About Project Participation
Projects and Working Groups under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) umbrella have the opportunity to engage, network, and collaborate with peers and like-minded people in the cloud native community at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe in London from 1-4 April 2025. Participating in this event allows you to gain valuable mind share of a targeted audience while engaging with 10,000+ developers, architects, and technical leaders.
We invite CNCF Chairs of TAGs and Kubernetes SIGs working groups and Maintainers from graduated, incubating, and sandbox projects to participate in the project opportunities below.
Project Opportunities
*The exact timing details will be shared during the confirmation window for project opportunities.
Dates to Remember
Maintainer Track + Contribfest + Project Lightning Talk CFP Close | Tuesday, 3 December |
Deadline to Submit Kiosk + PR Support Interest Form | Tuesday, 3 December |
Maintainer Track + ContribFest + Project Lightning Talk Notifications | Monday, 6 January |
Maintainer Track + ContribFest + Project Lightning Talk Schedule Announcement | Wednesday, 8 January |
In-Person Kiosk Notifications | Thursday, 16 January |
Description of Opportunities
Maintainer Summit
The CNCF Maintainer Summit is an exclusive event for the people behind our projects to gather face-to-face, collaborate, and celebrate the projects that make “Cloud Native”. Programming will be focused around sharing best practices, diving into contributing processes, and solving common problems across projects to enrich our great community of maintainers.
For more information on registration, CFP and sponsorships, please visit the Maintainer Summit webpage.
Project Lightning Talks
Projects will have the opportunity to deliver 5-minute lightning talks on the day preceding KubeCon + CloudNativeCon. This platform offers projects the chance to showcase their recent updates, features, and other highlights to their peers. The project lightning talks will be included in the conference schedule based on availability.
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.
To be considered, you must satisfy the requirements below:
We look forward to seeing your submissions! Please reach out to ProjectsAtKubeCon@linuxfoundation.org if you have any questions.
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.
In order to be considered, you must satisfy the requirements below:
Contribfest is offered to graduated, incubating and sandbox projects only. SIGs, TAGs, and Working Groups are not eligible for a ContribFest session at this time.
Project Pavilion Kiosk
We believe in the value of face-to-face events and the connections and 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 available to engage with attendees in-person.
Project kiosk schedule will be announced in early February.
*Please keep in mind that projects will have the flexibility to choose their hosting hours, based on maturity level parameters. This means one project could opt for morning showcase hours, while another could prefer the afternoon slot.
As a representative of your project, we expect you to:
We encourage you to share your project’s use cases and your organization’s involvement in the CNCF. However, you are prohibited from giving attendees sales pitches 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 are not permitted in the project pavilion.
PR Support
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon events can provide a great 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.
If you are a graduated or incubating project and are interested in PR Support, submit a request via the form.
Request to Participate
The deadline for submitting your interest for all KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 Project Opportunities is Tuesday, December 3, however, we encourage you to secure your spot today as space is limited and demand is high. Requests will be considered based on project maturity.
If you have any questions or would like to arrange a call to discuss project opportunities, please email us at ProjectsAtKubeCon@linuxfoundation.org.
FAQs + Contact
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.
Maintainer Summit
Where do I find out more about the Maintainer Summit?
The CNCF Maintainer Summit is an exclusive event for the people behind our projects to gather face-to-face, collaborate, and celebrate the projects that make “Cloud Native”. Note: This is not an event for general attendance. There are several groups who can attend:
- Sandbox Project Maintainers (as listed in project-maintainers.csv)
- Incubating & Graduated Project GitHub Org Members
- CNCF TAG Leads & the CNCF TOC
Additional information about the Maintainer Summit is shared directly with these groups.
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 checking the Attend section of the event website for more information.
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 served basis, availability is not guaranteed. Shared kiosks can not store items at the kiosk after their scheduled hours. Shipping information will be available upon request. Please email ProjectsAtKubeCon@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 ProjectsAtKubeCon@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. Please note that projects have until four weeks before the event to qualify for the benefits associated with the next level of project maturity.
Can we use our project logo on swag (hats, pins, t-shirts, etc) to recognize project contributors without violating any CNCF trademark policies?
Please submit a service desk ticket with the CNCF team, sharing a mock-up and listing which item(s) are to be approved and information on who will be receiving these items. Please allow up to 5 business days for review. Note: Submitting a ticket does not guarantee approval.
Who should I contact with further questions?
Please reach out to us at ProjectsAtKubeCon@linuxfoundation.org for further questions.