What’s New at CloudFest Hackathon 2026: Trends, Changes, and Creative Energy

Anne Bovelett:
Hello everyone, welcome to a new episode on Open Channels FM, and today We’re speaking about the Cloud Fest Hackathon 2026. With me are Carole Olinger, Pascal Birchler, and Simon Kraft. You could say all of us have been involved in the hackathon in some way, the rest of them a bit more than I have. And I’m super excited because The projects for 2026 are just so wild and they have so much potential. It’s just wonderful. So, Carol, I’m going to go to you first. One of the things that I wrote down is that I would love to hear from you, tell others what the Cloud Fest Hackathon really is, how it started. How many there have been and how it has evolved?

Carole Olinger:
Oh, that’s a good question. It will only take me 25 minutes to answer. Don’t worry.

Anne Bovelett:
No, I’ll stop you.

Carole Olinger:
Please do so. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me, first of all. Yeah, really great to be, to be a part of this huge Cloud First Hackathon community, but also to Open Channels. For being an official media partner, supporting us, spreading the word together with us about all the great things that we are going to achieve in only roughly 3 weeks from here. I can’t believe we’re so close already. Hackathon starts at March 20th and yeah, almost there. So for everyone out there that doesn’t already know or hasn’t had the chance yet to participate in the CloudFest Hackathon. CloudFest, the main event, is like the biggest business conference in the cloud and hosting industry, and it’s assembling around, yeah, between 10,000 and 12,000 people every year. So it’s a massive event. And with the CloudFest Hackathon, we are bringing open source projects into that business event, like it’s preceding the main event. And we were thinking, or like smart folks before me started thinking that it would be a good idea to connect the open source communities and industries with the business industries of the cloud and hosting industries. And when I joined my first hackathon, I was an attendee back then. I was still working with Web Pros, who were one of the initiating companies of the Cloud First Hackathon. And they sent me to have a look and to see how, yeah, what it’s looking like back then in 2017, or was it ’18?

Anne Bovelett:
Wow. How did you feel?

Carole Olinger:
Oh, it was, it was, it was quite different from what it is today. So it already had so much potential, but to be honest, like it was much smaller. So I think we were about 40 people. And I think I was one of two women in the room or so. So it was like still very different. And you would have like all these brilliant, geeky coders that would dive with their noses deep in their laptops and write brilliant code. But there wasn’t so much like collaboration across the tables. And also, like, I think my first, like, real realization I came to after half a day of the hackathon was, okay, now this brilliant code is being written, but I didn’t feel like there was anyone on these tables to actually coordinate a project. There wasn’t the testing if it is actually fulfilling a use case. There wasn’t any thought about marketing an eventual product that could come out of it or securing the funding and resources for it to go on. So none of that was there and I saw so much potential for that to be added to the equation. Yeah. And then I got asked like, hey, can you help us? Like maybe also because of my connections I had back then already in WordPress community to get more WordPress folks involved in the hackathon. And I was like, yeah, I can help you. And then I somehow took over the whole thing. So I kind of slipped into, yeah, into the lead organizer of this event. And since then, we were massively growing it. So during its biggest edition, we had a bigger room back then available to us. We grew it to almost 130 people. And we were managing to have a much better diversity quote as well. So we were at 33% of female or non-binary attendees. And that also came with diversifying the profiles of the folks that we would need inside the hackathon. So not only engineers, and I’m not saying there are no female engineers out there, don’t get me wrong, I did never say that, but it was important also to diversify the profiles to make sure that we also have other skill sets on the table to help projects succeed. So that was a long answer already, but that’s the style.

Anne Bovelett:
Yeah, was that in 2022? I mean, I remember the room was huge in 2022.

Carole Olinger:
That was when we were still in the Colosseo Hotel, and I think you’re right, that was 2022. That was the biggest edition so far, and I loved everything about it, but we also noticed this was the maximum in terms of, uh, and it was already a little too big in terms of participants because with every group of 8 to 12 participants that you’re adding, you also need one more project. With every project you’re adding to the schedule, you need time to pitch the project. You need time for stand ups. You need time for the presentation of results. And we could easily grow this event to a 400 people event, but then we would have 50 projects. And so either we would lose connection to what we are actually doing. So there is no, no possibility of have any overview anymore, or we would just need 2 weeks of hackathon because it will take us 3 days to do the presentation of results.

