 Hello, wonderful viewers. Welcome to CubeSite, your insider look at KubeCon Cloud NativeCon. I am Katie Greenlee, and I'm super excited to be here with all of you today. Thanks for joining us. A few housekeeping notes before we get started. During the live stream, you are not able to talk as an attendee. There is a Q&A box at the bottom of your screen. Please feel free to drop your questions in there, and we'll get to as many as possible at the end. This is an official live stream of the CNCF, and as such, it is subject to the CNCF Code of Conduct. Please do not add anything to the chat or questions that would be in violation of that Code of Conduct. Basically, please be respectful of all your fellow participants and presenters. Today's live stream is all about KubeTrain. We'll dive into the sustainable alternative for traveling to KubeCon and Cloud NativeCon and how you can book your ticket to join other community members. I can't wait to share some exciting, exclusive insights and how you can take advantage of this experience. I'd like to take a moment and welcome our guests, Andrea, Carla, Mateo, Nila, and Phil, who are organizers of the KubeTrain, and they'll be sharing their knowledge with each of you. So welcome, everyone. Hi. Hello. Hi. Let's get started with a question about providing just under a maybe you can provide us an overview of what KubeTrain is and how the idea came about. Yeah, sure. I mean, hello, everyone. My name is Andrea. I am a CSEF ambassador. And let's say that this idea really blew up in my hands. Let's put it this way. I think I had the first time this idea last summer, a certain point during the summer. And the idea was actually pretty simple. People have been traveling to KubeCon by train since the beginning of times. It's something that's been happening since forever. But it has always happened in a small community, right? Like two people, group of three people, maximum four. There was never a way of organizing bigger groups to bring people to KubeCon. And so I thought it could be cool to have something a little bit more organized, but we just bring group of people going from different cities around France or different cities around Europe in this case and find a nice way of organizing a group going to KubeCon altogether, eventually doing some activity during the train trip, eventually using this kind of group discount to get better ticket prices and such. And yeah, this is how the idea came to be. I started by sharing it with a couple of friends, a couple of colleagues that I trust. And the more I was thinking about it, the more I was like, this could actually work. Let's put it this way. And back in September, October, I decided to, OK, let's try to make it happen. I talked about that with some more colleagues with the other CNCF ambassadors. And I mean, here we are today. I mean, I could have never imagined back then that this initiative would just get so much success. Yeah. I think it's such a great initiative that you started what an awesome dream to kind of have that conceptualize into a great advantage for people to come to KubeCon outside of flying, getting to know each other in a more intimate and sustainable way. And each of you, Mateo, and Carla, and Neela, and Phil, you're each organizers in different cities, correct? And that's kind of how you came about being part of this. Maybe, Phil, you can share a little bit about your experience and what motivated you to get involved in this project. Yeah, thanks. I think Switzerland is basically a train nation. And we would have gone to Paris anyhow by train, because it's much more easy than taking a plane. And so Johan, also a cloud native ambassador, approached me if we want to organize that together. So that would be out of the KCD Zurich and the Swiss cloud native day in Bern. So we said, let's subsidize these tickets. It's a first class ticket and just rent a whole wagon. It's like, I think it's 60 or 62 people. And it sold out within, I think, two months. So it was absolutely crazy. And now to that date, still people are asking us to rent another wagon, but we're not going to do that. But yeah, we're 60 people. We will have a goodie bag with some sandwiches, some drinks. And yeah, just have a good time together. It's a four hour ride. Really looking forward to that. It's going to be awesome. Yeah, that's great. I love hearing that you had such momentum so quickly with the Zurich train to sell out. And I wish I was traveling from there, because I would love a good goodie bag. Mila, what about you, where are you kind of based and how did you get involved in this project? Yeah, so I'm based in Berlin. And I'm normally also traveling myself quite a lot with the train. And yeah, Andrea approached me and asked me what I think about it and I was like, yeah, that's a great idea. First of all, not traveling alone. It's eight hours from Berlin to Paris. And we all know Deutsche Bahn is known for, well, I mean, not being always on time. There might be some hiccups. So sharing this with a group of people definitely is nicer. And also use the time to get to know people. Because when you arrive at KubeCon, it's so big. It feels nice if you already have some familiar faces that you might catch during the conference days for coffee as well. Yeah, and it is a little bit different for us because we couldn't rent out the whole wagon because we had no financial entity to buy the whole ticket. So we are an individual train that basically means everyone who wants to join us needs to buy the ticket individually. But we still make sure that we meet