Learn About the CloudFest Hackathon 2025

Carole:

Hello everyone, my name’s Carole Olinger, and I’m super excited to be able to host an episode of Do the Woo today. We are going to be talking about the CloudFest Hackathon, which is just around the corner.

I am the Head of the CloudFest Hackathon, and I have some awesome guests today. We are going to discuss what we are tackling in just a week from now. You’re going to find out from some of our project leads, some of our partners, and our project support team.

That being said, maybe let’s do a quick round of introductions. Let’s start with Pascal.

Pascal:

Alright. Hey everyone, I’m Pascal. I’m a longtime WordPress contributor. I work at Google on some WordPress projects. I also maintain WP-CLI together with Alain, and that’s how I got into this year’s CloudFest Hackathon because I’m leading a project related to WP-CLI.

Carole:

Thank you. So let’s stick with the projects and move on to John.

John:

Hi everyone, I’m John. I am the Director of WordPress Security at Human Made, which is a WordPress specialist development agency. I also work as the WordPress Core Security Team Lead. And yeah, hi everyone! Looking forward to having a chat about what we’re going to be doing at the hackathon.

Carole:

Thank you! Great to have you here, and great to have you at the hackathon. It’s going to be the first one for you, right?

John:

First one for me. Yep. Yep. Looking forward to it.

Carole:

Same here! So let’s move on to Alain, who is part of the project support team for the CloudFest Hackathon.

Alain:

Hi everyone, I’m Alain. As Pascal already mentioned, I co-maintain WP-CLI with him. I have been active in the WordPress space for a while in different capacities. I work as a Principal Architect at Yoast, and I’m one of the project mentors for the CloudFest Hackathon.

That means I try to get the best combination of projects, project leads, and attendees planned upfront so that, while we’re at the event, we can be as effective as possible.

Carole:

Great! We couldn’t do any of this without the support of our partners.

Just to give you a brief explanation—if you’re not familiar with the concept of the CloudFest Hackathon, we have partners who not only receive brand recognition but also send some of their team members to actively participate in the hackathon.

But their contributions make it possible for us to invite contributors from different open-source communities to come to CloudFest and stay with us at Europa-Park. We cover their accommodation, provide catering, and ensure they have everything they could possibly need during the three days of the hackathon. Our partners make all of that possible.

So yeah, we have two representatives here from Omnisend and Patchstack. Let’s move on to Vytautas from Omnisend.

Vytautas:

Hello! Thanks for the clear introduction. So I’m less technical than the previous speakers—I focus on tech partnerships, meaning all the partnerships and business development that can be done through integrations or by simplifying the day-to-day lives of our customers, merchants, or anyone using WordPress.

That’s mainly our focus, and one of the reasons we wanted to join CloudFest is because we hope to solve these real-world issues.

Carole:

Amazing! Thanks for supporting our event. And now we have Oliver from Patchstack. Thanks for partnering with the CloudFest Hackathon! Let’s hear from you.

Oliver:

Super happy to be here! Yeah. I’m Oliver. I’m the CEO and co-founder of Patchstack.

What Patchstack does is exactly what the name suggests—patching the stack. In the WordPress ecosystem, we do a lot of threat intelligence. We help agencies, development companies, and hosting providers figure out whether websites have any security vulnerabilities inside their WordPress builds.

We also help plugin developers ensure they ship more secure code, fix vulnerabilities, and report them correctly. I’ve been in the WordPress ecosystem for over 10 years, and it’s been quite a ride. Looking forward to the hackathon as well!

Carole:

Yay! What I find amazing—sticking with our partners for a moment—is that both of your companies are first-time partners with the event, first-time attendees, and, if that wasn’t exciting enough, both of your teams are also co-leading a project at the hackathon!

That’s a lot of support, and we couldn’t be happier about our partners becoming more actively involved in the event. We’ve seen that evolve a lot over the past years.