Anne Bovelett:
I’d love to do 2 weeks of hackathon.

Carole Olinger:
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Anne Bovelett:
I don’t, am I, maybe I’m wrong. I noticed that this time we have one more minute to present the first slide.

Carole Olinger:
I think it’s two. I think we gave you two minutes.

Anne Bovelett:
Yeah, one more. So we have two minutes.

Carole Olinger:
Maybe we told you one minute on the meeting. Maybe we told you one minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we don’t.

Anne Bovelett:
So for people who don’t know me, I talk a lot and I talk too much and I’m always very enthusiastic. So to me, these things are incredibly funny.

Carole Olinger:
Same here. I feel you. Yeah. Yeah.

Anne Bovelett:
All right. So, well, I’m, I’m really happy. Um, uh, I’ve been a participant, uh, myself and, uh, I’ve always enjoyed it very much. Um, and now I would really love to know from Pascal, you know, that project that you had last year, the MCP project at a time where I was like MC what?

Pascal Birchler:
Yeah, those, those were the times. Yeah, I think last year it was maybe my fourth edition of the hackathon that I participated in, second time leading a project. And the whole MCP thing, so the Model Context Protocol, just came out like a few months before the hackathon. It was like super timely. But it also meant it was like super early. Like, it was like a very early version of this protocol that got released. And people started building things, which was a perfect opportunity for this hackathon, right? Like we were trying to figure out how we could apply this in the real world. Our goal was to implement MCP within a WordPress context. And, uh, we wanted to use WP-CLI for that.

Anne Bovelett:
Mm-hmm.

Pascal Birchler:
Uh, because if you’re using WP-CLI, you don’t have to worry about like logging in into WordPress. Like the whole authentication thing is basically solved, uh, which is something that’s still tricky to do, uh, with like a remote MCP server. And, uh, when I’m looking back, what we basically tried to do with this project was building like a Claude code or a Gemini CLI, because we had this CLI thing where you could talk to the AI and say like, give me my most recent posts and publish them somewhere else or whatever, which is something you can do with these tools nowadays, where WordPress is just one of the things that you connect to. So we were way ahead of the time. I think Cloud Code was just released around the hackathon and other tools were released much later. But it was a really good learning experience. And we didn’t stop with the hackathon. So ultimately, while the original goal of this CLI tool wasn’t further pursued, this ultimately led to the foundation of the WordPress AI team. So the WordPress AI team was founded late last year or like in summer or something. And it encompasses things like working on the abilities API, which will be released with WordPress 7.0, an MCP adapter. So like turning these abilities into MCP tools and like much more. Yeah, a lot of the learnings basically went to live on through that team.

Anne Bovelett:
That’s so great to hear because every year I see all these projects and I’m like, ah, this could be so great here. This could be so great there. And this should be moving on. And it’s just, it’s so wonderful when a project really keeps on moving. And I know there’s still some projects lying around from last year and the year before that still all have the potential. To keep on moving. So maybe that is something that we could all have a dialogue about some other time, that today is not the day. But it’s not the intent of the hackathon of 3 days of paid hotel and fun for developers and people in the sidelines who were just as important, by the way, to have fun together because of course it’s very WordPress heavy. I think this year we do have a couple of WordPress projects again, but also some others. And I think we’re going to see quite some new faces this year. And that is super, super exciting. I mean, I remember from last year, I think our youngest participant was 18. Yeah, that was the guy on my team, wasn’t he there?

Carole Olinger:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know who you mean. He’s coming back.

Anne Bovelett:
He’s coming back. This is great. Oh, by the way, Pascal, are people from the AI team joining this year from WordPress?

Pascal Birchler:
I actually don’t know off the top of my head. I’m the only one in Europe. So I think I’m the only one because it’s closest for me.

Carole Olinger:
I think, I think you are. Yeah, I think you are.

Anne Bovelett:
Yep. And you, Simon, I mean, you are a very familiar face around the hackathon. Until now, I knew you from other things and also know you as the media partner, and last year you were there helping us. And I can honestly say, as a participant, you made us feel very comfortable being there and showing us the way. And hey, you can have your meetings there, you know. And now you are a mentor. What is that like? What can you tell more about what that is, a mentor in the hackathon?

