First time hosting the Grafana OpenTelemetry Community Calls, with a preparation checklist available here.

Recording

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/grafana-friends-virtual-meetup-group/events/315676803

We’re back with the new Grafana ❤️‍🔥OpenTelemetry Community Call!

In this episode of the Grafana OTel Community Call, we’re exploring OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI). OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI) offers a powerful way to instrument applications at the system kernel level, capturing essential “RED metrics” — request rate, error rate, and duration — and network flows without requiring code changes, rebuilds, or redeployments.

We will cover the project’s architecture, discuss its origins as Grafana Beyla, and look ahead to the roadmap for language and runtime coverage.

Guests:

• Mario Macías
• Nikola Grcevski

Hosts:

• Imma Valls

This event will be livestreamed on YouTube and published on the same link after the fact: https://www.youtube.com/live/VEFn_ljZhCw?si=UU1x7yA46C_kZuRL

Join the conversation, bring your questions, and learn how this project is evolving with contributions from across the community.

Social:

• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7483045252992331776/

First time preparing the Grafana OpenTelemetry Community Calls and co-hosting, with the checklist available here.

Recording

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/grafana-friends-virtual-meetup-group/events/315282232

We’re back with the new Grafana ❤️‍🔥OpenTelemetry Community Call!

OpenTelemetry has officially graduated from the CNCF! In this episode of the Grafana OTel Community Call, we are celebrating this milestone by looking back at the project’s journey, evaluating the current state of its signals, and discussing what this long-term stability means for the future. We will also explore what lies ahead on the project roadmap and where the community needs contributors next.

Guests:

• Marylia Gutierrez
• Ted Young
• Tiffany Hrabusa

Hosts:

• Nicole van der Hoeven
• Tiffany Jernigan
• Imma Valls

This event will be livestreamed on YouTube and published on the same link after the fact: https://www.youtube.com/live/P9CfVEGwcgo

Join the conversation, bring your questions, and if it sparks something for you, jump in and help us build and improve OpenTelemetry together.

Social:

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_opentelemetry-cncf-observability-activity-7473713941228212224-rg4-

This talk was presented at a company offsite.

Building in-person community meetups goes beyond simply hosting events with refreshments; it is a powerful strategy to foster genuine commitment, gather honest technical feedback, and establish direct access to users and customers. By creating focused environments that encourage engagement without digital distractions, organizations can build deeper relationships with their community members, contributors, and local partners.

Effective meetup organization relies on a structured approach, from finding community-based hosts and securing local speakers to consistent promotion and event-day management. Modern tooling, such as localized calendar platforms, can help streamline these efforts, allowing organizers to target specific cities and regions while managing logistical noise. Furthermore, diversifying the speaker lineup is a critical, proven lever for increasing inclusivity and attendance.

Expanding a community footprint requires a consistent framework: partnering with local organizers, collaborating with affinity groups like DevOps or Cloud Native communities, and empowering partners to host events. Repurposing existing content—such as talk libraries or workshop materials—into new meetup contexts is an efficient way to scale influence. Ultimately, the success of these programs relies on active participation, from scouting new hosts to contributing to broader tech ecosystems.

1

Talk delivered at FOSDEM 2026 in the /dev/random track: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/J8UCRH-why_i_volunteer_at_fosdem_and_you_should_too/

FOSDEM is legendary, but it doesn’t run on magic, it runs on people.

Apart from the core organizers, an enthusiastic team of volunteers helps make FOSDEM the fun and safe community event we all love every year. As a long-time attendee, I made the jump to volunteering during the event and discovered a new side of the conference.

In this talk, I’ll share my personal journey and what volunteering involves: from simple tasks like setting up directional signs or assisting at the InfoDesk, to setting up and tearing down before and after the event, or helping the video streaming team. I’ll share stories about the people I’ve met, a behind-the-scenes glimpse into this impressive organization, and how truly impressed I am by its operations.

However, the real reason to join is a chance to give back, meet new people, and become an active community builder. FOSDEM needs you to make the event a fun and safe place for all visitors.

What’s in it for you? Join this session to learn how easy it is to sign up, the tasks you can pick (even just for a few hours!), and how you can join the effort to make FOSDEM 2026 the best one yet.