For example, at the beginning, we had classic partners at CloudFest who were more on the hardware side of things. They supported the initiative financially but weren’t necessarily actively involved. They didn’t always send team members to participate, and some just contributed funding without any hands-on engagement—let alone leading a project.

So I find it really exciting to have new partners on board who are so actively involved. We also try to give you the best possible guidance for everything that awaits your teams so that you are well prepared.

Maybe you want to share something about the projects your teams will be tackling on-site. What about you, Oliver?

Oliver:

So, as I mentioned, we work a lot with cybersecurity and threat intelligence. One major issue that’s very much on our radar right now is the European Union’s Cyber Resilience Act, which was passed in October last year.

The first regulatory requirements kick in during Q1 of 2026, so we can’t really ignore supply chain security anymore. This doesn’t just affect WordPress—it affects the entire open-source ecosystem.

The regulation is essentially putting companies and open-source projects into two categories:

• Manufacturers
• Open-source stewards

Each of these categories has different regulatory requirements that will apply to open-source projects, including WordPress itself.

At the hackathon, we’re looking at how we can lead the way in the open-source ecosystem by showing that open-source projects are capable of meeting compliance first, securing the supply chain, and developing the necessary tools.

This is something we’re going to explore deeper at the hackathon to see what kind of solutions we can come up with and speed up the process.

Carole:

That sounds really important and timely. It’s critical to increase awareness within open-source projects and for businesses that need to comply with these regulations.

If I’m correctly informed, Nestor from your team will be co-leading this project together with John, who’s also here.

John, is there something you’d like to add about this project?

John:

Yeah, that’s right! Nestor, who’s the Head of Security and Engineering at Patchstack, is going to be co-leading our hackathon project, which, by the way, is titled Securing the Supply Chain for Open Source Software.

I think Oliver’s completely right. The compliance and regulatory side of things is really going to drive the work we do at the hackathon. It will ultimately result in a strong focus on developers and software suppliers, since they’re the ones who will need to comply with the new CRA regulations.

But also, as we all hope with regulations, it’s not just about ticking checkboxes. Hopefully, this will actually lead to more secure software for everyone.

We have a long list of things that Nestor and I want to work on during the hackathon. Once we arrive, we’ll refine our focus based on who turns up, what skills they have, and what they’re interested in.

But yeah, our ultimate goal is to find ways to help developers and software distributors comply with the new security regulations that apply to software development.

Carole:

That’s always part of the challenge when you arrive on-site! Attendees will choose which project they want to participate in after the very short project pitches at the beginning of the event.

For all of our project leads, that means figuring out what skill sets they have at their table, identifying what’s missing, and ensuring that all attendees reach a similar level of understanding. Distributing tasks effectively is another challenge.

Pascal, I believe you’ve led a project at a previous hackathon, right?

Pascal:

That’s right. I can’t remember if it was two years ago, but yeah, it was a great experience. I think I first attended as a participant, then led a project, and now I’m leading again.

I enjoy both sides of it, and, like John mentioned, it really depends on who shows up. You make decisions on the spot based on what skills and interests people bring to the table. So yeah, you never really know what the final outcome will be, which makes it exciting.

Carole:

Exactly! And for the audience, if you want to take a closer look at the projects we’ve briefly introduced, you can visit our hackathon website at hackathon.cloudfest.com.

There, you’ll find a Projects menu where you can see the categories for 2025, as well as for the past two editions. You might even recognize some initiatives that have grown out of previous hackathons, which is pretty exciting!

We only have three days, and then the projects are out in the open. It’s up to the communities to continue the work and spread the word—which is so important.

This year, we are also making a bigger effort to increase awareness of what we are actually achieving at the hackathon. We want to explore ways to make projects sustainable, ensuring more resources are invested in the most promising ones.

This is also why it’s so important to have partners who are actively involved.