Simon Kraft:
I’m still figuring that out myself, to be honest, but I’ll try my best. Yeah, I wore many hats over the years. I think Earlier today, Carol and I figured out that my first year was ’22 as a project lead. I was an attendee, I was a media partner, last year I was Carol’s personal assistant, and this year I get to have one of the project mentor spots. So that’s really cool and that’s a huge honor for me. What we basically try to do is help people like yourself, Anne-Mieke, with first of all, like gathering ideas on projects that might be candidates for the hackathon itself, shepherding some of those through the submission process. Like we talked a couple of times, for example, Then we have like a rigorous selection process and I’m, I say that laughingly, but it was really hard. We had like, I don’t know, about 40 projects, I think it was submitted this year and like boiling that down to the 10 projects selected in the end. Is one of the two really hard tasks I think we have to take care of. And then after the projects are selected, we project mentors help with like preparations and then, and that’s the part I’m still figuring out, like the day of the actual hackathon, like helping all the teams on the floor with decision-making, some organizational stuff, trying to structure, which for me, like, that’s my day job, which is pretty helpful going into this.

Anne Bovelett:
Oh yeah, that sure helped, yeah.

Simon Kraft:
And yeah, it’s quite the journey.

Anne Bovelett:
Well, I’m really happy to see you taking on that role. If it hadn’t become clear for any of the people viewing or listening, I’m one of the very lucky people with a team in the hackathon project. So, and Simon is going to be my mentor. So, yay. Absolutely wonderful. I’m really curious, Carole and Simon, if there are any things about the hackathon this year where you said, okay, we’ve made some radical changes here or there to grow the project, or are you like, oh no, we’re fine as we are, and this is working wonderfully.

Carole Olinger:
Yeah, I think mostly we took what has been proven to be a good and best working concept and like, you know, slightly trying to make minor improvements, especially when it comes to communication, preparation, foreseeing things, lessons learned from the past editions. The growing part is the one that I just mentioned, that it’s just not possible. And we could easily grow it to a 400-people event. Like I said, there’s interest and I wouldn’t even be worried about finding the partners, to be honest. Like we’ve completely sold out. Like I couldn’t even, couldn’t even sell a partnership anymore if I wanted to. So I think that, yeah, we could, we could grow, but it’s technically, it doesn’t add to the quality.

Anne Bovelett:
I’m not mentioning growing in, in, in sense of participants, but just, okay. I got you wrong then.

Carole Olinger:
Sorry.

Anne Bovelett:
No, no, I meant the, like, professionalizing it even more where the projects are concerned because again, these, there are 10 projects on the table. I have seen a couple of WordPress projects where I’m like, oh dear, if these get released into the world, there’s so many people going to profit from that in so many ways. And, um, That’s the kind of, it’s, I shouldn’t have, I probably shouldn’t have called it growth, but evolving.

Carole Olinger:
Yeah. Yeah. Got you. Got you. Yeah. So what we, what we did in the first place was making sure that, that teams have more time. So it always felt like the last day of the hackathon was a bit rushed. And there was also a side event formerly known as the WP Day happening at the same day as the Cloudflare Hackathon. So what we did here is we moved the hackathon to one day earlier. So we are starting on the Friday and going through the Saturday and the Sunday. So we have three full days to, to also give everyone the chance to properly finish their projects. And, you know, that may, that may also give more opportunities to look into the future and just see what are possible opportunities to continue collaboration. And from the conversation that Simon and I had earlier today, what is really tricky, and everyone that has been participating in the hackathon knows that, so we all four know that after 3 days, your brains are literally fried.

Anne Bovelett:
You’re just done.

Carole Olinger:
And you couldn’t just say, okay, let’s have a meeting tomorrow evening during Cloud Fest, and then we’re going figure out how are you going to continue? So that is a really tricky thing, but we were trying to give everyone more time to actually finalize and prepare for the presentations with a little bit more ease. So we did that and the new side event that is going to be mainly around the WordPress business industry, but also targeted to agencies is called the WP Business and Agency Summit. And that is happening and only starting on Monday.

