CNCF offered six diversity scholarships to developers to attend CloudNativeCon + KubeCon Europe 2017. In this post, our scholarship recipient Lee Clench, DevOps Engineer for Capgemini, shares his experience attending sessions, meeting the community and participating in technical salons. He wrote an entire series of posts, so check them out below. Anyone interested in applying for the CNCF diversity scholarship to be able to attend CloudNativeCon + KubeCon North America 2017 in Austin December 6-8, can submit an application for here. Applications due October 13th.
By Lee Clench
Had myself an early flight to get over to Berlin early enough, so I could do the stereotypical sightseeing lark prior to the early attendee events that were being run from the convention centre in the evening of the 28th at CloudNativeCon + KubeCon Europe 2017. Got into Berlin at about 10am and it was a glorious day… the weather was stunning with the sky being totally cloud free.
Saw some stunning architecture on my tour of Berlin with an old friend yesterday #Berlin #architecturephotography #suchatourist lol pic.twitter.com/Isz4FaH0CP
— Lee Clench (@leeclench) March 29, 2017
I stumbled across the Cloud Native Computing Foundation a few months back via a post on twitter that was advertising a “Diversity Scholarship” to attend their big event CloudNativeCon + KubeCon over in Berlin. As a gay man in tech I decided to go for it and put in an application as I’ve been gradually building an interest in Kubernetes and where better to build on this knowledge than from one of the big events. I fired off the application not expecting to hear anything back and promptly forgot about the whole exercise… that was until I checked my emails about a month later to find out that I had indeed been selected for the scholarship! I was gobsmacked personally as I never usually get picked for anything, so this was a really nice surprise!
The Diversity scholarship entitled me to the following all courtesy of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation:
- Free convention ticket
- Free travel costs
- Free accommodation
So from the 28th-31st March, I’d be over in Berlin attending KubeCon! Happy days!
At the opening keynote at #Kubecon and #CloudNativeCon from Dan Kohn pic.twitter.com/Pzz2YsddrV
– Lee Clench (@leeclench) March 29, 2017
The following posts detail my experience, as there was a lot to take in those three days!
Part 1: https://goo.gl/1OUwXf
Part 2: https://goo.gl/weunem
Part 3: https://goo.gl/PDz3JL
Part 4: https://goo.gl/hR4zpr
Part 5 – Finale: https://goo.gl/iQlhcO
#Kubecon and #CloudNativeCon con swag and pics. This con is super cool! Thanks @CloudNativeFdn for bringing me via the diversity scholarship pic.twitter.com/o9JpTiEKQr
– Lee Clench (@leeclench) March 29, 2017
All in all, the entire experience was phenomenal! I got to meet some industry leaders and hear about some of the great advances being made with Kubernetes, container technology and the cloud native landscape. It’s been a great source of learning for me and has furthered my want to specialise in Kubernetes and get on board with the contribution angle once I get a better handle on things. I can’t thank the Cloud Native Computing Foundation enough for granting me this opportunity and making this all happen for me and the countless other attendees of the convention. I’m still probably missing bringing up a whole wealth of info and people that I met but I cannot recommend this convention enough.
Well that was an awesome week in Berlin 4 #Kubecon + #CloudNativeCon. Thanks a million @CloudNativeFdn for bringing me over for everything! pic.twitter.com/jS4Fal5NoP
– Lee Clench (@leeclench) March 31, 2017
Thanks a million @CloudNativefnd for embracing diversity in all forms and throwing one heck of a con! Hopefully see you again either later in the year at CloudNativeCon + KubeCon North America 2017 in Austin or next year in Copenhagen for sure! And that’s the end of my 5 part series on KubeCon and CloudNativeCon. Thanks for reading and see you next time!