ambassador, I’m happy to play a part in helping people understand and navigate the projects and work of the CNCF.

I’m the Chief Technology Officer at Innablr, a top cloud engineering and platform consultancy in Melbourne. My role involves setting the technology direction for Innablr and guiding our clients through their transformation journey. I’ve been fortunate to work with some big companies in Melbourne, where I’ve helped them modernise their tech stacks with cloud native platforms that deliver applications quickly and securely. I started out as a developer and gradually transitioned to cloud engineering and DevOps. I’m really enthusiastic about the Kubernetes ecosystem and even co-organise the Melbourne Kubernetes User Group. We have recently started the Cloud Sustainability User Group Australia / New Zealand to build the comunity around the topic of sustainability.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m thrilled about becoming a CNCF Ambassador because it would serve as validation for the work I’ve done building the Melbourne Kubernetes community over the past few years. As an ambassador, I will have the opportunity to amplify my efforts and further expand the community.

Prithvi Raj has been leading the community efforts for LitmusChaos, the CNCF incubating project based on Cloud-Native Chaos Engineering, and has helped scale a community of 1500+ folks from scratch. He is currently working at Harness as a Technical Community Manager. He has worked on organizing global events, conferences, and meetups such as Chaos Carnival, Kubernetes Community Days Bengaluru & Chennai, CNCF Kubernetes Chaos Engineering Meetups, and more to help grow various communities in the DevOps ecosystem.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to represent the chaos engineering community as a CNCF ambassador and to also work with fellow ambassadors in helping curate more resources, events, and opportunities for the broader community. As an ambassador, I hope to take forward the cloud-native values amongst various folks keen on joining the ecosystem. I also look forward to learning a lot on this journey from my fellow ambassadors.

I’m Ramesh Kumar, a passionate advocate of cloud-native technologies and a dedicated mentor. I am the founder and organizer of the CNCF/Kubernetes Sacramento Meetup and CNCF/Kubernetes Penang Meetup, where I empower and support over 500 students in obtaining Kubernetes certifications, helping them enhance their lives and careers. My specialties lie in mentoring, teaching, and training, and I take pride in my ability to inspire and guide others in their learning journey. Through my meetups and expertise in CNCF technologies, I strive to build a more inclusive and innovative tech community, one act of kindness at a time. I also maintain a blog where I share my knowledge and insights with the broader tech community.

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!

I am honored to continue serving in this role. Over the past few years, My company DaoCloud has made continuous contributions to the open-source community. Our contributions to Kubernetes, a core cloud-native project, have ranked among the top three globally over the past year. In 2022, we will also take on a contributing seat on Istio’s steering committee. We have independently open-sourced nine projects, including Clusterpedia, Merbridge and Piraeus which have successfully entered CNCF Sandbox incubation. DaoCloud continues to contribute significantly towards cloud-native technology and improve CNCF’s technical ecosystem.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Firstly, I hope that cloud-native technology will remain highly connected to China, and that the integration of the technology world will not be affected by geography, politics, international conflicts and other factors. Secondly, I hope that cloud-native technology can break through the barriers between technology and users, and that more end-user voices can be fed back to CNCF. Thirdly, I hope to promote the building of cloud-native technology talent and further improve the cloud-native education system, so that CNCF will become a sustainable organization.

Rynn Mancuso is the developer community manager at Honeycomb, one of the maintainers of OpenTelemetry’s End User SIG, and the creator of the OpenTelemetry in Practice meetup & the OTel Unplugged unconference. Before joining Honeycomb, they led developer communities at New Relic, Tidelift, Mozilla and Wikimedia. They also contribute to the Organization for Ethical Source.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to be an ambassador because I’m getting to connect with lots of great people across all of the CNCF projects to make the cloud native ecosystem better. In my ambassadorship year, my goals are to take the great speakers we are cultivating in the observability community and help place them in as many general cloud native meetups as possible to spread the word about cloud native observability, to start a streaming series where we work with different CNCF projects to instrument them, and to get the word out about the end user work we’ve been doing within OpenTelemetry so other projects can better serve end users.