up at the train station and travel together. Great. Do you already have a set meetup for those who are traveling from Berlin to Paris? Yes, we already have the train set that's on the page. So we will meet at Berlin Central Station at, I think, around 8.30 on the 16th of March. And yeah, we will have a communication channel prior to it so we can make sure that we can find each other on the platform. Awesome. And Carla, why don't you share where you're from and how you got involved in the project as well? Yeah, definitely. I'm another recruit from Andrea. I think a lot of us were approached by Andrea because I'm also a CNCF ambassador. So it was good for us to be in this group and get the details on Qtrain. Very excited. I've been living in London for almost 10 years. So it was easy for me to kind of navigate the London logistics. And I know the UK is not the first option you think of when it comes to trains. But the Eurostar is actually a great way to go to France. And that's what we're going to use to do the London Paris parade. Our train is a bit different because we chose to arrive a bit earlier than other trains. We are arriving on the Saturday, the 16th of March, because we decided that we would love to join Rejects as well, which is that the Fund Community Conference happening before KubeCon. And the community here in the UK is very fond of it. They love to combine KubeCon and Rejects. So we try to accommodate that. It's still a smaller group of people because the departure date is different. But we are planning to entertain them. We're going to have some swag as well. And yeah, I'm very excited to get this started. That's awesome. I love that you're taking advantage of getting to the conference early with a group of people to go to Rejects together, have that experience, and then carry on those relationships into the rest of the week. That's such a great way to kick off a fun KubeCon and Claudio Kahn week for Paris. Mateo, why don't you tell me a little bit about where you're from and how you got involved as well? So I was also recruited from Andrea. Earlier, I would say Andrea and William, actually. And I'm from Amsterdam, so I live there. And the train from Amsterdam is always amazing because I think we have a very big community already for KCD. In fact, most of our attendees and people that I've seen signing up for the train are from KCD or already in the meetup groups. So on the train, we're organizing some games, for example, because we have three and a half hours until we go to Paris. So we're going to have some fun, maybe some quits, just to have some fun on the ride. And I'm very happy that Andrea involved me in this project because I believe that sustainability is not only a matter of software and green software, but also some activism, even in a small action that you can take, like choosing the train over an airplane. In our case, it's easier because in Europe, I think that the train and the railways are very convenient, even for a medium distance and long distance travel. And since I've been a digital nomad, I also use the train a lot, so it's amazing that I can take it with a lot of people. Yeah, that's awesome. And is Amsterdam having its own train? Is it an individual train just like everyone else? What's that kind of look like for Amsterdam boats? We basically booked up until now Alpha-Wagon, and it's going to depart at 3.10 on the 18th of March. We already have our communication channels with the attendees. The tickets are almost sold out, so we still need some more attendees. But I think that we will reach that very easy. And yeah, we are having fun. And yeah, that's it. Great. I know each of you talked a little bit about they can book their tickets through the kubetrain.io website, correct? And once they've booked their tickets, depending on their location, it sounds like there's ways for people to be marked as independent or the trains are marked as independent or if they're a wagon. If they're independent and you're traveling from, say, where Nila is from, Berlin, or even Carla from the UK, how are you going to recognize each other? How are you communicating where they meet? How are you pulling them together so that way they know that they're with the right folks just to kind of give people an idea of how they get the information of where to go? So the idea is for an independent train, this problem is not there because pretty much independent train means that we tell you that there will be a group on a certain train, on a certain wagon, and you book the ticket yourself. So you already know the seats you need to go to. For bigger groups like the one of Mateo, the one of Carla, the one of Phil, the organizer of the group, the person that takes care of a certain group always keeps a communication channel open pretty much. So everybody will get their ticket on time in advance and it will be very easy to recognize the other members of the team. But you will also at least know your seat number in advance and know your wagon in advance so that there is no issues finding the other people that are part of the group. And yeah, we try to make it, of course, as easy as possible for people really to join. We want to make it as straightforward and as easy as possible. Great. Yeah, I think there's ways. Obviously, we are working on creating a set of joining instructions with all the details and everybody's going to receive these communications. Everybody's going to receive their own ticket just in case for any reason we miss each other at the meeting point. That's possible. But individuals should be equipped