And speaking of organizing, we were talking about challenges that project leads might face at the beginning of the event. I mentioned that we’ve been trying to provide more guidance—especially for new attendees and project leads.

Alain, since you’re part of the project support team, maybe you can share how your role has evolved in supporting project leads, and also what new things we’ve added this year?

Alain:

Yes, absolutely.

Initially, when I got involved, there wasn’t a central theme or topic for the hackathon. We simply reviewed project submissions, removed any that weren’t applicable, and mainly worked with the ones that were left.

Sometimes, projects came directly from partners, and sometimes from open-source contributors. But there was less structure in shaping the event as a whole.

With a limited number of attendees and a fixed number of projects, we noticed that some projects didn’t match well with the available skill sets. Some had too many participants, while others had too few, which led to imbalances.

So, we improved the way we match projects with attendees. Now, we make sure that:

• Every project has the right skills available.
• There’s a balanced distribution of attendees across projects.
• Each project has enough support to make real progress.

At the same time, we also want partners and open-source contributors to benefit equally. Ideally, partners make an investment that creates something valuable, while the open-source community gains meaningful contributions to their projects.

Over time, we’ve become more proactive in shaping the hackathon’s structure. Instead of just reviewing project proposals, we now actively help refine them and ensure teams are well-prepared before the event starts.

This year, we took things a step further.

Last year, we noticed that a lot of effort went into preparing the event in advance, but during the event, project leads weren’t receiving as much support as they needed.

So this year, we expanded our team. We also created a Project Lead Handbook, giving project leads a clear set of expectations, best practices, and logistical details to help them succeed.

On top of that, we are planning to hold a Q&A session (or even two, depending on availability) where project leads can ask any questions before the hackathon begins.

Carole:

I’m really proud that we managed to put this together this year!

And I’d also like to take this opportunity to give a shoutout to Lucas Radke and Terry Miller, who are part of the project support team but aren’t on this call.

Last week, we published the Project Lead Handbook, and as Alain mentioned, we’ll schedule calls with project leads so they feel fully prepared before they even arrive.

This is especially important for first-time attendees and project leads.

Each year, we focus on improving the quality of the event rather than simply increasing the number of attendees.

We receive hundreds of applications from open-source contributors, but we only have around 100 spots available. It’s always a tough selection process.

If we were to grow the hackathon significantly, we’d lose the special atmosphere that makes it so productive. With more attendees, we would also need many more projects, and we’d spend too much time just presenting rather than actually working on solutions.

So, we’ve intentionally kept the event at around 110 participants to maintain productivity, collaboration, and impact.

John, I know you’ve looked into some of the previous hackathon projects. What do you think about our focus on long-term viability?

John:

I was really pleased to see that you’re focusing on ensuring hackathon projects don’t just fade away after the event.

It’s way too easy to work on something at a hackathon and then forget about it. But looking at past projects, I noticed a mix—some ended when the hackathon ended, while others have continued evolving.

You get real value from hackathon projects when there’s an incentive and support to keep working on them—especially when they have potential to become something bigger.

That’s why I really like your approach of prioritizing quality over quantity. If we can’t add more projects, the best thing we can do is make the existing ones as impactful as possible.

Carole:

Yeah, thanks for that feedback! I truly believe that’s where the biggest opportunity for us to improve lies.

We haven’t always had the resources to spread the word about hackathon results after the event, or to track the progress of projects that continue beyond the hackathon itself.

That’s now changing because I’ll be involved more closely with CloudFest over the coming years—not just during the hackathon but throughout the year.

It’s also changing thanks to the partners we’re attracting and the media partners supporting us.

For example, Bob, who isn’t on this call but who runs Do the Woo, is helping us share the stories of what we’re achieving. This kind of visibility is critical in keeping the momentum going.

This is also the first year that we’ve been in a privileged position to actually turn down some partnership offers.

Because if you just accept every partner that applies, you could end up with too many partners sending their own team members, taking up most of the available attendee spots.

