KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Japan 2026 ran July 28-30 at PACIFICO Yokohama. I attended on a CNCF scholarship (travel funding). At one point they called the scholarship recipients up on stage, and the photo happened on the spur of the moment. There were surely more recipients than the few of us who were in the room right then, and you can see on our faces that nobody was ready for it.
On the Novice track I presented “I Tested 7 So You Only Need 1: Your First Gateway API Migration in 5 Minutes.” Based on testing seven Gateway API implementations under identical conditions, the talk covered where to start if this is your first migration. The slides and demo are in the repository.
On Wednesday I emceed both Lightning Talk blocks in room 313+314. Project Lightning Talks ran 11:30 to 12:40 with nine CNCF projects, five minutes each: Argo CD, k0s, OpenTelemetry, CoHDI, Kairos, Longhorn, Spiderpool, youki, and Lima. Main Event Lightning Talks followed at 14:50 with four community stories, also five minutes each. Thirteen speakers in total.
Keeping that pace while giving every speaker their moment was harder than my own talk, and I would do it again tomorrow.
On Thursday afternoon I joined Peer Group Mentoring as a mentor, in room 413 from 14:10 to 15:20. One table, a few chairs, no slides, just people asking real questions about where to start and what they were stuck on. I came out of it having learned as much as I gave. If you are on the fence about signing up next time, sign up.
I flew home heavier in gifts than in swag. Snacks from Bangkok, a tea tin from London, pastries from Shanghai, and a crocheted Cilium bee that now lives on my desk. Four countries in one bag.
Yuichi Nakamura, one of the KubeCon Japan organizers, gave me a signed copy of his own book, 『OSSビジネス活用の教科書』(Nikkei BP), a textbook on putting open source to work in business. Coming from someone who has spent years on open source at Hitachi, that signature means a lot. My Japanese is not there yet, so I will start with the figures and work my way in.
Thanks to the organizers as well. Everything ran on time, and the rooms were set up so people would actually talk to each other. None of that happens by accident. Getting CNCF Ambassadors from this many countries into one room is another thing only an event like this makes possible.
After every KubeCon the feeling lingers for weeks. This one is no different.