to board the train even without us, if they miss us for any reason. One thing that I wanted to mention about the London train is that people are not actually purchasing tickets, but they are making donations to a charity. Because we decided we were lucky to have a sponsor and we decided that the sponsor will cover the ticket cost and people need to show proof of donation to an environmental charity in order to secure their ticket. So as soon as we have this confirmation, we send the details to the person and we secure their seats on the carriage. But yeah, we have a smaller group, so it's going to be only half even less of the carriage. Yeah, that's a good thing to note. So it sounds like some trains are sponsored and some trains aren't. How does someone come in and help to sponsor train if they want to or location at this time? In general, if you're interested in one specific location, you can just go to kubetrain.io. There is a list of departures that are already existing, that already have organizers. And then you can just reach out to the organizers. Usually it's just Zurich at kubetrain.io or Amsterdam at kubetrain.io. It's just like the name of the city at kubetrain.io. In case there is a departure station that you don't see and maybe you would be interested in having it or you would be interested in eventually sponsoring next year, the email info at kubetrain.io is always active for any other requests put this way. Great. I think a few of you touched base on what is going to happen during the train ride. Phil talked about the goodie bag that they'll be handing out. What other things can we expect for each of the different train rides? Are there like a networking sessions happening? Are there kind of fun things that are going to happen throughout the train ride to get people to know each other? Is anyone hosting anything along those lines? I'd love to kind of hear what each of you are doing to help bring the community together even more during this experience. Mateo, let's start with you. Yeah, so in our case, we want to organize games but I also think that we could organize something along the lines of setting up a schedule for QCon because most people probably already know but QCon is huge so you need to figure your schedule out and if you don't want to miss your talks, you need to already know where the next talk is going to be to move fast so that I think it's a very useful thing to do and sometimes since you don't have time on a plane and you don't have all the comfort, it's very difficult to see the schedule but since we are in a group on a train, it's easier to just grab some a piece of paper and just write down a schedule, for example. And then yeah, we would love some games because we want to do like some networking, even like some fun networking, of course. That's awesome. I think it's a great point to talk about planning out your schedule before you get to QCon and maybe working with other people who may have gone to QCon prior, right? Exactly. There's a lot. Yeah, we might have some first timers and if you are a first timer, you're gonna like probably lose some talks because you don't know where to go. Of course, the venue is always new so it's also a challenge but I think that we're gonna make it so. Yeah. Phil, why don't you tell us a little bit more about what you're doing with the Zert Wagon since? Since it's 60 people in one wagon together, right? Yeah, I think we just played a bit by ear. As I said, we will have a goodie bag with some food with sandwiches, a dessert. We will have some beer. Beer always helps to have a good mood. So we will play it by ear and we thought about having some lightning talks but I think since we are on two floors, it's not really feasible to do that in my opinion but let's have a good conversation. Let's meet lots of, I mean, 60 people is quite a lot so looking really forward to that and yeah. That's great. Maybe you'll have some first timers where they can in those conversations just like Mateo's talk about the schedule, they can kind of talk about best practices while they're there, you know, tips for KubeCon, right? We all know. Absolutely. KubeCon's a marathon, it's not a sprint race so pace yourself, right? Yep. Absolutely. Nila, what about you? Are you, I know it's a little bit different because you're an individual train. Do you have anything that you're planning on, you know, helping to create that networking experience for Berlin? Yes, so we were thinking of encouraging people to switch seats from time to time so people can mix up and don't sit always next to the same person but then also because it's an eight hour ride so we also want to make sure people don't feel like networking for an hour, they have also maybe the possibility to sit at seats that are indicated for people that don't want to network maybe at that time so I think it's also like eight hours I don't know if you can network for eight hours. I bring for sure also some board games and then I also like feel set, play it by ear maybe then a group wants to sit at one of those famous tables in the train and wants to play a game and others maybe a moment with music and be quiet but then still have the opportunity to mix and match during the train ride. That's awesome. I think you're right, giving people the opportunity to take that break from networking is really key during travel but also leading into KubeCon, right? KubeCon, like I said, it's that marathon there's a lot of opportunities to network make sure you're taking care of yourself prior going into KubeCon while you're at KubeCon and definitely