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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July 11, 2024CNCF Ambassadors
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Showing 10 of 231 Ambassadors
(He/Him)
Red Hat
Aykut Bulgu
(He/Him)
Red Hat
- Location: Turkey
- Project Experience: Argo, Helm, Istio, Knative, Kubernetes, Operator Framework, Strimzi
Aykut Bulgu has 15+ years of experience working as a software engineer, consultant, trainer, and technical content architect. He has worked on many enterprise projects—mainly Java—and has expertise in JBoss middleware. He’s an expert on Apache Kafka, Apache Camel, Kubernetes/OpenShift, and Strimzi (Kafka on Kubernetes).
He is currently working as a Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat Ansible team. After years with Java, he tries to master and embrace Python and Go as his new languages. Moreover, he helps organizations with technical content development and training via System Craftsman.
(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)
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)
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)
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)
Red Hat
Paolo Patierno
(He/Him)
Red Hat
- Location: Napoli, Italy
- Project Experience: Jaeger, KEDA, Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry, OpenTracing, Prometheus, Strimzi
I am a Senior Principal Software Engineer working at Red Hat on messaging and data streaming technologies. One of these is Strimzi, a CNCF project for running Apache Kafka on Kubernetes in a cloud native manner using operators. I am also a committer on a number of IoT related projects and interested in observability and metrics – as a side project I look at how Formula 1 telemetry can be analysed with the technologies I work with every day. I am based in Napoli, where I am the lead organiser of the local CNCF Meetup.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I feel that I am one of the lucky people who love their job because it’s also their passion. Taking this passion to the community by sharing my knowledge about open source technologies is something which excites me. To be a CNCF Ambassador takes this love to the next level, being even more engaged within the cloud native space.
(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)
Liquid Reply
Sven Pfennig
(He/Him)
Liquid Reply
- Location: Hanover, Germany
- Project Experience: Chaos Mesh, containerd, Dapr, Kuasar, Kubernetes, Linkerd, NATS, Operator Framework, Strimzi, wasmCloud
Hi, I’m Sven 👋. A cloud native developer, open source contributor and Wasm enthusiast. I’m running the WebAssembly meetup in Munich and serving as tech lead in the TAG Runtime – Wasm working group. You can find me at cloud-native meetups in Hannover and northern Germany.
(He/Him)
Hitachi, Ltd.
Yoshiyuki Tabata
(He/Him)
Hitachi, Ltd.
- Location: Yokohama, Japan
- Languages: English, Japanese
- Project Experience: Envoy, Istio, Jaeger, Keycloak, Kubernetes, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenTracing, Strimzi
Yoshiyuki Tabata is a Senior OSS Consultant at Hitachi, Ltd, responsible for API Security, especially Authentication/Authorization. As an authentication and authorization expert, he mainly consults on authentication and authorization infrastructure and API infrastructure, for example designing and building API/SSO systems in the financial, public, social, and industrial fields. He’s also a contributor to API-related OSSs such as Keycloak and 3scale and develops features based on feedback from actual projects he consulted. He’s also a conference speaker of API-related events and an author of some books and web articles about Identity and Access Management.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I usually consult with our customers on authentication and authorization infrastructure and API infrastructure (I have experience building systems for finance and government using Keycloak and Kubernetes), and it seems that the adoption rate of the CNCF family in general systems is still low in Japan. Also, in systems that adopt the CNCF family, there are many systems with weak security due to placing too much emphasis on developer experience and agility. Therefore, as a CNCF ambassador, I would like to use the knowledge I have cultivated through many projects (not only the knowledge as a security consultant but also the knowledge as a Keycloak contributor and a conference speaker) to disseminate solutions and know-how for a better and more secure CNCF ecosystem.