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!
Recent Ambassador News
My KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA Chicago 2023 Experience
November 28, 2023Recapping KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023
November 22, 2023Using GitHub apps with ArgoCD
October 27, 2023CNCF Ambassadors
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Showing 34 of 208 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)
Solo.io
Alessandro Vozza
(He/Him)
Solo.io
- Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, Brigade, Cilium, CoreDNS, Crossplane, Dapr, DevSpace, Istio, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Merbridge, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Open Service Mesh, OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Thanos
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!
(He/Him)
Canonical
Alex Jones
(He/Him)
Canonical
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, CRI-O, Crossplane, Envoy, Helm, Jaeger, k3s, Keptn, Kube-OVN, Kubernetes, KubeVirt, Linkerd, Longhorn, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenEBS, OpenFeature, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Rook, Volcano
I am an engineering director for Kubernetes at Canonical. I participate in opensource as a Governing board member for Keptn and a founder of the Open Feature project. When I fancy taking to the camera I also run a youtube channel for advocating learning for senior engineers https://www.youtube.com/c/CloudNativeSkunkworks/featured
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I believe the ambassador programme is perfectly timed to come out of hibernation as people yearn for more day-to-day information on the CNCF and where to get started. I’ve been here a while now and I am happy to help be that guide on their cloud-native journey.
(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)
Cuemby
Angel Ramirez
(He/Him)
Cuemby
- Location: Delray Beach, United States
- Project Experience: Antrea, Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, Contour, CoreDNS, Crossplane, Curiefense, Dex, Envoy, etcd, external-secrets, Falco, Fluentd, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Istio, k3s, KEDA, Knative, Kuma, Linkerd, Longhorn, Operator Framework, Prometheus, Rook, SchemaHero, Strimzi, Tinkerbell
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.
(She/Her/They/Them)
Microsoft
Annie Talvasto
(She/Her/They/Them)
Microsoft
- Location: Zürich, Switzerland
- Project Experience: Flux, Helm, KEDA, Kubernetes, KUDO, Kyverno, Linkerd, Meshery
Annie Talvasto is an award-winning international technology speaker & marketing leader. She has been recognised with the CNCF Ambassador & Azure MVP awards. Annie has been a co-organizer of Kubernetes & CNCF Finland meetup since 2017 and has spoken at technology conferences across the world, including KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, Microsoft Build & Ignite, KCDC and NDC. Annie also has hosted Cloud Native Live, a weekly livestream by CNCF, since 2021.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I believe in the positive impact open source technology and CNCF projects have in the world, and I am excited to continue spreading the word about them!
(He/Him)
Aryat Khayretdinov
(He/Him)
- Location: Montreal, Canada
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, containerd, CoreDNS, Crossplane, Emissary-ingress, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, KEDA, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Lima, Linkerd, NATS, Notary, OpenCost, OpenEBS, OpenMetrics, OpenTelemetry, ORAS, Pixie, Prometheus, Rook, SPIFFE, SPIRE, Thanos, The Update Framework (TUF), Vitess, WasmEdge Runtime
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.
(She/Her)
OVHcloud
Aurélie Vache
(She/Her)
OVHcloud
- Location: Toulouse, France
- Project Experience: Argo, etcd, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, Knative, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Linkerd, NATS, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenTelemetry, OpenTracing, Prometheus
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.
(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)
Raft
Chad Crowell
(He/Him)
Raft
- 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 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.
(He/Him)
Chamod Perera
(He/Him)
- Location: Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Project Experience: Argo, Buildpacks, containerd, Envoy, etcd, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Istio, KEDA, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Prometheus
Chamod Shehanka Perera serves as a Software Engineer and is a passionate advocate for open source and cloud-native technologies. He has a keen interest in delivering tech talks on subjects like open source and cloud technologies. Notably, he has taken on leadership roles for KCD Sri Lanka 2022 and KCD Sri Lanka 2023, alongside his dedicated team. Presently, he leads various communities, including Kubernetes Sri Lanka, GDG Sri Lanka, and GitHub Community Sri Lanka, while he’s also fully experienced on building cloud native CI/CD platform when worked at WSO2. He shares his insights and experiences related to software development on his blog, accessible at https://chamodshehanka.medium.com. Furthermore, he has successfully implemented a solution for Database Scaling on Kubernetes as part of his undergraduate research, which has been published as a paper (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9671185). In his leisure time, Chamod Shehanka Perera is an avid practitioner of karate, holding a 2nd-degree black belt, and enjoys spending time at the gym and surfing on weekends.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to be an ambassador because it allows me to continue what I’m doing, giving back to the community and contributing to CNCF projects. Additionally, the role offers the opportunity to network with new people, fostering connections with like-minded individuals. As an ambassador, I look forward to sharing knowledge and ideas, enabling us all to stay updated on the latest developments in this rapidly-evolving field.
