From Zero to Hero: Outcomes from Cloud-Native El Salvador Community Creation

The presentation discusses the creation of a Cloud-Native community in El Salvador and the challenges faced in establishing it remotely.

• People in El Salvador lack opportunities in technology and leave the region for better prospects.
• The mission is to inspire talent and build a foundation for Cloud-Native technologies in the region.
• The community was established with the help of volunteers, sponsors, and support from the CNCF.
• The community organized the Kubernetes Community Day and had over 200 participants.
• The community aims to provide opportunities for local youth through internships and education in technology, English, and values.
• The community faces challenges in building trust and convincing people of the opportunities available.
• The community plans to continue growing and sharing success stories to inspire more people to join.

The organizers were surprised by the enthusiasm of the local community for Cloud-Native technologies and the desire to participate in the community. They found that many young people in El Salvador prefer to stay in the country and are looking for opportunities to work remotely. The organizers hope to provide these opportunities through internships and education programs.

People in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala leave the region for two reasons: security and lack of opportunities. We want people in those countries to have access to Cloud Native technologies. Our mission is: building the foundation to inspire talent. During the last few months, we have created a virtual space offering resources which help enthusiasts to understand and contribute to open source projects. The pandemic brought many challenges to local preexisting communities but this wasn't our case, we have to opportunity to establish the community in a region where cloud computing technologies are barely known. This talk will share lessons that we learned in our journey to establish a local technical community remotely.