 Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of .edu, I'm your host Kunal and today we have Bill here with us. Bill, would you like to tell our viewers a little bit more about yourself? I'm sure if you're active in the cloud community, you already know who Bill is. Yeah, so I'm Bill Mulligan and I work at CNCF besides getting to work with amazing community members like Kunal. We also run a couple of other programs around the community like Cognitive TV, our community's community days, and some of our stuff around top-goes and edge computing. Most definitely and today we're going to talk about, so KubeCon is coming up, right? So we're going to talk about how as a first-time attendee you can make the most out of the event. So in this particular section we'll talk about like what is KubeCon, what is like the student track which we recently started. If you're a student attending KubeCon, how can you attend? If you don't have a ticket right now, you can fill up the form. With Bill, you can send that in the chat and yeah, we'll talk about all these things, some of the best practices and what are the benefits of attending various types of scholarships and so many other things. So it's going to be a pretty jump-back session and before we get started, make sure you follow Cloud Native Computing Foundation on Twitch. I'm trying to get to like 4000 for KubeCon, so let's see hopefully if you support us, but yeah, let's get started. So Bill, for those of you know who are watching, who might not know what is KubeCon, can you tell us a little bit more about it? Yeah, absolutely. So KubeCon is a conference focused around Kubernetes and other cloud-native technologies. And it's actually the largest open-source conference in the world and it's hosted by CNCF. And the goal of the event is to gather cloud-native enthusiasts, technologists, people using, implementing or wanting to learn about cloud-native technologies all in one place so that they can come together, share what they've been doing, learn about new things that are coming out or just get started in the field. So kind of whatever your experience level, it's a great place to come and meet the community around cloud-native. Most definitely. And, you know, we have talked about cloud-native previously, we've talked about like Kubernetes and all these other things. But speaking from like, let's say, the non-code contribution part, someone who might not be, let's say, into Kubernetes, right? If someone is into Kubernetes, they already know what KubeCon is, right? I hope. But if someone is not, and they might be watching the session like, hey, talking about Kubernetes and stuff, I don't know anything about it. Should I even attend this conference? What can people like, you know, what can those people get out of the conference? Because we talk about non-code contributions and a lot of other things in cloud-native. So specifically students, let's say you might not know about kids, but want to learn more. So what about these people? Like, what can they get out of the conference? Why should they attend? Yeah, absolutely. So I'd just like to say, like, I am a non-code contribution person. So I don't have any coding background. I work for the CNCF, but if you ask me to set up a Kubernetes cluster and administer it, I wouldn't be able to do that. So there is a place for you in cloud-native, even if you don't know how to code, just like me. And so going to the conference, you know, the thing is, is there's so many other ways that you can contribute and help out. And it's a great way to find out what all those different pathways are. You know, somebody has to write the blog post. Somebody has to write the documentation. Somebody has to be on the streams like this. Someone has to run the events. There's so many other things that need to happen that don't involve code. It's being able to promote, talk about, and, you know, connect the community. Like, those are all super important things for the open source community. And all these things will be happening at KubeCon. You know, companies and people will be launching products and projects. People will be chatting with each other in the hallway. And I think KubeCon is a really good place to learn about all the different ways that you can contribute. Most definitely. And if you're attending for the very first time and you might not, it can be a little bit overwhelming to navigate through all the different tracks and stuff. We now have a student track that is going to be running at KubeCon. So if you're attending virtually, you can, on the schedule page, you can click on student track and all the diversity and inclusion tracks. You'll find all the beginner-friendly talks. But let's talk a little bit more about that. Bill, can you tell us a little bit more about what the student track is? Yeah, absolutely. So first, before I dive into it, I have to give a really big shout out to Kunal for calling the student track together. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have a student track at KubeCon this year. So thanks to Kunal for that. So what the student track is is really, you know, introductory. This is where you go to, like, just get started. And I think there's a lot of really good sessions in the student track for you to check out if you're a first-time attendee. So a couple of different ones is if you're interested in having an internship in the cloud-native space, there's going to be a panel discussion from previous mentees talking about their experience interning on different CNCF projects. There is a session also how to get involved in the Kubernetes Shadow Release Program. If you want to get more involved in that, that's a really great one to go to. Introduction to open source for students I think is also going to be really good, especially for people that are just new to open source and don't know where to start. And there's also one for non-code contributions. So there's so many different ways to get