Anne Bovelett:
Sunday.

Carole Olinger:
So that is a good opportunity. So people will not feel like they want to be at two events at the same time, and they can properly close off their hackathon project. In terms of continuance and sustainability, we were having a lot of conversations. But to be very honest with you, we didn’t come up with the ultimate solution. But we have a few ideas that we may want to implement next year. And in order to do so, um, I, and also the team, we definitely want to be more observant during the event about what possible pitfalls could be for projects not to continue. And one idea that we had was for the next selection of projects, um, take a limited number of projects, could be 2, could be 3, whatever we decide, and reserve those project slots for special company sponsorships that are not just event sponsorships, but that would be early investments, like when it comes to the evolution of the idea, to setting the goals, targets, but also the continuance of the project. Because we believe if companies becoming involved right from the start and connecting their brand to a project that they see a future for, the chances are much bigger that there’s going to be resources unlocked for them to continue. And, and while we, while we never probably are going to achieve that all 10 projects are going to continue, and I also don’t think that all should, because sometimes also you come with a great idea and turns out it’s not maybe working the way you, you thought it might work, or it’s not as useful as we all thought it might be. I believe that we can all do better and set a better foundation for projects to, to continue and get some more resources unlocked after the hackathon. It is a tricky question and it is, like I said, not a question that we have found the ultimate solution for yet. Also because the resources cannot lie within CloudFest in order to do so. It is just not possible. And that’s why we need to bring external partners. And more than ever project management folks. So marketing folks from companies should be involved, project managers, and let’s see if we can make that happen for, for next year.

Anne Bovelett:
We have another study factor that I don’t want to forget to mention. One of One of the things people who hear about the hackathon for the first time, one of the great things that the hackathon achieves as well is they support a project called Groundbreaker Talent.

Carole Olinger:
Yes. So this is a project very dear to my heart and also very dear to the whole CloudFest team. So Groundbreaker Talent is supporting female developers from Uganda. And giving them a solid foundation through a 9 to 12 month boot camp to really, really develop their skills in IT and AI and engineering development so that they can build a career in tech and provide for themselves and their families. Those women in most of the cases wouldn’t probably have the chances to do so in African countries because they would be overseen or they would just have other duties within the family. And Groundbreaker, yeah, provides this opportunity to these women. And I have had the chance to travel to Uganda 1.5 years ago and see the campus on site, like see the folks who are running the whole initiative together with the amazing women on site. And we spent a whole week together. And to me, it was life-changing. It was my first time in Africa and it was such an inspiring trip and to be able to see what we are supporting, it just made my heart full. Yeah.

Anne Bovelett:
And they’re joining the hackathon.

Carole Olinger:
So yeah, in theory, every year we are inviting the scholarship winner from the previous year. Maybe a little bit more context. We have award categories that the different projects can win. It’s a friendly competition. There are no prizes, material prizes, but if you win a category, these categories are sponsored by our hackathon partners and they give a certain amount of money to sponsor each category to get some additional brand exposure. And this money goes 100% to Groundbreaker. So basically everything we do at the hackathon to win these awards is also being forwarded in terms of award sponsorships to the Groundbreaker initiative. And what we do every year is inviting the scholarship recipient from the previous year to the next edition of the hackathon. What you probably didn’t know yet, Anne-Mieke, is that this year there have been presidential elections in Uganda, which made all the embassies close for a very long time. And also the country was like even cut off internet for several weeks, like, because yeah, the information shouldn’t go outside the country. So it’s a very different political situation from the countries that, that we all live in. So it wasn’t able, so it wasn’t possible to do it this year, but we have a video published on the awards website where you’ll see updates from Vanessa, who has been joining us in 2024, from Bobby, who has been joining us in 2025, and from Paris, who should have, who is the recipient from last year’s scholarship that we funded through the hackathon, where they all say hi, where they say where they’re at. And what we are trying to do now is next year invite Paris and this year’s recipient so that we can have two Groundbreaker talents present. So we’re working on that. And it is also a good reminder, I think, for all of us that are based in Europe or in other countries listening in that we do not to have all the same privileges and possibilities and just traveling wherever we want. And it is something that is every year shaking my organizer heart when, when I see awesome people around the world who would like to participate that we would like to invite.