You can learn how to sign up at https://volunteers.fosdem.org/.

Gemini: Imma, we often talk about the friction between sales and community. You recently mentioned that to get this right, you have to be highly strategic rather than just tactical. What does that actually look like on the ground?

Imma: It starts with changing the definition of “success.” I was reading this article on Pororoca, “The Hidden SalesForce” and it really nailed a core truth we often overlook. The article argues that, in this complex tech landscape, users are forming communities specifically to solve their day-to-day challenges. When they find a solution there, they go back to their companies as champions, effectively becoming a “hidden salesforce.”

So, the strategy isn’t “how do I sell to this room?” The strategy is “how do I enable this room to solve problems?” If we respect that dynamic, the partnership works. If we try to hijack it, we lose.

Gemini: That makes sense, but how do you execute that without it becoming a logistical nightmare? For example, finding venues is always a hurdle.

Imma: It depends on where you are.

In-country sales support is actually quite organic if you treat it as a relationship exchange. Here in Barcelona, or wherever your community organizers are based, finding prospects to host a meetup isn’t tricky if you are already part of the ecosystem.

The move is to attend tech meetups. Go to the events that affinity communities organize. For us at Grafana Labs, that means showing up (or even better, helping co-organize) at Cloud Native, DevOps, Go, or Performance meetups. Learn from their pain points if you are in sales, what they struggle with. Once you’ve built that rapport, asking “Hey, would you be open to hosting us (Grafana & Friends) sometime?” feels like a natural collaboration, not a cold ask. You’re leveraging existing trust.

Gemini: What about international partnering? You can’t exactly scout a venue in a city where you don’t have boots on the ground.

Imma: Exactly, and that’s where the “partnering” part of the title comes in. Attempting to do that remotely is a recipe for burnout. The strategic approach is to lean on your Partnership Managers.

Reach out to them and ask for introductions to partners in that target region. Those partners are your local scouts; they know the venues, the vibe, and the logistics. They might already be organizing community events themselves or be willing to start with you. You use the internal organization to bridge the geographical gap, rather than trying to Google “tech venues in Stockholm or Lisboa” from a desk in Barcelona.

Gemini: But what’s in it for them? Why would a partner, or even a prospect, agree to host?

Imma: It has to be a value exchange.

For partners, it’s a way to feel our tangible support. We aren’t just asking for leads from them; we are helping them build authority. We help them organize an event where their tech teams can also take the stage. I always insist that the content be open-source-focused, not a pitch for paid features. We have to respect the community context.

For customers and prospects – and also for partners, the motivation is almost always talent. Even for companies that strictly use the open source version and have no intention of buying Cloud or Enterprise (which is perfectly okay!), hosting is a win. It allows their engineers to show off their stack. It signals to the local ecosystem: “We do cool engineering work here.” That is powerful for attracting and retaining developers.

Gemini: I can see the logistics side. However, I still hear sales folks ask: “Why should I give up my evening to go to a Python meetup if I’m not allowed to pitch?”

Imma: This is where we have to be very clear: this is a long-term investment, not a short-term tactic. If they go in looking to close leads this quarter, they will fail.

We encourage sales to attend meetups (your own groups or others) for two main reasons:

First, it builds trust in a way a Zoom call never can. Meetups are informal and technical. It’s a perfect low-pressure touchpoint with a prospect where you aren’t “the salesperson,” you’re just another human in the room. You can plant seeds and surface connections without the armor on.

Second, you have to listen. Some of the best sales team members I know use these events purely for intel. They become knowledgeable about the use cases and actual challenges teams are facing, not what the marketing brochure says. Community users are happy to share their pain points and successes over pizza.

Gemini: So it’s about curiosity?

Imma: 100%. Be curious. Ask questions. Meet local open-source users and hear how they use your projects. It shows that we are here to support the community, not extract value from it. When you show up to learn, you build the kind of capital that pays off months or years down the line.

A while back, I was reflecting on my 2024 community meetup journey. If 2024 was about recovering from a challenging year with the support of our communities, then 2025 has been fundamentally about connection. This past year has cemented my belief that the most impactful communities are those that break down silos, share resources, and actively collaborate. And this post is a reflection on why I chose to connect the dots between different groups, technologies, and cities, and what I learned along the way.

