CNCF-hosted Co-located Events are masterfully designed to foster discussion, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing in a vendor neutral space with participants just like you! Connect with fellow attendees interested in:

ArgoCon, BackstageCon, CiliumCon, Cloud Native AI + Kubeflow Day, Cloud Native Telco Day, FluxCon, KeycloakCon, Kubernetes on Edge Day, KyvernoCon, Observability Day, Open Source SecurityCon, OpenTofu Day, Platform Engineering Day, Agentics Day: MCP & Agents, and WasmCon. 

From technical sessions to lightning talks, CNCF-hosted co-located events support the future of cloud native computing.

PROJECT LIGHTNING TALKS - MONDAY, 23 MARCH

Audience: Attendees (Beginner) 

Projects will have the opportunity to deliver lightning talks lasting 5-minutes during 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 and are based on availability.

Because these talks are centered on the project rather than any individual speaker, complimentary passes are not provided. If you don’t already have a pass and are unable to secure funding to attend, we recommend applying for a scholarship. Alternatively, if you're unable to attend, we would still consider the talk if another project representative is available to present on your behalf.

A maximum of 1 speaker is allowed per Project Lightning Talk. Please do not submit more.

CONTRIBFEST -TUESDAY - THURSDAY, 24 - 26 MARCH

Audience: Attendees (Intermediate + Expert)

Contribfest sessions are available to all conference attendees and are 75 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:

• 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, incubating, and sandbox projects. SIGs, TAGs, and Working Groups are not eligible for a Contribfest session at this time.

A maximum of 5 speakers total are allowed per Contribfest.

MAINTAINER TRACK - TUESDAY - THURSDAY, 24 - 26 MARCH

Audience: Non-Maintainers and End-Users (Any)

Leaders of CNCF Graduated and Incubating Projects and Activities (Such as members of Working Groups or TAGs) can submit one 30-minute Maintainer Track session during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon. Participation is subject to availability and submitting does not guarantee selection. 

Each speaker can participate in only one Maintainer Track session. This does not count against the speaker limits for Kubecon + CloudNativeCon standard CFP.

Requirements for Submission

Graduated/Incubating Projects

• To submit, you must be a maintainer on the list for a CNCF Graduated or Incubating project.
• The actual speaker(s) do not need active maintainer status but should be contributors to the project.
• 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, or Subproject.

A maximum of 5 speakers total are allowed per Maintainer Track session.

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. 

To submit a proposal you must be one of the following:

• TOC Representative
• Graduated Project Maintainer or Org Member
• TAG Chair, Technical Lead or Working Group Lead
• Incubating Project Maintainer

Sessions may be submitted in one of the following categories (descriptions of each category are available here):

• Kubernetes
• Growing Contributors
• CI/CD/Distribution
• Open submission option
• Project Meetings*

*Please note: Project Meetings will be listed on the schedule with the project name only, and meeting facilitator will not receive a speaker registration pass.