Project Opportunities

Projects and Working Groups under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation umbrella have the opportunity to engage, network and collaborate with peers and like-minded people in the cloud native community at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America in Chicago, IL from November 6-9, 2023. Participating in this event allows you to gain valuable mindshare of a targeted audience while engaging with 8,000+ developers, architects, and technical leaders.

• Inform and educate the cloud native community about your project, services, open source strategies, and cloud native direction.
• Take advantage of in-person time to work on project specific challenges, features, road-maps, and strategies.
• Engage the community to assist with reaching 100% security while immersing new contributors in the cloud native community.
• Projects have the opportunity to gain visibility with media and analysts.

We invite CNCF Chairs of TAGs and Kubernetes SIGs working groups and Maintainers from graduated, incubating, and sandbox projects to participate in the below project opportunities.

Project Updates on Keynote Stage

Deadline: Thursday, August 10

We are excited to offer the opportunity to submit a short ‘project updates’ video to announce at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023! Our goal is to provide a platform on the keynote stage to amplify the voices in the community through a visual medium.

Project updates are only available to Kubernetes, Graduated Projects, and Incubating projects at this time.

Based on feedback from the community, we are putting a heavy focus on consistency and quality to ensure your message is clear and effective on the main stage.

We ask that all submitters adhere to the established guidelines below. If you do not meet these requirements, you will be asked to resubmit:

• When recording, you must follow these guidelines to ensure your audio and video quality meet expectations. If you have any questions about these guidelines, please reach out to James Spurin in the #cncf-project-updates-keynote slack channel
• All videos must not exceed 1 minute.
• You must submit a separate slide deck with your updates using the template found on the signup form.
• Any Call to Action needs to be clear with concise links and/or QR codes.

Your video and slide deck must be submitted by Thursday, August 10 in order to be considered.

We encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to showcase your project and we’re happy to answer any questions you have. Please feel free to reach out to the #cncf-project-updates-keynote slack channel.

Maintainer Track

Deadline: Sunday, July 16 at 11:59pm CT

On behalf of the CNCF Co-chairs, you are invited to submit a Maintainer Track and/or Contribfest session for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023! 🎉

Contribfest

Contribfest sessions are available to all conference attendees and are 90 minute in-person sessions designed to provide projects with the space and resources to tackle outstanding technical debt, security issues, or outstanding impactful feature requests. It is intended to provide a place for maintainers to meet contributors and potential contributors and work together on solving a problem. Up to nine projects will be selected for this event.

In order to be considered, you must satisfy the requirements below:

• At least one speaker must be a maintainer of the project with the commit bit. A maximum of four speakers are allowed.
• Maintainers do not need to lead the Contribfest but projects must provide at least one individual to facilitate the work during the Contribfest
• In your session description field, describe the problem space and benefit a Contribfest can provide your project

Contribfest is offered only to graduated and incubating projects only. SIGs, TAGs, and Working Groups are not eligible for a ContribFest session at this time.

Maintainer Track

Leaders of CNCF Graduated and Incubating Projects and Activities (Such as members of Working Groups, TAGs, User Groups) can submit to host one 35-minute session during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon within the Maintainer Track. We highly recommend non-maintainers be put forward as speakers for your talk. Participation is subject to availability and submitting does not guarantee selection.

Each speaker can speak at only one Maintainer Track session. This does not count against the speaker limits for Kubecon + CloudNativeCon standard CFP or ContribFest.

In order to be considered, you must satisfy the requirements below:

• Graduated/Incubating Projects
  • To submit, you must be a maintainer on this list for a CNCF Graduated or Incubating project, but the actual speaker(s) are not required to have maintainer status. Sandbox projects are not eligible for maintainer track sessions.
• All Others
  • To submit, you must be a chair or technical lead of a CNCF TAG, a lead for a Kubernetes SIG, CNCF or K8s Working Group, User Group, or Subproject.

We look forward to seeing your submissions! Please reach out to cfp@cncf.io if you have any questions.

Maintainer Track + ContribFest signup ends Sunday, July 16 at 11:59pm CT.

In-Person Kiosk (Project Pavilion)

We believe in the value of face-to-face events and the connections + relationships that stem from them. An in-person kiosk at a KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event provides the opportunity for the project to have an ambassador and/or maintainer staff the booth to engage with attendees in-person and teach more about the project.

Project kiosk schedule will be announced Monday, September 4.

*Please note that projects will have the option to host limited hours; meaning 1 project could select morning showcase hours and another project could select the afternoon showcase hours. Or a project could select to host a kiosk for the full showcase hours.

As a representative of your project, we expect you to:

• Be a current maintainer or contributor of the project.
• Educate attendees visiting the booth and encourage them to contribute to the projects.
• Answer questions.
• Be an overall spokesperson for your project.

We encourage you to share your use cases with your projects, and your organization’s involvement in the CNCF. However, you are prohibited from giving sales pitches to attendees about a product or company. If we hear a sales pitch being conducted, we reserve the right to ask you to leave and to deny future requests to participate in the project pavilion.