involved. It's, you know, really the place to go if this is your first-time attending KubeCon. Most definitely. And I believe it was all teamwork. We supported quite a lot. And I think I believe, like, hopefully by next year we'll be having, like, a separate CFP section for student track. So if you're a student attending for the very first time, make sure you check out the student track. Cool. Speaking of tracks, what other tracks should students definitely at least check out? Yeah, absolutely. So the other one that I'd recommend besides the student track is the 101 track. So these are a lot of introductory topics. A couple of sessions that I'd just like to point out, because I already have them marked down on my schedule, and they might be interesting for other people too, because one is a safari of Kubernetes and its natural habitat. So this is going to be kind of, I think, you know, a storytelling of Kubernetes in the cloud native space. Noah Abrams is one of the ambassadors for CNCF, a really great person. So I'm sure it'll be a great talk. Another one that I'm interested in is the Beyond Kubernetes Security by Ellen and Tabatha. You know, I don't know, did you see their session at KubeCon last year? I saw, yeah. Yeah, that was probably my favorite talk. It was all over Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was so good. They basically put together a movie instead of a talk. So I can definitely recommend that one if you want kind of like a fun engaging way to learn about Kubernetes and security, because security is such a hot topic right now. The other ones is, I think it's perfect for students is homebrewing a Kubernetes boot camp from college to Kubernetes support engineer. So this is someone at Ambassador Labs talking about how they really, you know, as a student got a job in a Kubernetes-based role. So if you're wondering what a potential pathway into a Kubernetes career could look like, I think that's a great session for you. And then the last one is we're marketers. If we can learn distributed systems in Kubernetes, so can you. This is from two marketing people. I think it'd be a great way to kind of get the marketing introduction to Kubernetes that maybe you can explain it and like get a little understanding about it because everybody's got to start somewhere. Definitely and people who are asking questions like in the chat. If you need to ask your questions, we'll try to answer as many as we can. If you're talking about the registration and how to attend, we have that on the agenda. Some people are saying that can you list all these talks in the comment section. Just Google, like in the schedule page, once you register, you can also go to the website of KubeCon and on the schedule page. If you just write the name of the speakers and stuff, it's very nice. It will filter all the tracks for you, but yeah, we'll just share it. In the schedule, you can filter out. If you just click on the student like the dark thing, it will automatically filter out all the talks that talked about. It's pretty convenient. Cool. Yeah, I'm speaking at Open Source Summit today as well. So thanks for the shout out. We're done. Yeah, I mean, hopefully next year, let's say we'll do some in-person clubs. But let's talk a little bit more about that, like how can people attend? Like many people are asking. So now would be a great time to share about that form, Bill. Yeah, absolutely. So any students that want to attend can go to KubeCon for free. There's a scholarship application that you just need to fill out and we'll get you a ticket. If you learned about the scholarship from this event, please feel free to tag us on social media. We love to have the shout outs and hear that what we're doing today, you know, like helps shape people and like get some opportunities that they wouldn't have otherwise. Most definitely. So make sure you fill out the survey and then you'll get the, you know, what you'll take it's free to attend in your emails already. Speaking of scholarships, Bill, you know, when, when there was like before the virtual events, there were like a lot of types of scholarships actually. That's what the NCR provides. Get no more and more people involved in the, in the conferences and events. Can you maybe go through these types of scholarships in brief? There's diversity need based and in person and virtual and so many other things. Yeah, absolutely. So we have a couple of different ones. So the two or the three main categories are the student, the need base and the diversity ones. And so the need based one is for people that don't have the resources to attend the event, but still want to further advance their career by going to QCon or one of the other Linux Foundation conferences. This is a great way to get access to those opportunities because conferences like QCon can be such a great career boost. You can meet so many people that will, you know, get, you can get connected to find new jobs, find new connections and really level up your career or just get started in your career. And so that's for people that don't otherwise have the opportunity. I actually met a really great person. She's coming from Peru and she's going to attend QCon for the first time and she got one of the need based scholarships. I'm super excited to meet her then person in two weeks. The other one is the diversity scholarship and that's for people from underrepresented backgrounds, people that aren't traditionally represented in tech. Because we like to, I think a lot of people see the cognitive community as something very welcoming inclusive and diverse and we want to continue to promote and support that by bringing people from non traditional backgrounds back into the technology industry. And those can be either in person or virtual. And so the in person one that pays for your flights, accommodation and meals to attend QCon, or if you're on the world and the virtual ones like the student one is to attend and have access to the virtual