That would throw off the balance between open-source contributors and partner representatives.

We always aim for a 50/50 balance. In previous years, it was more like 70% open-source contributors and 30% partners. But now that partners are getting more actively involved, we’re approaching a 60/40 split—and I think we’re heading in the right direction.

We also selected partners whose projects are 100% open source and who bring valuable skills and knowledge. We want partners who are intrinsically motivated to keep these projects alive after the event and who also have the resources to do so.

This is all part of a broader vision that keeps evolving each year. And that’s exactly what makes it so fulfilling—and sparks so much joy for me to be leading this event!

Now, let’s move back to Vytautas, because Omnisend is in that same position—first-time partner, first-time attendees, and first-time project leads.

Vytautas, maybe you can share a little more about the open-source challenges your team wants to tackle at Europa-Park?

Vytautas:

Yeah! So first, I just want to compliment your idea of making sure the hackathon’s impact lasts longer than just a few weeks or a month after the event.

I think our team at Omnisend will actually be able to help with that—because we specialize in automation and making communication more efficient. So maybe we can help in some way!

As for our project, one of the biggest challenges we’ve identified—one that’s not regularly addressed for merchants and businesses using WordPress—is how to move from staging environments to live environments without losing data.

When transferring everything, how do you ensure smooth migrations? What are the best procedures? How do we automate these processes?

It’s not just about writing a guide—we want to find ways to standardize and automate these workflows.

Because, let’s be honest—no one wants to shut down their website for hours just to move updates from staging to production.

And from a business owner’s perspective, it’s really hard to explain why this process is so complex and why it costs so much in terms of time and resources.

So we hope the hackathon will help us generate some great ideas—and, ideally, develop a real solution that simplifies this process for WordPress users.

Carole:

That sounds like a really important challenge!

Alain, I don’t think you were directly involved in mentoring this project, right? That was Lucas?

Alain:

Yeah, that was Lucas.

But I’m definitely looking forward to supporting the Omnisend team behind the scenes once the project gets going!

Especially because both WP-CLI maintainers will be on-site. So, for anything CLI-based, you’ll have all the support you need to move quickly.

Carole:

That sounds really promising!

Pascal, speaking of WP-CLI, what exactly are you planning to do with WP-CLI during the hackathon?

Pascal:

Great question!

Our goal is to make WP-CLI a touchpoint for the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

MCP is a new standard that someone described as “the USB port for applications and LLMs.”

It’s basically a standardized way for chatbots and AI agents to interact with external systems like WordPress.

So, in theory, you could type into your AI chat:

“I want to create a new post with an image.”

And the system could autonomously fetch that information from WordPress using the MCP standard.

We’re going to try implementing that using WP-CLI as the interface—but ideally, we’ll keep it flexible so it could also work via an HTTP endpoint or other methods, not just CLI.

Carole:

That’s so cool!

And I love how Alain immediately offered support to Vytautas and the Omnisend team with WP-CLI expertise.

That’s something I’m super passionate about—cross-collaboration.

This isn’t just about WordPress, even though we’re on a WordPress-focused podcast.

At the hackathon, we have other open-source communities involved, like:

• TYPO3 (one of our top-tier partners)
• Joomla (though fewer this year due to their own conference on the same weekend)
• Drupal, PHP communities, and others

We actively reach out to these communities because, let’s be honest—there aren’t many opportunities for these different open-source projects to collaborate and learn from each other’s successes and mistakes.

John, Oliver, Vytautas—do you see any exciting opportunities for cross-collaboration within your projects, or even with other projects happening at the hackathon?

John:

Oh, I’m fully expecting to be walking around and checking out what everyone else is working on!

I’ll probably sit down for an hour… and then inevitably get up and start networking with other teams.

At WordPress contributor days, a lot of people do the same thing—they work on something in the morning, then go around and see what everyone else is up to.

So I definitely see that happening here, too.