Kiosk Inclusions: One (1) monitor, one (1) locked cabinet for storage, and project logo signage only*

*Custom graphics aren’t permitted in the project pavilion.

In-Person Project Working Session

Project Working Sessions will be offered to all project maturity levels with priority going to TAGs/SIGS/Graduated (4 hour time slots), Incubating (2 hour time slots), and then Sandbox (1 hour time slot). This benefit allows TAGs, SIGs and projects to book a time slot to hold an in-person meeting to discuss project related topics, features and issues among their maintainers. This is to be used as a working meeting and not a general session (ie, like the maintainer track). Project Working Sessions will take place on Monday, November 6 and are based on availability.

Project Working Sessions Inclusions:

• Meeting space for up to 15-20 attendees
• Registration for KubeCon+CloudNativeCon is required
• Beverages, whiteboard (upon request) and power.

PR Support

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon events can provide an astounding platform for graduated and incubating projects to gain visibility with media and analysts. The CNCF PR team encourages and works with projects that want to take advantage of the captive media and analyst audience at each event to gain greater awareness of their work. The CNCF PR team is happy to work with you to help craft your communications and launch plans IF you can make your announcement at the show.

Opportunities for projects announcing during the event include:

• CNCF PR team actively works with media and analyst partners to schedule briefings ahead of and during the conference for your project
• Your announcement highlighted as part CNCF’s press & analyst meeting
• Inclusion of news in our media package, which goes out to all interested media and analysts ahead of the event (so they have time to write articles or request briefings)
• A tweet from @CloudNativeFdn during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon
• Announcement post or re-post (from the project’s blog) on the CNCF.io blog

The outcome of this would be increased media coverage for the project from top industry publications including DevClass, SD Times, SiliconANGLE, The New Stack, TechTarget, InfoQ and ZDNet as well as exposure with top analysts from Gartner, 451 Research, RedMonk and more.

If you are a graduated or incubating project and are interested in PR Support, please contact pr@cncf.io.

The deadline for submitting your interest for an In-Person Project Working Session, In-person Kiosk, Project Updates, Maintainer Track, and PR Support is Friday, August 18. However, we encourage you to secure your spot today as space is limited and demand is high. Requests will be based on project maturity.

If you have any questions or would like to arrange a call to discuss project opportunities, please email Tin Matienzo at kmatienzo@linuxfoundation.org.

General Information

What is the value of participating in these project offerings?

CNCF Projects can benefit from participating in one or more project offerings by engaging with the open source community and teaching attendees about the project and how to contribute.

I am not a CNCF project. Can I still participate in these project offerings?

At this time, we are only accepting CNCF projects, TAGS, and SIGS to participate in the Project Pavilion.
If you are interested in contributing your project to CNCF or discuss how CNCF can help your project, please contact info@cncf.io and read the TOC repo.

In-Person Kiosk

If we host an In-Person Kiosk, do we receive passes for our booth staff?

We do not offer complimentary passes to projects hosting an in-person kiosk in the Project Pavilion. This has been a practice of the event since 2017. CNCF provides need based scholarships and we recommend reviewing and applying.

What does the In-Person Kiosk include?

The kiosks provided onsite will include a monitor, locked cabinet for storage, and project logo signage. Any additional items/needs will have to be approved and ordered by the project.

What is the difference between a Full-Time kiosk and a Part-Time kiosk?

A project hosting a Part-Time kiosk will be sharing the kiosk with another project. One project will be hosting the kiosk during AM hours, and the other will host PM hours. A project hosting a Full Time kiosk will host the kiosk for the entire duration of showcase hours during the week.

Can custom graphics be added to our In-Person Kiosk?

Custom graphics are not permitted in the Project Pavilion.

Are pull-up banners and/or table cloths permitted for our In-Person Kiosk?

Banners and tablecloths are not permitted as all kiosks within the Project Pavilion are to have a standard uniformed look.

Can we ship swag to our In-Person Kiosk?

You are allowed to ship a limited amount of boxes to your kiosk. There will be onsite storage available, however it is on a first come first serve basis so availability is not guaranteed. Shared kiosks can not store items at the kiosk after their scheduled hours. Shipping information will be available upon request in February. Please email kmatienzo@linuxfoundation.org for shipping information.

Are we able to collect leads at our kiosk?

Capturing leads is not a benefit of hosting an in-person kiosk. The purpose of the Project Pavilion is to educate the open source community on CNCF Projects rather than present project or product sales pitches.

Can we host F&B at our kiosk?

Yes, projects will be able to order F&B to their kiosk at the project’s own cost. Please reach out to kmatienzo@linuxfoundation.org for more information.

Is there an option to have a virtual booth?

There won’t be any virtual booths for the Project Pavilion.

Miscellaneous

I am a sandbox project graduating to incubating before the event. Can I participate in PR Support?

If you’re graduating to incubating before the event, the CNCF team will reach out to you when your project passes the TOC vote. We’ll be able to provide support and details at that time.

Who should I contact with further questions?

Please reach out to Tin Matienzo, kmatienzo@linuxfoundation.org for further questions.