Anne Bovelett:
And then it’s just not happening because it just reminds me that, that maybe, and open channels, we can invite the people behind the Groundbreakers initiative for another video session. That would be great, right?

Carole Olinger:
I love that. I love that. Yeah, that would be so great. Yeah, let’s have it.

Anne Bovelett:
It would be so great. I have a very, I’m very curious about one thing for Pascal, because you’re not leading a project this year, are you?

Pascal Birchler:
I am not, no.

Anne Bovelett:
So you have freedom to choose which one you’re going to join. And we’re not going to walk through all the 10 projects here. We’re going to share the link to the projects in the show notes today. But Pascal, did you see projects where you were like, okay, this is where I want to go, or this is where I—

Pascal Birchler:
Well, you call it freedom to choose. I call it like difficulty to choose.

Anne Bovelett:
It’s torture.

Pascal Birchler:
The torture. Yeah. There’s so many great projects in there. Clearly can see that AI is a big topic. I think most of them, like many of them involve AI in one way or another. I did like the one project that aims to use AI in like a browser extension to make websites more accessible, like parsing the content and like providing it in like a more accessible way. And there was also one, I think it was called like AI-powered plugin builder or something, which seems like the goal is to use like all the new things that we built in the WordPress AI team to allow you as a website administrator to like build new plugins directly inside WordPress. So if you have like an itch to scratch, like a missing feature, you could just use AI and just build the thing inside your, your site. So I’m currently like leaning towards that maybe, but usually I just wait for the, the intros during the hackathon because then you learn more about the projects, more context. Because, you know, by the time the hackathon happens, things might change a little bit. There might be a new AI being released or whatever. So you never know in advance what you’re going to work on.

Anne Bovelett:
Yeah. I have the same question for you, Simon. If you could join one of the projects, did you think about that?

Simon Kraft:
I mean, obviously the two projects that I’m mentor for are really close to my heart. So those two would be like really high up in the ranking. Unfortunately, Anne-Mieke, I would go for the other project, the Website Responsibility Scanner, just because that’s about sustainability, and I think I could contribute more to sustainability than to accessibility. I think that would be a good choice for me if I could join a project.

Anne Bovelett:
And you, Carol? You never thought about this, or did you?

Carole Olinger:
I did.

Anne Bovelett:
I did.

Carole Olinger:
Yeah.

Anne Bovelett:
Yeah. I have to think about that.

Carole Olinger:
I even participated in a project in, let me think, I think it was pre-pandemic. I even participated in a project which was called Poster WTF. It was led by Mark Nilius back then. And it was like, it was perfect for me because it needed actual user testing and finding out pitfalls and stuff. You know, you need, you don’t, you didn’t need to be super technical yourself and just finding things that would seem odd, and then we created a list and we would give feedback to the hosters and stuff. So that was perfect for me. I really enjoyed that. Josefa, back then, she was also participating with me in that project. So we had a great time. But this year, so I also liked the website responsibility scanner because I really also like the evolvement of the project leads behind, like, They have been, so Milian and Alena, they have been participants over several episodes. And I remember the first time they came in, they didn’t know so many folks and they were always participating. They were always bringing good vibes and they became more and more involved and it led to them now pitching and leading a project. And I like these stories. So that would be one I would consider. But another one that I also find interesting where I could probably contribute as a non-technical person and also because there’s cookies would be Milana and the GoDaddy team with the blog to docs. Yeah, so, you know, now with AI playing such a big role, to me, it is actually exciting because I use AI a lot. I love using AI and there’s so many barriers when it comes to technical knowledge that become lower for folks like me. So that is a good thing. Obviously it’s also creating barriers that I’m aware and it’s also coming with a lot of pros and cons in general. I’m very excited about the possibilities AI gives me when you do have a certain interest in technical topics and projects while you don’t want to bother with all the coding part. So I believe in a future where maybe someone else is going to lead Cloudflare’s hackathon, I could still attend and contribute some valuable stuff. Let’s see if that’s going to happen one day. Yeah.