platform. Awesome. Thanks for sharing bill and all of these scholarships you can find in the, you know, the schedule link scholarships you can find it over there. Yeah, already cool. So if you have any other questions anyone feel free to ask but yeah. And I also went on a scholarship only in 2019 I think, yeah, San Diego one which is the last in person event fun times. So yeah, hopefully a few people will be there hopefully we'll see a lot of you folks online but yeah, from wherever you're joining you'll get, you know, networking and event opportunities. Conferences and like the various events and stuff and I think if you miss a particular event it's also going to be uploaded to YouTube. So you can watch it later on. But yeah, cool. All right, so can talk a little bit more about like I know we touched upon this briefly but since we have this as a separate agenda point like what are some of the benefits of attending the event. And some people are asking like, is it just for students like this particular session that we're having, or just normal first time attendees as well so yeah, even if you're not a student, if you're first time attendee, definitely speaking about from that point of view as well. So Bill, what would you what would you say. Yeah, so there's I think so many benefits of attending. Like, the biggest thing about conferences is it brings people together, like all in one space, and you have a lot of interactions with different people, and that can bring you so many different opportunities. Now as a college we had a saying at our student union that said, light increases through human interaction. I really believe that that's what's cool about conferences is it brings people together and all this human interaction creates so much energy and light and I think there's whether you're a student looking for an internship or your first job you can find that. If you're someone who's looking to change careers, you can find that if you're struggling in your current role and looking for new ways to solve problems, you can find that. If you're looking to make friends in the community, you can also do that. I know I've met some really great people like at the conferences where I'm hung out with now with across multiple years and always had a great time. I think it's just, you know, kind of a fun environment to hang out and chat with people, especially if you want to go to the hallway track, you can always find somebody there to chat with and learn about the community. Definitely, I've met some amazing people online. So, hopefully, you know, you will as well and I'm definitely I'm definitely sure you will because it's a lot of networking opportunities for you available over there. Some people are asking, how do we get to know about the speakers? Really, the bio is already on the schedule page. You can get to know about them from there. You can connect with them on Twitter and stuff if the links are available over there. The question is, would you recommend KubeCon to someone who is very new to DevOps? Yes. Even if you don't know anything about DevOps, make sure you check it out because definitely you'll learn a lot of networking. You'll get to do a lot of networking. And if you're new, most definitely there's like one-on-one tracks that you can be a part of. Alrighty, what is KubeCon all about? We talked about it already. It's all about cloud native, Kubernetes, community. There are a lot of fun events as well, like parties and stuff. I think there was one last time it was called Kates or Die. I don't think if you remember, Bill. And in San Diego, they just rented a whole part of the downtown city. Exactly. They actually rented a whole street and all the restaurants and everything in that street, you could go anywhere and meet people. I met a few people, one from Australia, two from the US on the very first day. And I was with them the whole time. For all the four days I was with them. We had like an entire crew, one from India, one from Australia. Every time zone covered. Every time zone covered. Yeah, it was fun. Cool. So let's talk a little bit more about how to navigate this event. So two questions over here. One is for the in-person and one is for the, what you may call it, the virtual platform. Yeah. Okay, so yeah, the two different things. So at the event, if you're attending in person, I am like really impressed by our events team all the time. I think it's one of the best things about being part of the Linux foundation is we get to have them support us. You'll find signs everywhere. Like you'll always, I guess, like know where to do. And if not, like, I think the great thing about the cloud native community is like everyone's always super helpful. So you can always, you know, just like ask somebody if you're not sure where to go next. In terms of like, actually getting around in like the virtual event, there will be an event platform. It'll be meeting play just like it was for like the last event. It's a fun like platform where you'll first go in and there'll be like a like welcoming video and then you can jump into different tracks and you can either go into the live tracks, which are the ones that are currently playing and engage with the speakers as they're going or you miss some of the content. So if you're in a different time zone or you had like school at that time, you can jump back to talks that have previously gone and they'll be recorded in the platform so you can watch them as you want. Beyond that, there's also many other ways to engage in the sponsor showcase. There's a great way to meet a lot of different companies learn about their products. If they're hiring, you know, potentially if you were a student looking for a job or an internship, look through some of the sponsors in the sponsor showcase and figure out what they're doing. Some of them also have swag for attendees of the event. There's also different interactive sessions. Like I know last time we had a photo booth that took a