 Welcome to the Cube's coverage of KubeCon EU 2024, live from Paris, France. Join hosts Savannah Peterson, Dustin Kirkland, and Rob Stratche, as they interview some of the brightest minds in cloud-native computing. Coverage of KubeCon cloud-native con is brought to you by Red Hat, CNCF, and its ecosystem partners. The Cube's coverage of KubeCon EU 2024 begins right now. Good afternoon, cloud community, and welcome back to Paris, France. We're here at KubeCon cloud-native con, CNCF's flagship European event, and it is the largest KubeCon ever. My name's Savannah Peterson, very excited to be joined by two fantastic guests on the CNCF deaf and hard of hearing working group. Welcome to the show. How are you two doing today? Thank you, doing great. I'm very excited to be here, and thrilled to the opportunity to be able to have a conversation with you. Yes, this is so exciting. We had Rob and Destiny on in Chicago. Very excited to welcome both of you. How long have you been working on the deaf and hard of hearing working group? Milad joined first, and then I followed soon after. Milad says yes. The working group started, if I remember correctly, I guess it was June-ish we started, and it was a couple of months in, and Destiny contacted us, and asked us to join. And of course, we were very interested in what was going on, and it was instant overwhelm in a good way when we went in, and we just rolled up our sleeves and got to work immediately, and we're trying to really grow awareness and share with the world what it means to have accessibility in technical spaces. And I think, gosh, I can't even remember. It's, we've been so busy. Yes, Anastasia says, for me, it was like six months, I think-ish, maybe more or less, you know, around six months. Yeah, it's the deaf and hard of hearing working group has started in the US, but of course that has included several of us from Europe at this point, and we're hoping to get some folks from Asia soon. Yeah, well, hopefully they're listening right now. It seems like that you've done a lot in a very short period of time, less than a year that the group has been working together. What are some of the things that you're working on? What are some of the resources you're trying to provide? Let's start with you, Anastasia. Yes, we're definitely working to provide resources for other community groups and meetups and other KubeCon related entities. You know, we are trying to make everyone feel included. That's the overall goal. And helping other folks out there who would like to have certain kind of meetups know how to provide accessibility for their communities and their new possible deaf and hard of hearing members. Also, we're talking about resources, as we were just discussing. Podcasts, interviews, conferences, local meetups. There's a variety of ways for people to access the cloud-native community, and we want people to have those avenues in. And it's not only beneficial for the deaf and hard of hearing users. It's not just for us, it's for anyone. I mean, if you turn the captions on in a meeting where a lot of people have a great deal of variety of accents, it's helpful even for people who can hear. Yeah. And Milat says, I would like to add to what she said. That was an excellent point that she just made in terms of resources and accessibility. But I would add that we have become co-hosts in the cloud-native environment for opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing folks to join us and share their experience with us, learn from us, learn from each other. We've had several opportunities this CubeCon to present. And that has been just tremendous. The opportunities have been great. And it's not only for deaf and hard of hearing people. It is for people to know that we are out here, that we exist, that we are in this environment and join us, join us, work with us. Join the working group, but we just are really excited to see community members come in and work with us. Yeah, it is really exciting. Rob mentioned in Chicago, curb cutting, how much it benefits everyone. Same thing goes for deaf and hard of hearing accessibility. What are some of the changes that, what's some of the advice that you've given to CNCF to make CubeCon more accessible? I'm curious, Milad, we'll start with you. Well, before I joined the deaf and hard of hearing working group, I had, of course, my own limited view on accessibility. And to be honest, it wasn't very broad at the time. Interesting. I hadn't had the same experiences as many people had, but now I feel that my idea of what accessibility even looks like has grown tremendously. It has broadened a lot. I mean, we have deaf and hard of hearing folks that each one has their own different special need or accommodation that fits them best. And we're trying to learn now to help meet everyone's needs, not just a majority of folks who have a similar signing language or style. So it's benefited me tremendously to learn more about accessibility at large. And as I've worked on accessibility, I have learned and we've shared and all grown as a result of this shared knowledge and the community is exceptional. Like we have said repeatedly, it's not just for deaf and hard of hearing people, like parents of children who are deaf. We welcome them in too. They have important perspectives. We can share resources with them. And it's cloud native and also open source landscapes. And how do we capture that contribution and be a part of contributing to the overall community as well, not just the deaf and hard of hearing niche segment. Were you about to add something, Anastasia? Well, in Europe, this is the first KubeCon that's been accessible. Yes, quite tremendous. So I'm very thankful to CNCF and they listened