(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 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.
(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, TensorFlow, 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)
Lunar
Kasper Borg Nissen
(He/Him)
Lunar
- Location: Aarhus, Denmark
- Project Experience: Backstage, containerd, Crossplane, etcd, Fluentd, Flux, Helm, Jaeger, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenGitOps, Operator Framework, Prometheus, Service Mesh Interface (SMI)
Co-founder of the Nordic meetup alliance, Cloud Native Nordics, where he also organize the Aarhus group, and tries to help the nordic community as much as possible, e.g. setting up KCDs and more. He works as Lead Platform Architect at Lunar where he in the past has shared many experiences with Cloud Native tech at meetups and conferences. Kasper wrote his master thesis, “KubeCloud – A Small Scale Cloud Computing Environment”, on how Universities could leverage small-scale cloud environments built out of Raspberry Pis running Kubernetes.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to be an ambassador, because it’s a great community of like-minded people. I hope to meet and learn from the other awesome Ambassadors, and help grow the adoption of Cloud Native technologies even more here in the Nordics.
(She/Her)
Amesto Fortytwo
Kristina Devochko
(She/Her)
Amesto Fortytwo
- 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
A techie from Norway who preaches about all things cloud native, Kubernetes, green tech and cats. I am working as a Principal Cloud Engineer, am a Microsoft Azure MVP and CNCF ambassador. Co-Host at Kubernetes Unpacked podcast, owner of kristhecodingunicorn.com tech blog, co-organizer and board member at NNUG Oslo, Cloud Native and Kubernetes Oslo, DEVREAL Oslo and Cloud Native Norway community groups. Community Advocate and Co-Organizer at StreamingClouds and Mentor at GirlCode and WomenTech Network.
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, UK
- Project Experience: Argo, Buildpacks, cert-manager, Chaos Mesh, Cilium, CloudEvents, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, ContainerSSH, CoreDNS, Cortex, Crossplane, Dapr, DevSpace, Envoy, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, KEDA, Keptn, Knative, KubeEdge, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVela, KubeVirt, Kyverno, Linkerd, Litmus, Meshery, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenEBS, OpenFunction, OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, OpenTracing, Operator Framework, Prometheus, Rook, SPIFFE, TensorFlow, Thanos, Vitess
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.
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)
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)
Aviatrix
Mitch Connors
(He/Him)
Aviatrix
- 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)
Clouddley
Obinna Odirionye
(He/Him)
Clouddley
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
- Project Experience: Argo, Buildpacks, Helm, Istio, Knative, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Prometheus
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.
(He/Him)
VMware
Orlin Vasilev
(He/Him)
VMware
- Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, Carvel, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, Contour, Crossplane, Dragonfly, Envoy, etcd, Harbor, Helm, Knative, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Notary, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Prometheus
Orlin Vasilev aka Orlix is a Senior Community Manager and Engineer(maybe a Dev Rel or even kind a Dev Advocate) at VMware running the communities and maintainer for Project Harbor and Velero. CNCF Ambassador v1 and driving the biggest Meetup Group ~1300 members in Bulgaria. Multiple times KubeCon CfP review board member and co-chair. SysAdmin/Dev/SRE/System engineering roles for over 15 years! Located in Bulgaria, Europe! Father of two – a fantastic girl and a boy! Passionate snowboarder, DIY and semi-professional BBQ Pitmaster and baker!
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Being ambassador makes your part of the most fantastic crowd in the Tech World these days. As Ambassador v1 allowed me to drive the meetup and many other local activities with universities and helping put people in general with Cloud Native technologies.