Oliver:

Yeah, supply chain security is something that will ultimately affect every project at the hackathon.

If you’re building open-source software, you need to think about these things.

So for anyone working on supply chain security, one of the best ways to contribute is just walking around, observing how others are building their projects, and figuring out how security can be baked in from the start.

That’s definitely something I’m going to be focused on!

Carole:

I agree! I already have a strong feeling that the Patchstack team and John are going to be very, very busy at the hackathon—not only with the project they’re leading but also with all the other projects that could use their security expertise.

Looking at the project list, for example, the CMS Cloud Manager project seems like it might attract some of the same contributors who are interested in security.

And obviously, the same goes for all the WP-CLI enthusiasts—anything connected to WordPress, or even across CMS projects, will definitely benefit from Pascal and Alain’s input.

As we said earlier, we have more resources this year from the organizing and project support team. So we’ll be actively helping mix and match contributors on-site to make sure everyone gets the most out of it!

Any other thoughts on cross-collaboration within projects?

Vytautas:

I totally agree—we need to be on-site to get the best ideas.

And it’s so important to actually meet people in person. That makes everything flow so much better.

Those couple of days where we meet face-to-face are probably the most crucial. I’m really looking forward to that!

Carole:

Right! And something else that might interest our audience is that we have some friendly competition at the CloudFest Hackathon!

For the third time in a row, we are partnering with an amazing charity initiative called Groundbreaker Talents.

Instead of giving away prizes, we reached out to our partners and asked them to sponsor different award categories.

100% of the funds collected from these sponsorships go to Groundbreaker Talents, where we are funding a full scholarship for a female developer in Uganda!

This scholarship provides:

• An 8 to 12-month boot camp.
• Training to help female developers become job-market ready.
• Support for women who already have some programming knowledge but need extra skills to be competitive, especially outside Uganda or Africa.

Last year’s scholarship recipient, Bobbie from Uganda, will be attending this year’s hackathon and contributing to the project of her choice!

The CloudFest Hackathon Awards

This year, the award categories include:

• Tech Visionary Award
• Dream Team Award (for best collaboration, diversity, and inclusivity)
• Social Media Master Award
• Pitch Perfect Award (for the best project presentation)
• Breaking Barriers Award
• Overall Hackathon Winner

To determine the winners, we have a jury panel, and four of our jury members are on this call!

The jury includes:

• Myself (Carole) as Head of the CloudFest Hackathon.
• The full project support team (Lucas, Terry, and Alain).
• Our top-tier sponsors, with Vytautas from Omnisend and Oliver from Patchstack as jury representatives.
• A representative from Groundbreaker Talents in Uganda.

Vytautas, how do you feel about being on the jury?

Vytautas:

Well, I think teams listening to this podcast will now know how to win extra points from Oliver—just don’t sleep for 72 hours!

(Laughs)

But honestly, I’m honored to be on the jury.

I’ve participated in hackathons as a mentor, an organizer, and a jury member before, and one thing I always look for is real value.

A PowerPoint presentation alone isn’t enough. The final product doesn’t need to be fully polished, but it must be functional and must solve a real problem.

That’s what I’ll be looking for!

Oliver:

Yeah! I’ve been involved in hackathons before, and what excites me is seeing how much can actually be achieved in such a short time.

With the rise of AI and LLMs, I think we can push even further than before.

Also, as someone working in security, I’m particularly interested in seeing how teams approach supply chain security from the very start.

Because every project at the hackathon will need to think about security at some point!

Carole:

That’s a great point!

And just to add to what Vytautas mentioned about presentations—there will be a presentation of results during the hackathon, followed by an award ceremony.

But the results will also be presented at CloudFest on the main Ring Stage the day after the hackathon.

That’s a huge opportunity to showcase our achievements to a wider audience.

So for teams who put extra effort into making their presentations great, it will also benefit them on the big stage at CloudFest!

