My 2024 Conferences in review
Early last year, I published my 2023 conferences in a review article where I recapped my year attending and speaking at events worldwide. One year later, here we go again. Heading into 2024, I did not know I would have another busy and fulfilling year in terms of public speaking, but I was wrong. The year was amazing; I met inspiring people, visited new parts of the world, and spoke in front of crowds of various sizes.
For this year, and as usual, I will focus on the events and places that left a mark or memory, highlight my favorite events, and share some pictures. I also included a link to my talk recording when available.
Before we start, here are some numbers first. In 2024, I was fortunate to:
- I attend and speak at 60 events worldwide (including in-person and online, but about 95% were in the first category).
- I traveled to 2 new countries (Tunisia and Jordan).
- I spoke in front of 65k people in total.
January
At the start of 2024, I was still working remotely from Morocco 🇲🇦. And as usual, when people learn I’m in the country, I get invited to speak at various events and meetups, usually in universities or engineering schools. This year's happy coincidence was that my first-ever event was at a university in my hometown, Fes. I was hosted by the Google Developers Students Club (GDSC) of the Euromed University of Fes, led by Oussama Badreddine.
Coming back to Sweden after indulging in great food and good weather. I had the opportunity to keynote Kubernetes Community Days (KCD) Oslo, hosted by my good friend Roberth Strand.
February
February started with a quick trip to Sousse, Tunisia 🇹🇳. It was my first time in the country (I have been to Algeria about 14 years ago). It was a quick trip, and Sousse is a beautiful city. I told the locals who welcomed us and showed us around that the town looks very similar to Tangier in Morocco if you remove all the Tunisia flags from the street.
March
February flew by very quickly. My first event in March was the Open Source Days in Florence, Italy 🇮🇹 by Schrödinger Hat. I went there because the community's name was dope, and I discovered a lovely and welcoming community. Now I own a Schroddy, the official conference trophy in the picture below. My talk recording is on youtube.
March was also KubeCon EU month in Paris, France 🇫🇷. KubeCon remains my favorite conference because it’s the occasion to hang out with the Cloud Native Community and the rest of my team. Also, this was my second time in Paris this year, and it won’t be the last; for work and personal reasons, France was my most visited country in 2024, more than Morocco!
The week after KubeCon, I went to Bucharest, Romania 🇷🇴 for Voxxed Days Bucharest. It was not my first time in Bucharest but this was my first time at this event, I’m not a strange to the Devoxx/Voxxed Days family and one of the reasons I love these events is because it feels like a reunion with friends. My talk is on youtube
April
April was off to a wild start. I had to be in Atlanta 🇺🇸 for DevNexus and Las Vegas 🇺🇸 for Google Cloud Next in the same week, which meant a bunch of flying back and forth between the east and west coasts of the USA. For reference, there is a 3-hour difference between the American coasts, so for someone from Europe, it means double the jetlag and 5 hours of flying each way. But I made it work, spoke at Google Cloud Next for the first time about hosting Google WebApps on Google Cloud, and snatched this epic picture with my friend Mohamed, which remains one of my most liked posts on LinkedIn 🙂. Mohamed session recording is here.
Coming back with Europe and with Jetlag still kicking-in I went to Paris (again told you) for Devoxx France. Now this event had to be on my 2024 list for a simple reason: I delivered a talk and a three hours deep dive in French for the first time! Yes Yes you read that right, French! Some of you might be asking: But you speak French fluently?! Yes but I never delivered any technical talks in French so I had a bit of an imposter syndrome that I managed to overcome (there is a funny story I can tell you over a drink related to this). Anyhow the event was a blast, 4500 people and the largest of the 6 Devoxx events.
May
May was a busy month, but the highlight was visiting Jordan 🇯🇴 and speaking at XpandConf. I was invited by the Google Devs community of Amman, the capital, who hosted me and showed me around. I had an opportunity to check Petra off the bucket list and swim in the Deadsea. A trip to remember.
Finished May with a trip to Barcelona 🇪🇸 for Spring I/O. An awesome conference in a great city with a wonderful community and Sergi was probably one of the best conference hosts in 2024. Thank you for the bike ride that revived my love for cycling 😊 🚴. The recording of our session is on youtube.
June
June was the 10 years anniversary of Kubernetes. So the Kubernetes Podcast kept us busy as we published 4 episodes during this month (up from our usual 2). Events wise I attended and spoke at two meetups (Aarhus, Denmark🇩🇰 and Bergen, Norway 🇳🇴). I also had the opportunity to deliver a closing keynote at KCD Zurich.
The end of June was very exciting, I attended I/O Connect in Berlin 🇩🇪 and being on the keynote stage for quick live 2 minutes demo (You can see a quick glimps on this video). That’s not a lot of time but any opportunity to be on stage with high-profile speakers is a good opportunity in my book.
July
July was supposed to be a quiet month but I ended up speaking at two events anyways. KCD Munich where I delivered the opening keynote and WeAreDevelopers in Berlin for the first time.
WeAreDevs was a huge surprise, it’s a big event with over 15k developers and a lot of content. It won’t be my last time I’m for sure going back this year.
September
If you read my article from last year, you probably know that my favorite event of 2023 was JavaZone. Well that did not change, it is still very high up on list.
Coming out of JavaZone and the speakers trip (aka JourneyZone) where we camped in the Norwegian wilderness for 2 nights I flew to Texas for SwampUP. The two days event which organized by Jfrog focused on security. It was my first time to this event and Texas but I had a blast.
October
The year flew by and it was already time to go back to Morocco🇲🇦 for Devoxx. The event took place in Marrakesh this year (after being held in Agadir for the last three editions) and as usual was amazing, the people, the community, the food. I’m biased for this conference for many reasons so I will leave a picture below and let you judge for yourself.
From Morocco's Warm, good food country, I went to the cold, good beer country of Belgium to attend Devoxx. This was my first time at this event, and it did not disappoint. I heard so many good things about the OG Devoxx, and I’m glad I made it. And with Devoxx Belgium I concluded my tour of all the Devoxx’s in 2024, I attended and spoke at all six events which is wild if you think about it!.
October
October started with a trip to Raleigh, North Carolina, USA🇺🇸 for All Things Open. If you remember from last year’s review this was on the top 5 of events I attended in 2023 and I was glad to go back.
My session on Training and Serving LLM’s on Kubernetes was popular and Carlo attended my talk and created this beautiful graphic of the entire session 🙏.
November
Before I realised it, it was the time for KubeCon North America already in Salt-Lake City, Utah 🇺🇸. This was my first time attending a KubeCon in the US and speaking at a KubeCon all together. Our session with Mofi was well received and we got one of the funniest pieces of feedback you can ask for “These guys were helpful and Hilarious” 😆
I ended the year early. My last conference was at the end of November, as I was tired and wanted to take most of December off. And I could not have asked for a better ending than Kubernetes Community Days Denmark. Everything about this edition was great: the organization, the people, the choice of music. The team did an amazing job 👍
That’s it, that was my 2024. It was a busy year full of travel that I’m grateful I got to do. As I’m finishing this one up my 2025 calendar is already filling up and I’m looking forward to another great year.