(He/Him)
Grafana Labs
Paul Balogh
(He/Him)
Grafana Labs
- Location: St. Louis, United States
- Project Experience: Kubernetes, Linkerd, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
Paul is a Developer Advocate for the k6 OSS project at Grafana Labs. In this role, he encourages developers and testers alike to “shift left,” bringing reliability testing earlier in the software development process and taking advantage of observability tooling. As a software engineer/architect for over 20 years in varying languages, he now focuses more on the Go programming language. Active in the community, he organizes the Kubernetes & Cloud Native STL and StLGo meetup groups.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: As a technologist, I became enamored with cloud-native technologies as soon as I was exposed. Events like KubeCon only supercharged my excitement for the overall CNCF project landscape. As a CNCF Ambassador, I’m hoping my enthusiasm for all things cloud-native will spread to those I meet at local events. I feel this platform will allow me to become more engaged as an advocate for CNCF projects, helping the community to gain more knowledge of opportunities and to encourage more active roles in open source contributions.
(He/Him)
Innablr
Prateek Nayak
(He/Him)
Innablr
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, Buildpacks, CDK for Kubernetes (CDK8s), cert-manager, Chaos Mesh, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, Contour, CoreDNS, Cortex, CRI-O, Crossplane, Envoy, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, gRPC, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, Knative, Kubescape, Kubewarden, Kured, Linkerd, Litmus, Notary, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenEBS, OpenTelemetry, OpenTracing, Operator Framework, Pixie, Prometheus, SPIFFE, Thanos, Virtual Kubelet
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.
(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 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.
(He/Him)
Amesto Fortytwo
Roberth Strand
(He/Him)
Amesto Fortytwo
- Location: Oslo, Norway
- 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 works primarily with Microsoft Azure infrastructure, Platform Engineering, DevOps and Cloud Native technology. I am a Microsoft MVP for my work with Azure, and an HashiCorp Ambassador primarily for my work with Terraform. Furthermore, I am active in the CNCF, OpenSSF and several open source communities and projects. 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 a 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)
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 Yalo 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)
Flexport
Tiexin Guo
(He/Him)
Flexport
- 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)
Timescale
Vineeth Pothulapati
(He/Him)
Timescale
- Location: Hyderabad, India
- Project Experience: Cortex, gRPC, Helm, Jaeger, Kubernetes, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Virtual Kubelet
Vineeth is a cloud, distributed systems enthusiast and maintainer to OpenTelemetry Operator, a contributor to Kubernetes, Cortex, and Open Policy Agent. He worked as a shadow for previous Kubernetes releases and was also a docs lead for Kubernetes 1.18 release. He is currently working as a Product Manager with Timescale. Previously, he was a CNCF mentee with Cortex and Open Policy Agent and a Google Summer of Code intern with The Postgres Operator. Vineeth co-founded and organizes CNCF Hyderabad meet-ups and also gave several talks on CNCF technologies.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I have been in the CNCF community for almost 5 years now, learned a lot, and contributed to many projects. Looking forward to playing an active role in CNCF projects, communities and events.
(He/Him)
Xunzhuo Liu
(He/Him)
- Location: Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- Project Experience: Aeraki Mesh, BFE, Chaos Mesh, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, Contour, CoreDNS, Dapr, Emissary-ingress, Envoy, etcd, gRPC, Harbor, Helm, Istio, Kubernetes, KubeVela, Linkerd, Merbridge, Meshery, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Thanos
I am a software engineer at Tencent Cloud Mesh team, specializing in the cloud-native field with a focus on Service Mesh and API Gateway technologies. I am an active contributor to the open-source community and currently maintain several CNCF projects, including Envoy, Istio, Aeraki-Mesh, and Merbridge. I had the honor of attending as a speaker at KubeCon 2023 Shanghai and am the founder of the Envoy Gateway China community, where I strive to build connections in the open-source realm. In my spare time, I share my knowledge through blog posts on www.liuxunzhuo.com and also work on recording video tutorials, with a passion for helping others and promoting cloud-native technologies.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: As an ambassador, I am thrilled about the opportunity to further engage with the cloud-native community and contribute to its growth and development. I am excited to share my knowledge and experience in CNCF technologies, and help others understand and adopt these technologies. Being an ambassador also allows me to learn from others, stay updated with the latest trends, and continuously improve my skills. Moreover, I am passionate about promoting open-source culture and believe that being an ambassador will provide a great platform to do so. Lastly, I look forward to fostering connections and collaborations within the community, which I believe is the essence of the open-source movement.