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.

Saiyam is working as Director of Technical Evangelism at Civo with a focus on defining the Civo cloud platform for simplifying Kubernetes and making it accessible for developers. Previously at Walmart Labs, Oracle, and HP, Saiyam has worked on many facets of k8s including machine learning platform, scaling, multi-cloud, managed k8s services, and k8s documentation. He’s worked on implementing Kubernetes solutions in different organizations. When not coding, Saiyam works on contributing to the community by writing blogs and organizing local meetups for Kubernetes and CNCF. He is also a CNCF ambassador, runs a YouTube channel and Kubesimplify community that aims to simplify cloud native and can be reached on Twitter @saiyampathak

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Simplifying cloud native for everyone

Sebastian Scheele is CEO and co-founder of Kubermatic, a start-up with +90 employees that is one of the committers to Kubernetes, focused on developing open core software solutions for automating Kubernetes operations, at scale. Sebastian, a developer himself, has his finger on the pulse of where the Kubernetes landscape is going and is contributing many of his team’s resources to upstream K8s development. As one of the early pioneers in the cloud native ecosystem , he has helped hundreds of enterprises embrace Kubernetes to solve cutting edge challenges in both cloud and edge computing.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: As a CNCF Ambassador, I am proud to have the opportunity to make a positive impact on the cloud-native community. I want to contribute to the development of open-source projects, educate and inspire others through talks and content creation, and help promote the adoption of cloud-native technology.

Passionate about Virtualization, Containerization and Observability technologies, I have made it my job. Today, I accompany our customers in their #MoveToCloud transformation mainly on OnPremise environments by maximizing the use of OpenSource products. Much more than just products, OpenSource is for me a philosophy. I love to share and transmit on the subjects which impassion me, I do it with students, conferences, and also by publishing specialized blogs posts.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am very happy and excited to have joined this program. It will allow me to promote the Cloud Native more widely in France. It’s a subject that is still unknown in some companies and the specialized content is often not translated from English. My goal is to promote the power of the Cloud Native through French articles, Meetups, and conferences.

Seokho Son is a senior researcher and open source special fellow at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), a national research institute in South Korea. His primary responsibilities include designing systems and devising algorithms for cloud and cloud-native computing to accomplish national research projects. He is one of the maintainers of the CNCF Cloud Native Glossary which aims to define cloud native concepts in clear and simple language, and he is contributing to Kubernetes by leading the Korean localization team in Kubernetes SIG-Docs and maintaining localization in Kubernetes/website. Furthermore, he is one of the maintainers of Cloud-Barista, a multi-cloud management platform. As an open source advocate, Seokho has served as a speaker at various cloud native events, including Cloud Native Community Groups and Kubernetes Forum in South Korea, and he is actively involved in mentoring open source contribution programs in South Korea.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am thrilled to have become a CNCF Ambassador and excited to continue contributing to cloud-native technology. I have been working on reducing language barriers in cloud-native technologies by localizing technical documents in Kubernetes, and maintaining the CNCF Cloud Native Glossary project to make cloud-native concepts accessible to anyone, regardless of their technical background. Through my community activities, I have had the pleasure of meeting many talented and friendly contributors, and I look forward to continue developing these relationships. I believe that being a CNCF ambassador is an extraordinary opportunity for me to spread cloud-native technologies even further. As a CNCF Ambassador, I am aiming to be a reliable source of information for the Korean community by sharing the latest technology information and community trends in a timely manner, and I hope to inspire Korean experts to get involved in global activities.