when we spoke. We said we have accessibility needs that are not being met. They were receptive to that, supportive of it and they have provided accessibility and we're so grateful for that. And we hope that CNCF will continue to be an example for other conferences that are tech related as we move forward into the future. And even local communities or the big conferences like this. And it's not just for us, it's for everyone but making everyone feel included. What are, I was going to ask if KubeCon, if this felt more inclusive, more accessible than the last KubeCon EU when we were in Amsterdam, what are some of the changes and modifications that CNCF has made to be more inclusive specifically? What types of things are they doing based on your advice? It's been really challenging because it's not only CNCF or KubeCon and for us as well because America is big, you know? And everybody signs ASL there, American Sign Language. In Europe, the countries are much smaller and there's a huge diversity of spoken languages as well as signed languages. It's not universal. So we have worked so far to make it truly accessible for everyone but that's a much greater challenge on the European side. So we've tried to, you know, I'm learning ASL now and I learned a lot more so that I could present here. I am using British Sign Language, which is quite different in the UK where I work now, where I am based. So I am not fluent in ASL and I'm learning now but we also have the challenges of how to explain the technological words in sign language because it's evolving constantly and we're constantly needing to develop words for that and CNCF has a glossary of terms that are used commonly and it's time that we work on creating a standardized sign language vocabulary set for cloud native and open source vocabulary. So I would add to Milad saying that one thing that has been tremendously challenging is local events in different countries. That's been very challenging because there's not enough information out there and like for myself, for example, I went and they had not added captioning to my local event. There was no interpreter, there's no captioning. I showed up and there was nothing there to make it accessible for me so I was quite disappointed by that and I used my phone, which I do have a text captioning program on my phone and I opened that app and I used it and I tried to just do my best with it but it's challenging in crowded environments with background noise. In the future, pardon me, I would really like to see local events improve accessibility and I know they don't have the resources a lot of time and so they say, oh well no deaf people are coming so we don't need to add the accessibility and that's really not how it works because when there's no accessibility, who's going to come? Deaf and hard of hearing people will say, okay, I know my local thing has no accessibility, there's no point in my showing up and that's the opposite of what we want to have happen. Yeah, I mean if they're not there we don't know they're in existence so if I hear in my community, there is captioning or an interpreter at my local event, I'm going. I'm going to show up so and then that word will get out, feedback will occur, the accessibility will continue to improve and that is one challenge we have. Another thing that's very, very common because we were talking about time zones, that's very challenging because if it's morning in my country it might be nighttime and someone else's so it's very hard for all of us to get together at a mutually beneficial time, it's quite challenging, it's fun, we love it and we'll make the opportunity to do that but that's a challenge as well. And I'm really thankful for CNCF for keeping an open mind and communication open with us and they've listened, they've responded, they've met our needs and it's just such a wonderful thing to work with an organization who does that and they didn't just assume what we needed and give us one solution, they listened and it's just such a truly touching experience to have that happen. Yeah, it is and the community, the cloud native community, the organization itself, do you feel like this community in particular is more welcoming and inclusive than say some other tech communities? Yes, I absolutely do, I'm a lot of grace, yes. I think I feel accepted here. And I don't have personally a lot of experience in cloud native, I'm fairly new. I would call myself a cloud native infant. So I've been a full stack person before and so that's been what I've done more than I've ever done cloud native. So this is very new to me and I'm picking up so much more just by being here than I can by being alone and siloed and trying to learn it on my own. So it's been tremendous for me to interact with people, have the opportunity to meet other teams, meet other companies, meet other professionals. That's why I'm here, it's so exciting. I've learned so much. I just feel just overwhelmed with all of this stuff. It honestly feels like medicine for my soul because it's so energizing to be in the room with all of my peers and be able to communicate with them openly. I've never had that before, it's just tremendous. I can see the energy and radiance on your faces. I can tell how truly excited you are and I can imagine it's incredibly empowering. It must make you feel safer in the community and it's awesome. What would your advice be to someone who may be watching in the deaf and hard of hearing community who isn't a part of your group yet or maybe isn't a part of this ecosystem? How would you say they get started in the cloud native space? Find us. We're in Slack, we're the deaf and hard of hearing and you can find my name is Anastasia Gubska and I'm at