when you get home giving yourself that space to be able to feel empowered to step away and not network for a moment and take some silence for yourself is always important. And Karla, what about the Euro star? What kind of things are you have planned for people? I know you're all going to rejects together is the plan like when you get into Paris to go straight over to reject? Like what is kind of that look like for your people? Actually, we're taking it easy because reject starts on Sunday so we arrive later in the afternoon and so people can actually check in, relax first but for the train ride very similar to the others not strict schedule at the moment we thought about having some quizzes as well just because pop quiz here is a thing and it could be a good way also to engage people with tips around KubeCon it's a conversation starter as well if you got the answer right or wrong yeah, hopefully it's next as well and I'm totally gonna steal the idea from Matteo of build your own schedule I think we can dedicate the moment to okay, now you all are open schedule you log in and you choose the sessions you want to attend I think that's a great idea because I never find time to do that I'm sure I'm not the only one Yeah, exactly I think it can be I think we all have prior to KubeCon like this idea of like why it's gonna look like especially when it comes to building out schedules that we're gonna go to all these talks and then something comes up inevitably and you don't end up going but I think it's a great way to kind of talk to people about oh, you're gonna go to that talk too I really want to go to it let's meet up and go together and make sure we get to see that speaker when they arrive in Paris under what kind of do you have anything planned is there anything that's kind of pulling all these different locations and people who are traveling to Paris together so that way they can celebrate that they all took advantage of the Kube train Yeah, sure thing I mean as you've heard like trains are arriving right now on a couple of different days we really wanted to keep it as flexible as possible right? It is the first time we organized this initiative we wanted to be as flexible as we could and we did we wanted to put as little restrictions as possible really the majority of people you know they will be they will be arriving in Paris by the 18 and so what we're doing and this is a Monday a day before the co-located event start and what we're going to organize in the Monday evening is a final you know Kube train party that is going to you know like they call the people that are coming to Kube by train but also some members of the local community right? Because there are some people for example that are already based in Paris including myself this is the biggest irony like I I'm already based in the city where KubeCon is going to be so I will be just taking care of you know organizing the party and making sure that people that come here by a Kube train they have a nice experience and they have a nice final event so the 18 in the evening we are going to a party in a bar here in in Paris as a conclusion of this initiative for Euro 2024 and you know just trying to to make sure that everybody has as a little moment to exchange to celebrate because you know the people that are right now in the call with me that organize different Kube trains but many other people are part of this initiative they also need to have like a moment to you know see like that this is actual the reality and it's not like just slack messages pretty much and you know a lot of credit for like making Kube train and reality goes goes definitely to them it's something I could have never accomplished at all yeah that's awesome I'm excited to to get to see everyone in in Paris for this I'll be at the party unfortunately I will not be traveling by train it would be very hard from Conrad in the United States to go to by train to Paris but maybe one day I'll be able to fly in early and take a train to another Kube Con because I have a feeling that this is going to be something that continues on to future years just based off of the momentum it's getting and the excitement that people are bringing forth I know a lot of people are super excited to be part of this you know while we're kind of talking about excitement what is the thing that you are the most excited about when it comes to to cube train and in you know leading into the next couple weeks for for this for your departures Carly let's start with you what are you the most excited about it's it's hard because in general the the old Kube Con week it's a very exciting moment and this cube train feels like an extension of the excitement just because it's a way to engage with yet another initiative with the community and for me every opportunity to be with the community is is a win it's maybe during this ride another initiative similar to cube train is gonna be conceived you never know like these are the moments where people come together and they come up with new ideas for the future so this kind of serendipity or creativity that's what excites me yeah it looks like Phil you're nodding along the same excitement you have from it yeah yeah absolutely I think cube con now starts already in Zurich in a way right with all these 60 people yeah and it's also it's only four hour ride so nearly to you yeah eight hours is a lot of networking I think everyone can do four hours so so I think that's yeah I think looking forward to that and then directly to the to the party I think our train arrives like five sixish check into