picture of you and then like made a caricature like out of you, which I thought was quite fun. On site, there's going to be like different places to relax. There's going to be puppies there too. So lots of different things going at KubeCon. And at the end of the day, either way, you have to go to the daily wrap up. And what that is is summary of everything that happened over the day. You either catch it on site or you can catch it virtually here on cloud native TV. Most definitely. Is there going to be poor therapy this time? Yes. Yes. For those of you don't know, poor therapy means there's going to be lots of puppies and dogs. Cool. Yeah. Alrighty. Let's talk a little bit more about networking best practices because someone who is attending for the very first time, it can be overwhelming for them. So they may feel like say shy or, you know, it's totally okay like over and back first. So what are some of the networking best practices you would like to share? And one thing I would like to share is I think there's like a tag on the badges that you can find. Like you can speak, you can make a distance, you can connect or something like that. But overall, I think most people in cloud native community like speakers, they're very, you know, approachable. Bill, what would you share some of the best practices? Yeah, absolutely. I think like the best way really like anywhere is to like first show interest in like what somebody else is doing. And so I think the easiest way to like meet people network is to go to sessions and then talk to the speaker afterwards. You know, like they put a lot of time and effort into their talk. I'm sure you probably like learn something from them. Maybe you have a question and go and chat with them, even if it's like, hey, like I really liked your talk. You know, that can spark a conversation would be like, oh, thanks. And then you can start chatting. I think a great way is to reach out to speakers. I know those are some of the first people I'm at in the cloud native community because I was watching a bunch of talks and I actually just like reached out to some of them over email or like on Twitter because I just found their contact information and said, hey, what's up. And those are some of my first friends in the cloud native community. So speakers are always great people to reach out to. Another one is to check out the hallway track. So if you're in person, this is like when you're wandering through the halls. As Kunal said, there will be like different colors that are representing like, hey, like green, like, hey, come and talk to me. I like to meet new people yellow. I was like, please keep them distance or red is like, you know, I'm like busy or whatever else. So I don't have time for you today. So you can figure out like who's open to talk to and just, you know, kind of like walk up and an easy first question is like, ask them like what session they talked or what session they liked. Or what they had learned so far. You know, maybe you'll you'll learn something to or ask them where they're going next to figure out where you should go next to. There's lots of questions you can ask people just see what everybody else is doing and then what they're engaged in. And there also be a virtual hallway track too for those people that want to like chat online. I know it was really fun last time to have that too. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And the virtual track is something I will definitely if there's something you should definitely get out of session is student track, the section over there, one on one tracks, definitely end those. And the virtual hallway track you can meet a lot of amazing people over there. So, yeah, those are some really nice tips. And once you get started, you'll know yourself where to navigate and stuff. You can happens like I think one is you one is like in America and then it happens in I think in China to China China as well. Yeah, so it's not like it's like a once a year event you can attend like after every few months. And once you start attending, you'll get to know yourself like what are some of the best practices and stuff. Yeah, awesome. One more thing I would like to share is so this was these some really nice points. And if anyone has any questions, yeah, we've shared the links and everything. Thanks a lot for giving me shout out. But what after a coupon, right? That's the main question. How do you make the most out of coupon once it's over. Yeah, absolutely. So first is, you know, follow up with the people that you met at cube con. You know, you probably met some interesting people see what they're doing, see what opportunities or resources that they had write down some of your conversations, maybe even write a blog post. I know a couple students that have attended the previous cube cons have all gotten their blog published on the CNCF blog is a great way to write about your experience. I know can always likes to talk about like learning in public and doing that and that's a great way to do it. Beyond that, CNCF also has a lot of really great resources that you can have on at X we have a bunch of free training courses. So say you started to learn about the technology at cube con and you want to dive into it a little bit more. You can you can check it out here. All our free courses are there. The introduction to Kubernetes course is very, very popular. It's closing in on 300,000 people that have taken the course. So it's a great way to get started there. There is also going to be an exciting announcement that Bianca is going to make in our keynote. So if there's one session that I can also recommend to you is to go to Bianca's keynote. I think this will be a very exciting one for students. So I'm going to say is go to our keynote and you'll find out more about the best way to follow up after the conference. Yeah, and beyond that, another great way to get involved is to check out some of the mentoring opportunities that CNCF has. So