I am Shahriyar Al Mustakim Mitul, and I am currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science & Engineering at BRAC University. I am also the organizer of Cloud Native Bangladesh. Moreover, I am one of the maintainers for the CNCF Glossary and Kubernetes localization Project. I do organize monthly meetups on the Cloud Native Bangladesh community group. You may join the Cloud Native Bangladesh community : https://community.cncf.io/cloud-native-bangladesh/

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: One of my goals was to become a CNCF ambassador because I had seen ambassadors develop their skills and assist others. I have been working to close the technical and community gaps up to this point. I now have more chances than ever as an ambassador to support my local community.

Dr. Shane Wang is an engineering director of Cloud Native China at Software and Advanced Technology Group in Intel. He and his team have been working on open source cloud software for many years since 2012, including Kubernetes, Istio, Envoy, containerd, serverless, edge, Ceph and OpenStack etc. He is an individual director of OIF foundation, alliance committee chair of SODA foundation, a TOC member of Mulan open source community, and one of the standing committee members of Open Source Development Committee in China Computer Federation (CCF), and one of Tencent Cloud Valuable Professionals. He organizes and runs cloud native meetups with China partners primarily in Shanghai and Beijing, focusing on Kubernetes, Istio and Envoy technologies.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Because with that I can organize regular meetups better in China with the local community including Tetrate, DaoCloud, Alauda, Alibaba and Tencent etc. bridging between CNCF and many China-based open source communities, I can drive more engineering contributions to CNCF projects and engagements with China customers for adoption. I’m also able to contribute more technical materials to CNCF Webinars and Blogs, etc. and pursue more presentation opportunities at CNCF conferences e.g. KubeCon China.

KCD France Organizer & Director of Technical Product Management at Kasten by Veeam, I specialize in all things Cloud Native, obviously Kubernetes, but also Storage, Network, Compute, Observability, Security, Infrastructure, etc. From datacenters to applications, from business to operations, I enjoy talking about every aspect of our connected world.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to represent the CNCF as an Ambassador to help others find their path through Cloud Native technologies and get started in the space. There is a technology for everyone, and there is a space for everyone, no matter to skill level, no matter you interest. If you don’t know where to start, come talk to me, I’ll be happy to get you oriented!

Thomas is a Cloud Native Engineer, Advocate and Educator enthusiastic about making cloud-native more comfortable. As a CNCF/CDF Ambassador and Open Source Maintainer (Keptn and K8sGPT), 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.

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.

Senior cloud native architect and evangelist at Flomesh. I am a seasoned programmer, LF APAC open source evangelist, CNCF Ambassador, member of the cloud native community committee(China local) and Microsoft Azure MVP. With many years of microservice and infrastructure practice experience, mainly involving microservices, containers, Kubernetes, DevOps, etc. In the past there years, I organize two meetups in Guangzhou and Service Mesh Conference in Shanghai together with community members. In the coming April 15, I will organize KCD in Dalian with other community members. I own a Chinese blog https://atbug.com and start writing on Medium https://addozhang.medium.com.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Being a CNCF ambassador is a recognition of my involvement in open source and cloud-native technology promotion over the past few years. After becoming a CNCF ambassador, I can better promote CNCF technology and organize more in-person and virtual events. At the same time, I can also receive more support from CNCF.

I have spent the last seven years honing my expertise in the cloud-native ecosystem, with a particular focus on maintaining various communities like Kubernetes, CoreDNS, KNative, and Containerd. While my experience in these areas has been invaluable, my current focus lies in the Cloud OS System. As a seasoned professional, I regularly share my knowledge and insights on cloud-native technologies through my blog, which can be found at ustack.io. Whether you are a novice or a seasoned pro, my blog posts offer practical tips and in-depth analysis that can help you stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly evolving field. So whether you are looking to dive deeper into Kubernetes or explore the latest trends in cloud-native ecosystem, be sure to check out my blog.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: being an CNCF ambassador provides me with the opportunity to share my knowledge and expertise in cloud-native technologies with a wider audience, and allows me to stay up-to-date with the latest developments and trends in cloud-native technologies