Fun Hackathon Traditions

And of course, we can’t forget the traditions at the hackathon!

Pascal, you briefly mentioned the Mario Kart Tournament earlier. Is that happening again this year?

Pascal:

Oh yeah! It’s a hackathon classic!

We always have a Mario Kart Tournament, and this year should be no exception.

Maybe this time, I’ll actually win! (Laughs)

Carole:

Not as long as I’m there! Just kidding—I’m terrible at Mario Kart. But it’s always big fun!

Carole:

So, let’s wrap things up with one last question.

What are you most looking forward to at the CloudFest Hackathon?

John, let’s start with you!

John:

I’ll be honest—I’m really intrigued by Pascal’s WP-CLI project!

The idea of integrating WP-CLI with the Model Context Protocol for AI and LLMs could open up entirely new workflows.

I think it could lead to some really slick ways of interacting with websites, like having a two-way conversation with your site.

And since it’s using structured data instead of LLMs just making things up, it has huge potential.

But other than that, I’m just excited to see all the projects and meet people.

I don’t think I’ll be sitting down much—I’ll be walking around and checking out everything.

Carole:

I can just picture you running from table to table, trying to contribute to every project at once!

John:

Oh yeah, I’ll definitely get my steps in!

Oliver:

For me, I’m really looking forward to seeing how much progress people can make in such a short time.

With all the AI coding tools available now, I think we can push projects even further than before.

And of course, since I’m focused on security, I’ll be watching how supply chain security can be integrated early into various projects.

I think there will be lots of opportunities for collaboration!

Pascal:

For me, I’m really excited about all the hallway conversations and the chance to interact with people from different communities.

And of course, I’m hoping John and Oliver will come over and help with my project!

Oh, and the Mario Kart Tournament, obviously!

Carole:

Haha! We’ve got some serious competition this year.

Vytautas, what about you?

Vytautas:

Well, since this is our first time at the hackathon, our expectations are wide open.

But the biggest thing I’m excited about is seeing our team step outside their usual environment.

We’re getting the chance to work with people from different communities, and that’s so valuable.

Also, I believe that by the end of the hackathon, our project will be functional—and hopefully, something that real people will be able to use!

Carole:

That’s a great point. And I just want to say—I’m so glad you’re stepping outside your bubble.

One of the things I always advocate for is for people to go beyond their usual communities.

Yes, we all love WordCamps, but it’s so valuable to attend different kinds of events and get new perspectives.

I feel so honored to be working on an event that brings together my beloved WordPress community with the broader B2B tech world.

It’s so important to build bridges between open-source communities and businesses—now more than ever!

Oliver:

I totally agree! You can learn so much when you step outside your usual circle.

Carole:

Alain, how about you? What are you most excited about?

Alain:

For me, it’s about being more involved with the teams this time around.

Last year, I felt like I didn’t have enough time to be as present during the hackathon as I wanted to be.

So this year, I’m really looking forward to spending more time with the different projects and being more hands-on.

I also want to observe how we can keep improving the event for the future.

Each year, we make small tweaks, and I want to be more present this time to see what’s working and what could be even better!

Carole:

I love that!

And for me, I think I’m most excited to see all the little improvements we’ve made between this edition and the last one.

Last year, I wasn’t at full health, and I wasn’t able to be as present as I wanted to be. But now, we’ve expanded our team, we’ve got more support, and we’ve made so many optimizations.

And of course—those five minutes after the hackathon ends are the best feeling in the world.

There’s nothing I’ve done professionally that fills me with as much joy and pride as leading this event.

It’s an honor to work with such an amazing team and such a passionate community.

Final Words

Alright, I think that’s a wrap!

A huge thank you to everyone listening, to all our attendees, and to our partners who support this event.

If you weren’t able to join this year, stay informed—follow our media partners, check out our website, and help us spread the word about the CloudFest Hackathon 2025!

Thanks, everyone!