like I said, the student track is going to have a panel session on this, but if you want to get a little jumpstart on what mentoring opportunities or mentorship opportunities are available. And CNCF to work paid on a open source project. Check out the mentoring repo in CNCF. So those are some of the first ways to get started after the conference, but I'm sure you'll take away some ideas, some connections, some ways to get involved after the conference too. Most definitely and some people are saying, if you're if you're seeing the paid option on the on the registration page, please make sure you fill out the form first, then you'll get a coupon and then you'll get to attend it for free. If you're a student shared the link. Yeah, just just share the link for the phone. Awesome. And one more shout out I want to give this to clouded if TV. So we have some amazing shows. Make sure you hit the follow button on bridge and would really appreciate it. Someone is asking I'm a graduate. I'm graduating next year in CS program. Yeah, internships and scholarships and all these things Bill just mentioned LFX mentorship programs, outreachy, good summer of course, all of these programs I think CNCF has taken part in so make sure you check it out. Interesting question by Deepak. What is meant by project pavilion and office hours. Oh yeah project, sorry project building an office hours so CNCF has over 100 different projects underneath it. And so it's, you know, the question is how do how do you jump in and get involved or if I have a question about one of those projects where do I go. And this is a great way to start learning about some of those projects so the project pavilion is kind of like a like a big fair of all the different projects. And the office hours are when the maintainers are other people that are involved in the project are showing up and you can drop in do like a call or by the booth and ask them some questions you know even if it's just how do I get involved. That's a great place to go. So if you want to get involved like maybe go check out a project office hours and see how you can get involved in that project. Awesome. Um, cool. So if you have any other questions folks will just join please let us know. There's one more question apart from student. I don't know events will be super helpful. I can see a one on one. Oh, this is a good question because it's actually the mentorship events as well right this. What is it called the round table one. Yeah, yeah Paris shared about it. It happens or it happens like it used to happen what in person as well but since cube convent virtual it has been happening virtually as well I forgot what it's called. Carrier track or something. Carrier track I'm pretty sure it's called carrier track. Let me just see. Carrier, carrier session, something like that just give me a second. What is it. They're peer group. Yeah, so that was on Friday and I can drop a link to that in a chat you do have to register to attend though but yeah. Yep. So someone was asking like, can we get to winter get mentored, like one on one. Yeah, most definitely you can it's going to be like virtually this time as well. Not sure if there will be like an in person one I'm pretty sure it will be virtually as well because I just signed up for that as well. Three tracks for it, a community one, a carrier one and a technical one. So if you want guidance in any of these fields you can join. Cool. Any other questions if you may have feel free to let us know. I received a scholarship code but I'm not able to register because I'm not getting confirmation mail from your end. Please check the spam folder once. I think. Yeah, check the spam folder or it's not immediate. So somebody just goes through and reviews all the application so it isn't automatic approval. So it'll come like shortly like a couple days or a week. Awesome. Cool. We answered all the questions but if anyone has any other questions now would be a good time. Where you share all these links in discord in my discord channel. Yeah, I can share these no problem. I have shared it actually multiple times if you check the announcements channel, you can find it. All right, what all of this will be apart from student track and one on one track. I would check out definitely check out business ones here. Yeah, yeah the business value track I can definitely recommend to you. Kunal, do you have a session I have to actually one is on the CNC of students one meant even and one is on rocking non code contributions with Bart and Matt and Chris and Catherine so pretty fun. Yeah. By the way. This thing that we have started right the two weeks before Q cloud native TV shows. Before QCon, can you tell us a little bit more about that and what, because it's the first one right almost forgot about it. What else can people expect in the future of like the coming two weeks. There will be a giveaway every single day. If you drop into cloud native TV when it goes live. It's the supporter bundle pack so it's a t shirt and a sticker from all the shows. And beyond that, there's also going to be lots of the great things so things like promoting the different co located events. Like prom com wasm day, there's going to be stuff around the stuff around pop spot spotlight live Latino acts talking about the Latin experience in cloud native things like CNCF face off. So lots of great stuff coming up the next two weeks. Awesome. Well, yeah, in order to get notified, make sure you hit the follow button and we'll be getting to see so many live streams and we'll be doing some nice giveaways as well. Cool. All right. Thanks a lot for joining everyone I believe that was about it and make sure you follow CNCF students on Twitter and cloud native company foundation cloud native TV. Check out the schedule and check out all the, you know, nice talks and hopefully we'll see you at at QCon. Thanks. Thanks Bill for joining really appreciate it and everyone have a great day and yeah, good luck. Thanks.