Anne Bovelett:
So, so, and then, um, for all of you, do you have any tips for people who want to attend next year? Because of course now it’s closed, selection has been closed, you have to be selected as a participant. I think you had to choose from over 400 participants, am I correct?

Carole Olinger:
Yeah, more or less.

Anne Bovelett:
I was not, I was not envious of you folks, really, this is so hard.

Carole Olinger:
Yeah, we didn’t like that part of the job, no one, no one does. Yeah, I think Simon, you, you could answer that question because you said some really smart things this morning when we discussed this, so go ahead.

Simon Kraft:
Yeah, I think the number one advice is it is a real application process, and we saw that in some cases this year where we like know the people applying and they just fill out like the motivation box, like, yeah, it was great last year, see you again soon, or something like that. And that makes our job even harder. In a way, because we know the people are great and we know they bring a lot of energy and the right kind of energy to the event. But on the other side, there are folks with really good motivational statements. So that is, I think, the number one advice I would give, like, make our jobs even harder and like knock out a perfect motivational statement to show you really want to be part of this event.

Anne Bovelett:
Yeah, I think that’s a solid piece of advice, especially because now you are there and you know a lot of the former participants, but participants should think, hey, maybe it’s someone who doesn’t know me who will do the selection as well. It’s another situation.

Simon Kraft:
Also, it’s, it’s kind of unfair to like new attendees to just be like, oh yeah, we know these folks. They’re good. We select them every time. Like it should be a bit of a level playing field there.

Carole Olinger:
Yep. And that’s what I wanted to say. We’re past that state where we would have the luxury to just, um, go with the people we know and invite them because it’s, we have so many applications and we also don’t want the same people to be there over and over again. This is, that would not be a healthy situation for what we want to try to achieve with the projects. You need new ideas, you need new energy, you need that to mingle with the experience within a project, and if you cannot grow the size of an event for the reasons I explained, you need to make sure that you find a good mix of experienced and next generations and new folks or new technologies, new CMSs coming in. And that implies that you will have to be in the very uncomfortable and unpleasant situation to tell some people who have been participating during the past 2 or 3 editions this time it is a hard no. Um, and yeah, I do not like that part of the job.

Anne Bovelett:
No, but I think people need to know and need to understand, and I hope they do, that this is for the greater good. It’s not something to be taken personal, I think. And, uh, um, I’m personally, from speaking for myself, I’m super fascinated to see the younger people coming in because they they see the world in such a different way from we do. I think among the four of us, I’m the oldest here, and I talk to the children of my friends and I’m like, wow, you think about this stuff. I didn’t think about this stuff until I was 30. So, and it’s so cool to sit back and just listen to them, what they have to say.

Carole Olinger:
And especially with the evolving technologies and, um, I mean, I can, I can mostly speak for WordPress, not for the other CMSs when talking about open source projects, but I think we are all on the same page and you will agree with me that, um, there’s this, this like bubble, this community, may they be sponsored or may they be volunteers, they are just growing older as we are growing older, but there’s not so much new generations coming in. So first of all, they don’t use CMSs like we used CMSs when we were their age. And then secondly, I don’t think that we are doing a, a super great job in, in onboarding them. I mean, it’s, there’s initiatives now that I really appreciate, but as for what I can influence within the hackathon, I wanna I want to keep close eye on that and actively bring in the younger applicants, like even students and giving them a chance to prove themselves. And I cannot do that if I’m, if we’re only inviting the same.

Anne Bovelett:
The old, the old, the same old, the same old team. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe also some students from, there’s these programs in WordPress now where, where working on WordPress, give them points. And one of the things, maybe I’m naive when I, when I think like that, because I’m much into the WordPress bubble. This is something that Pascal may be able to answer is I have a feeling that people are talking about all these AI initiatives, but WordPress is, in my opinion, the only CMS with such a solid foundation that you can build anything on top of it. Without having to worry because I think a lot of people don’t worry enough. They will just build stuff and then send it, sell it off to a customer who, who can get in all sorts of trouble. And, and this is what I think. Um, but I don’t know what it’s like for maybe Drupal or TYPO3 or, I don’t know. I heard that the CEO—

Carole Olinger:
We should find out.

Anne Bovelett:
Yeah, we should find out. And I heard that the CEO of the TYPO3 Foundation or GIM, I don’t know what they are Exactly. He is coming.