LinkedIn. You can contact me as well and I will definitely help you get connected and whether you go for Slack or LinkedIn. And also the deaf and cloud native, that meetup is something I would really emphasize for deaf and hard of hearing people who want to get involved. And if they're not on Slack maybe or they're interested in cloud native and they want to come to the meetings, they should certainly join that. And Slack of course, Anastasia was just saying is a great way to contact us but you can certainly do that and come to our meetings and we can grow that way. And just in the community, just being able to share even social media events. And also we have a monthly meeting. I believe it's usually the fourth week of the month. It does the date shift sometimes but we have hearing and deaf people. We have interpreters there, it's on Zoom. Anyone can join, there's no cost associated with it. We do that monthly, the deaf and hard of hearing. Working group meets. And that's how people can certainly and easily get involved. And we are definitely wanting to pull in more diversity to those meetings. That's exciting. How big is the deaf and hard of hearing working group right now? That's a good question. It just grown so much in the last few months. Let me think, I'm going to estimate. I don't know how many exactly. What would you say? I'm not sure either. I think maybe 50 people total are affiliated. I could be wrong, but. That's a lot. There's a lot of deaf and hard of hearing people but there are hearing people who are interested as allies as well who have come. So now this week, I don't know, maybe we'll see an influx of new members which will be tremendous. So maybe we'll just watch those numbers grow. Yeah, what's your advice for allies? How can we be more inclusive? How can someone like me be more inclusive? It's okay. Just ignore that. There's a very, for the audience at home, there's a very loud PA system right now that's blasting and it's now over. Great, here we are. Yes, thank you. Where were we? What's your advice for allies? I know it can be very distracting. Yes, how you can help us is to spread awareness. I'm just raise awareness and information about our working group. If you see something that is not accessible, call it out, speak up. And the advice I would give would be if you're having an event, add captioning, add an interpreter. If you're going to do something online, it's not hard to add captioning to it. So just be as accessible as possible. If you're going to have an community event, make sure that it's accessible for people to come. And ally, that is an interesting concept. I have a logo that is really cute. If I can grab it out of my pocket, I'll show. This is our logo for our group. It's an armadillo and it talks about being an ally. And you know, you see armadillos mostly on the side of the road, dead. But they're a shy creature, but we really want people to be allies. And we would sign that A11Y, it represents the double L in the middle, the 11. And it's not the only deaf and hard of hearing group out there. And you certainly don't have to be deaf and hard of hearing to join us. If you're hearing and you want to join us and you want to get involved and be an ally, learn, sign, whatever you want to do. Or let's say perhaps you're a parent of a child who is deaf and you want to get involved and you have a hard of hearing or deaf child and you want to learn more and be able to give your children an entree to the community of deaf and hard of hearing people. And you don't have that in your own history or your own family. It's, sometimes you just want to know what your child's future is going to look like. Please come, join us, share our experiences and share yours in our group. I love that. Yeah, like he was talking about, it's like STEM for children. Perfect. Well, I really look forward to having you both back on the show. One final question for you. I know the group is doing a lot. It's growing. Things are moving super fast. When I get to interview you at KubeCon in London next year, what do you hope you can say about the working group? My hope is that by the next European KubeCon, everyone will have accessibility for every possible talk there. We didn't have captions for every talk. And I'm not complaining. Certainly it was wonderful. All the keynotes were captioned and interpreted. That was tremendous. But I would hope that by the next time, there will be accessibility in every room and that we'll have enough interpreters to go around and we won't miss anything. Also, London will be in British Sign Language. You know what? That's a different challenge altogether, Milad, because you don't know BSL. Well, I'm going to learn. So I will learn. You can teach me. Yes, I will teach you. So of course, we're just going to get ramped up before we have that time. So in London, we probably will have some British interpreters. But a lot of the deaf people coming will not know British Sign Language. So we will have to figure out how to provide other American Sign Language interpreters as we did with this KubeCon. So we'll just have to figure out how we can fly in interpreters like we did here. So we'll just meet those needs as they arise. And it's a lot of work. Yes, well, thank you for all the hard work. You're both doing, Milad Anastasia, fantastic guests, really cherished talking to you today. And I learned something every time I talked to the CNCF, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Working Group. Thank you for your fabulous interpreting as well. And thank you all for tuning in to our three days of coverage here at KubeCon CloudNativeCon in Paris, France. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for enterprise tech news.