Ambassadors

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.

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.

Batuhan Apaydın a.k.a. developer-guy has been very active in the Software Supply Chain Security space. He is eager to learn more about it in all aspects because he knows this topic will become one of the utmost critical topics that everybody has to be concerned about. Towards that direction, he won the “Best Sigstore Evangelist” award and wrote a blog post about it to encourage to the next one and took an active role in the first-ever SigstoreCon by being one of the Program Committee members of the event and created a Twitter Community about Software Supply Chain Security and that community is now about 500+ people joined. He is also selected as Docker Captain Program 2023. In addition to that he is also a CDF (Continuous Delivery Foundation) Ambassador 2023. He also tries to be active in Turkey by organizing in-person, and virtual meetups, and workshops. He is the organizer of two important organizations in Turkey named DevOpsTr, CNCF Istanbul Chapter, and Cloud Native Turkiye. He is also one of the organizers of the KCD Turkey. He is also an active contributor to several CNCF projects including Ko, Flux, and Kyverno. He also enjoys writing technical blog posts and wrote 10+ blog posts and all of which are published on important official websites including Kyverno, CD Foundation, Flux, Sigstore, etc. • https://cd.foundation/blog/2022/10/18/tekton-chains/ • https://fluxcd.io/blog/2022/10/prove-the-authenticity-of-oci-artifacts/ • https://fluxcd.io/blog/2022/08/manage-kyverno-policies-as-ocirepositories/ • https://fluxcd.io/blog/2022/11/verify-the-integrity-of-the-helm-charts-stored-as-oci-artifacts-before-reconciling-them-with-flux/ • https://kubesimplify.com/the-secret-gems-behind-building-container-images-enter-buildkit-and-docker-buildx • https://blog.kubesimplify.com/getting-started-with-ko-a-fast-container-image-builder-for-your-go-applications • https://nirmata.com/securing_base_images/ • https://blog.sigstore.dev/how-to-verify-container-images-with-kyverno-using-kms-cosign-and-workload-identity-1e07d2b85061

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: First of all, I’m the first person from Turkey who has been selected as a CNCF Ambassador which is super great for me because I have the energy to spread all my knowledge with other people and I do really like to collaborate with people by organizing in-person, virtual meetups. I thought that I can waste my time and energy by becoming a CNCF Ambassador still continue organizing meetups and sharing knowledge because Turkiye has great potential of using CNCF projects to solve problems.

Brad is originally from New Zealand now working in Australia as the Head of Platform Engineering, he has been involved in the DevOps space for a long time now and serves as a board member of the Continuous Delivery Foundation. Brad is a maintainer of the Keptn project and works on the Kubernetes Release team. And is involved in mentoring in GSoC projects. His favorite projects to work on from the CNCF are GitOps, Security and Observability projects. He is helping to organize the KCD Australia and also runs a meetup in Australia.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m excited to be an ambassador to further help and mentor other folks coming into the cloud native space and guide them in the right direction. I’m also excited because I can continue working on the outreach of the CNCF and show organizations how they can contribute and help grow the projects and unlock innovation.

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!

Marcus is a platform engineer and his main area of focus in recent years has been around CI/CD, Go, Kubernetes, containers and DevOps but originally started out as a web developer and JavaScript enthusiast. A self-described “tinkerer”, when not building Kubernetes solutions, Marcus likes to dabble with 3D printing and experimenting with smart home tech. He can be found blogging online at www.MarcusNoble.co.uk and giving talks at meetups & conferences.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to leverage the support of the CNCF to better help others within out community through shared knowledge and experience. I’m excited for the opportunity to meet more amazing people in the cloud native space and learn from their experiences and expertise.

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.

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/

Engineering Manager at SUSE, working on Kubernetes’s related projects such as Kubewarden, Epinio, Rancher Fleet. Builder of Updatecli, and Former Infrastructure officer of the Jenkins project. Olivier has some experience in building OSS tooling around infrastructure, automation, and growing communities.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: OSS projects have been a game changer in today’s IT world. Not only, it allow us to read and understand today’s application source code but ultimately it allows us to learn and share knowledge across our industry. The CNCF had a tremendous impact on breaking boundaries and fostering communities to work together and I am super excited to bring my little contribution to this movement.

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.

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.

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 !

Seema Saharan is working as an SRE in Autodesk. I am an IT enthusiast, who is passionate about all the latest technologies from a research perspective. I love to help, mentor people, and share my knowledge. I do that through my blogs, videos, and meetups.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Becoming a CNCF ambassador is an exciting opportunity for me, who is passionate about cloud-native technologies, which enables me to promote these cutting-edge technologies, engage with a vibrant community, share my knowledge, network with industry professionals, and contribute to open-source projects. It offers opportunities for personal and professional growth, as well as the chance to influence the direction of the CNCF community and its projects.

For many years now, I have been a strong advocate for the development and promotion of free and open-source software. My passion for this cause has led me to actively participate in various initiatives, such as organizing the Cloud Native Luxembourg meetups and being part of the French localization team of CNCF Glossary. I’m dedicated to promoting the benefits of open-source software, believing it to be more secure, reliable, and conducive to innovation. Additionally, I leverage my expertise to help teams harness cloud-native technologies, fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Drawing from my passion for open-source, I will strive to promote the ethos of collaboration, emphasizing the merits of open-source projects within the CNCF landscape and encouraging more entities to contribute and participate. I am committed to guiding the next generation of cloud native enthusiasts. Through mentorship programs and hands-on training sessions, I aim to reduce the learning curve for newcomers and ensure they have the necessary tools and knowledge to thrive within the ecosystem. In essence, as a CNCF Ambassador, my overarching goal is to be a catalyst for growth, learning, and innovation within the Cloud Native community, ensuring that it remains at the forefront of technological progress while upholding the values of collaboration, inclusivity, and open-source spirit.

Tom is a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft working on Azure API Management, leading Azure API Management’s future to allow customers to build API ecosystems in a hybrid and multi-cloud landscape with its self-hosted gateway and Azure Arc. He has been working in the cloud-native space for 5+ years. Autoscaling is in his DNA and is one of the active maintainers of Kubernetes Event-Driven Autoscaling (KEDA), a CNCF Incubation project that makes application autoscaling on Kubernetes dead simple. It is scaling big enterprises such as Zapier, Reddit, FedEx, Alibaba Cloud, and many others. You can find him around on GitHub maintaining KEDA, Promitor & Azure Deprecation. He turns coffee into scalable & secure cloud systems and writes about his adventures on blog.tomkerkhove.be.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I love to work with the community to build a better cloud-native community and make it easy for everyone to use it and contribute back.