the hotel and then go to the party with lots of people so I'm really really excited but I have to pace myself absolutely because as you said Katie it's a marathon so yeah let's let's don't overdo it yeah definitely Nila what about you what are you the most excited about when it comes to your long journey with all those folks and getting to cube con yeah I think Carla and Phil mentioned that cube con will start earlier right so you will have cube con light starting in your city and you like you you have the time to just and then before you go to this big venue and have all the people there but also I'm quite excited to see maybe that this can motivate people to take the train instead the plane because I think that's something we should be better in Europe when we are traveling and especially with conferences and I'm excited to see that we are more train travelers or becoming more train travelers in the future and that's something that I'm also excited for yeah and I agree I think this is a great first step to reminding people that there's an alternative to taking planes and you know that alternative gives you that chance to get the extra networking to make new friends outside of you know that quick option to get somewhere right and then of course you're helping from a sustainability portion of it Mateo what about you know what are you the most excited about so one thing I'm excited about like being on a train instead of a plane because I like to walk so I can finally walk during the trip I don't have to stay restrained on my seat it's a bit uncomfortable for me so I need to walk sometime also I can work on my laptop or okay not work probably but like look at the conferences and I do some social media posts so I can actually be productive but also I'm excited for the party I have to say it because it's going to be amazing also thanks to our sponsors and I think it's it's a pretty good idea that Andrea had to have also a party at the beginning of the event so I think it's going to be it's going to be very very cool yeah I agree I think that flexibility of being able to not be stuck in a seat on a plane right it's the worst for me so I get it needing to get up and walk around and then getting to come together at that party and Andrea what a kudos to you for pulling all of this together and and pulling together the party I think this is going to be a great way to kind of kick off kubecon with that being said we're kind of at at the 30 minute mark I want to um take a minute and have each of you provide any last last words before we sign off for the day anything you want people to be aware of when it comes to to the train I know definitely one is if your location's not listed but you're traveling by train make sure you include your train as an individual one and people can join you as you travel reach out to info at cube train.io is it is the tip for those who may not see their location on cube train.io yeah yeah exactly I mean of course you know right now we have like what one month left to to kubecon so maybe a little bit too late to organize the whole you know sponsorship and everything just for a question of timing but you know I mean this initiative is really just like bringing people together right as you were saying Katie like somebody can be maybe a little bit let's take like the example of Berlin people can be a little bit intimidated by like doing an eight hour ride of train you know like okay it's going to take a long time and everything but if they know that they're traveling with somebody else if they know that they're traveling with a group then you know the whole experience becomes a little bit more fun a little bit more entertaining and it becomes really an alternative to like traveling by plane and this is what like really pushed like I feel pushed many of us to like participate into this and yeah I mean I'm really looking forward to see all of you here in Paris I'm really looking forward to the party as well because I feel that's when I will feel like this thing is a reality you know like this is actually happening and very much really good forward to it great anyone else yeah if I may add a few words I would like to thank all the people that are working in the background because I'm the one at the forefront right now but in my case we have an amazing community behind the Cube Train Netherlands so Alessandro, Sevi, Leon like all the people helping us Chris they are like looking for sponsors and also like have been me with the reservations and stuff Kathleen there is a bunch an amazing bunch I would say for for the Cube Train most of them are from the KCD group but also from the Wops days so we came together from two different communities also in cloud native but and it's amazing I think it's something that thanks to Andrea we pulled out Kudos to him as well yeah I think that's a great point is that it takes a real community to pull all of this together it's not an individual effort so definitely thanks to all those people behind the scenes who are helping thanks to all of you who have helped to pull your communities together it's going to be a really great start to CubeCon I'm excited at the party to hear the cool things that happen to people while they're on the train and the conversations that came out of it the ideas that people came up with the way that they built their schedule for their week I'm super excited for that and thank you all of you for joining me today to talk about the Cube Train and I'll see all of you in Paris thanks everyone thank you so much thank you see you in Paris bye bye bye bye