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
Browse Geographically
Filter the Full List
Showing 17 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)
Ankur Kothiwal
(He/Him)
- Location: Devprayag, India
- Project Experience: Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CRI-O, etcd, Falco, gRPC, Helm, KubeArmor, Kubernetes, Kubescape, Prometheus
I work as a Software Engineer, focusing on cloud-native development. My interest lies in discussing and writing about open-source software, cloud security, and the Linux kernel. Furthermore, I am a contributor and maintainer to the KubeArmor project, and have also served as a mentor in various outreach programs.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Being a CNCF ambassador provides the opportunity to connect with inspiring individuals and learn from their diverse experiences. I firmly believe in the strength of open source, and this role offers the opportunity to continue giving back to the community. I look forward to expanding my impact within the community, collaborating with fellow ambassadors, and enjoying the journey of contributing to a thriving ecosystem.
(He/Him)
Anurag Kumar
(He/Him)
- Location: Kolkata, India
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, Carvel, cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, Emissary-ingress, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, k3s, KEDA, ko, KubeArmor, Kubernetes, Kubescape, Kubewarden, Kyverno, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, ORAS, Pixie, Prometheus, Telepresence, zot
I’m contributor and maintainer of KubeArmor (A CNCF runtime security project). I’m interested in Kubernetes Security. You can read my blogs here https://kranurag.dev
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to be a CNCF ambassador because I’ll try to bring and educate more people towards CNCF ecosystem. CNCF is one of the most welcoming community. I also want to share my knowledge when it comes to Kubernetes and other CNCF projects to new peoples who’re getting started. Finally, I would love to meet and connect with fellow CNCF ambassadors.
(She/Her)
Carolina Valencia
(She/Her)
- Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Project Experience: Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, Falco, Helm, Kubernetes, Kubescape
Carol is an enthusiastic software developer focused on the practices of secure cloud native. She collaborates in open-source projects and contributes to the Kubernetes project. Currently residing in Sao Paulo, Brazil and collaborates with local events. In her free time, she enjoys running, playing beach tennis and watching history documentaries.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: – The opportunity to establish meaningful relationships with like-minded individuals who are interested in shared knowledge – Contributing to the community by sharing knowledge and announcements inside my local area and social media, to help us to develop ourselves. – Learning and growing together with the community, leveraging the collective knowledge and experiences of its members to foster personal development.
(He,His)
Isovalent
Duffie Cooley
(He,His)
Isovalent
- Location: San Francisco, CA, United States
- Languages: English
- Project Experience: Antrea, Cilium, CNI-Genie, Confidential Containers, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CoreDNS, Dex, etcd, external-secrets, Helm, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, rkt
Duffie is a member of the CNCF Technology Oversight Committee and speaks on a number of topics ranging from Kuberenetes to security and networking.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to be an ambassador as I really enjoy helping others navigate our community. Helping them feel welcome and learning from them as we all lift each other up!
(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)
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, TensorFlow, 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 🙂
(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.
(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)
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)
sevensphere
Rachid Zarouali
(He/Him)
sevensphere
- Location: Lyon, France
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, ContainerSSH, CoreDNS, Cortex, CRI-O, Crossplane, Curiefense, DevSpace, etcd, external-secrets, Falco, Fluentd, Harbor, Helm, k3s, KEDA, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, Kured, Kyverno, metal3-io, Notary, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenMetrics, OpenTelemetry, ORAS, Parsec, Pixie, Prometheus, Telepresence, Thanos, zot
Freelance cloud architect, OSS addict, huge fan of k8s, cilium, argocd and friends. I speak regularly about cloud tech, security and OSS projects I use or implement for my clients. I run several meetups in my city Docker, CNCF Lyon, DevSecCon France, co-organize conferences (KCDFRANCE) and involved regularly as conference MC and member of CFP committee , more importantly I’m a happy husband and dad
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m freaking excited to join the ambassador community.To meet new friends, help growing communities, sharing the skills I’ve learned and give back to the CNCF community. Being an ambassador will allow me to what i love the most, mentoring, i can’t wait to jump in !
(He/Him)
AccuKnox
Rahul Jadhav
(He/Him)
AccuKnox
- Location: Bangalore, India
- Project Experience: Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), Falco, in-toto, k3s, KubeArmor, Kubescape, Kyverno, SPIFFE, SPIRE
An avid coder, a systems engineer working on solutions involving security and performance optimizations of cloud-native technologies. He runs a Kubernetes Cloud Native Security Bangalore Meetup and has been working closely with IETF Standards working groups. Taken several projects from conception to market and is an active maintainer for CNCF Sandbox project, “KubeArmor” and the lead author for IoT simulation framework “Whitefield”. He co founded Accuknox where they are enabling runtime, zero-trust security by leveraging Linux-LSM/eBPF based security for k8s and containerized/cloud-native workloads.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Connecting to community and engaging at events, meeting new people, talking about cloud native technologies is something that I cherish. It is always great to be an ambassador of the community whose motto and modus operandi is something that I believe in. One specific goal that I would like to achieve is to establish a security focussed community locally by understanding activities that were undertaken at CNCF wide initiatives.
(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/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)
Civo
Saiyam Pathak
(He/Him)
Civo
- Location: India
- Project Experience: Argo, Buildpacks, cert-manager, Chaos Mesh, Cilium, containerd, etcd, Falco, Helm, Istio, k3s, KEDA, Keptn, Knative, ko, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, Kubewarden, Kyverno, Longhorn, OpenCost, OpenGitOps, Operator Framework, Skooner, Thanos, wasmCloud, WasmEdge Runtime, zot
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
(He/Him)
Viktor Farcic
(He/Him)
- Location: Barcelona, Spain
- Project Experience: Argo, Buildpacks, CDK for Kubernetes (CDK8s), Cilium, Crossplane, Dapr, DevSpace, Falco, Flux, Harbor, Helm, KEDA, Knative, KubeArmor, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVela, KubeVirt, Kyverno, OpenFunction, OpenGitOps, Pixie, Prometheus, SchemaHero, Teller
Viktor Farcic is a lead rapscallion at Upbound and a published author. He is a host of the YouTube channel DevOps Toolkit and a co-host of DevOps Paradox.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Viktor Farcic is excited to join the CNCF Ambassadors program because he believes in the power of open source software to transform the world. He is passionate about helping others learn about and adopt CNCF technologies, and he is eager to contribute to the CNCF community in new and innovative ways. Viktor is also excited to be part of a team of dedicated and talented individuals who are working to make the world a better place through open source software.