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!
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July 11, 2024CNCF Ambassadors
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Showing 6 of 235 Ambassadors
(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)
Civo
Chad M. Crowell
(He/Him)
Civo
- Location: Austin, TX, United States
- 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.
Layer5
Lee Calcote
Layer5
- Project Experience: Envoy, Istio, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Meshery, Prometheus, Service Mesh Interface (SMI), Service Mesh Performance
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
(He/Him)
Microsoft
Mitch Connors
(He/Him)
Microsoft
- Location: Redmond, United States
- Project Experience: Argo, Crossplane, Envoy, Flux, Istio, Jaeger, Knative, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Linkerd, NATS, Prometheus, Service Mesh Interface (SMI), Service Mesh Performance
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.
(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)
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.