Carole Olinger:
They’re both, yeah. So then Daniel Fowl is coming and Olivier is also going to be at CloudFest. And also during the WP Business and Agency Summit, we will have a conversation with Daniel Fowl.

Anne Bovelett:
Joomla people are going to be there again. Yeah.

Carole Olinger:
Oh yeah. Joomla. Joomla. They do have an event at the same time and so do the Drupal. So I reached out, but Drupal was very, very interested and we are definitely keeping in touch for next year. So, I got an introduction to Dries himself and then got introductions also to the German delegation. So I think that, yeah, there’s a lot of potential for Drupal folks to join next year. We also spoke to Laravel. So that is also, there was also a lot of interest and they actually pitched a project. Um, but there wasn’t, the problem was that they couldn’t commit enough resources to do it this year, but we want to definitely, uh, talk about that in an earlier stage next year. So that, that is what I’m passionate about as well. Like really, really, uh, making sure that there’s more cross-CMS collaboration. Um, yeah, and also, you know, when we are saying we cannot invite the same attendees every year, this is all, this applies also to partners. So what I’m, what I’m seeing, uh, a lot, and that, that was also part of the mission for the hackathon within CloudFest was also to bring in those open source business partners through the hackathon, but then also potentially convert them towards the main event. And that is a good thing. So I had a conversation yesterday with a company that used to sponsor the hackathon for a couple of years. And I had a conversation with them and they were like, yeah, we’re so sorry. We’re not sponsoring the hackathon this year. We, we, but we’re sponsoring the main event. And I was like, but this is brilliant. This is what we want. Because if the same old are, so we only accept 12 partners. If the same old are just grabbing the packages at the beginning of us going public with the next edition, then you don’t have chances to bring in new partners to unlock new resources. So that it is good. And then there’s never been any hard feelings from me or our side towards a partner who said, okay, now we’ve seen it. We did it a couple of times. Thanks so much for the support. And now we’re also moving on towards Main Event. That’s brilliant.

Anne Bovelett:
Yeah, I love it. Pascal, do you have anything to add?

Pascal Birchler:
I was just thinking about the previous topic about like the applications to the hackathon. From a project lead perspective, I found it very helpful. So once if you get approved to attend the hackathon to participate, from a project lead perspective, I found it super helpful if people reached out to me in advance. To ask about the project, like any questions, you know, like, what is it exactly about? What are you looking for? Because that helps both the participant in finding the right project for them, but also for you as a project lead, it helps you to clarify some things about your project. And maybe, you know, take that as input for the onstage presentation. So yeah, that was just on my mind.

Anne Bovelett:
That’s a great tip. That’s a great tip for all the project leads in general, I think. If everyone starts talking about it, now we have Mattermost. This is also something that most people don’t realize. This hackathon is organized so professionally. And we have our own communication app. It’s a bit like Slack, but I think it’s nicer. That’s a personal preference. But we, in the weeks before the hackathon, we get to talk to each other. We get to know each other. We can introduce ourselves. We can talk about our projects, but we can also talk about our projects outside. We can talk about it on social media and get people excited. And also for the participants who are coming for the first time, who are watching this or listening to this, if you are in that room the day that these 10 projects, are it 10 or 11? I don’t even know. I’m sorry, I may have the number wrong, but it’s 10 projects. So if they get presented, you may suddenly feel yourself like you’re overwhelmed, like, whoa, what’s happening here? Because you will make your major different things than you heard in the presentation. So start following the people who are managing projects, check if they’re talking about it on social media and talk to us in Mattermost because that matters. Yeah.

Carole Olinger:
Smooth. All right.

Anne Bovelett:
Well, everyone, we’ve been talking for quite a while. It was a joy. I normally I love these conversations to last for hours, but we will have many more, I think. I’m looking forward to seeing you all in 3 weeks. Thank you for your time. Thank you for joining us on Open Channels FM and spread the word.

Carole Olinger:
Thank you, Anne-Mieke, for having us.

Anne Bovelett:
Thank you so much.

Carole Olinger:
See you soon.

Simon Kraft:
Thank you for having us.

Anne Bovelett:
Bye-bye.