The core thesis here is simple: we are stronger together. My focus for 2025 is on joint ventures, bringing together the best of Cloud Native Barcelona, Grafana & Friends, Software Crafters, DevOps BCN, Kafka, and other communities, to offer the community something richer and more valuable than we could offer alone.

Before diving into the details, I would like to extend a massive, heartfelt thank you to every single person who made this year’s community work happen. Thank you to my brilliant co-organizers for their countless times jumping in to help; to the sponsoring hosts who opened their doors and provided logistical support; to every dedicated speaker for sharing their expertise; and to every single attendee who showed up and brought the energy. You are the community, and your efforts make it worthwhile.

I also want to commit to an honest assessment here. This journey had incredible highs, but also presented persistent challenges, particularly in terms of diversity and inclusion. Community building is a rewarding yet ongoing process, and I hope to share lessons from both the highs and the challenges.

From Seeds to a Network: The Collaborative Formula for Community Growth

Every journey begins with a starting point, a seed. For me, the initial ground for cultivating community stemmed from two foundational experiences. I first learned the ropes of bringing people together around shared technical interests with the Elastic User Groups in Barcelona and Madrid back in 2018, alongside Janko Strassburg, my long-time partner in crime. What followed was the restarting of Software Crafters Barcelona meetups in 2022, with Manuel Rivero‘s invaluable support and advice. The Crafters community, with its dedication to hands-on learning with regular coding dojos, truly instilled in me the value of consistency and showing up for the community.

These experiences laid the groundwork, and 2024 truly marked the beginning of a new chapter: joint meetups. Driven by a desire to break down the invisible walls between communities, this shift felt very organic.

The first joint venture was between Software Crafters Barcelona and Techfems, when we partnered to bring both communities together under one space in May 2024.

Another pivotal moment came at the end of 2024 with another joint meetup: Cloud Native Barcelona 🤝 Cloud Native Lisboa. I owe a huge thank you to Fábio Sampaio for suggesting that collaboration and making it happen. It showed us the potential of connecting communities even beyond our city.

These successful ventures quickly inspired more local cross-community events. We soon forged another partnership between the Kafka and Grafana communities (Apache Kafka meetup with Grafana in Madrid), which has continued into 2025. My sincere gratitude to Olivia Taylor and Ana Vrsalovic, whose connection was instrumental in getting these collaborations off the ground and will continue beyond 2026 as we expand to include other communities.

These initial joint steps were just the beginning. This year, 2025, has seen these collaborations grow exponentially, transforming those initial seeds into an interconnected network that spans multiple communities, cities, and technologies. Working together has multiplied our impact.

The 2025 Collaborative Calendar: Connecting the Dots in Action

Reviewing this year’s meetups, a pattern emerges: we are seeing an increase in joint meetups.

All those collaborations have been, and I am sure will continue to be, very rewarding.

Beyond the impressive numbers, the real reward of this collaborative approach is the synergy it creates. Simply put, joint ventures lower the organizational burden: finding hosts and speakers. By co-organizing, we share the workload, access diverse networks, and gain exposure to users and technologies we might not see in our core groups alone.

As Luca Berton noted after one of our cross-community events, “These cross-community meetups (Grafana, Kafka, Snowflake) are exactly where innovation happens“. In fact, by joining three different communities, we actually achieved an all-women speaker lineup, a rare and rewarding occurrence.

While our collaborative formula boosts audience size and exposure, it doesn’t automatically solve for deep-seated systemic issues. The reality of community work, as I’ve experienced repeatedly this year, is the persistent struggle to consistently find diverse voices from underrepresented groups for our speaker lineups. We must also seriously examine why we don’t see a proportional representation of diverse attendees.

While creating an inclusive conference with diverse voices is something we are getting better at, and we can influence as attendees, speakers, and sponsors, as meetup organizers, we face a tough, immediate decision: cancel an event until we achieve a diverse lineup, or proceed with a homogeneous one. Meetups are planned in weeks, not months, leaving us a narrow margin to pivot.

It’s not enough to be welcoming and inclusive. We must actively investigate the systemic barriers that prevent certain groups from attending or participating in meetups.

This continuous effort is a central part of my commitment as a community builder in the local community.

My resolution for 2026 is to move beyond good intentions and establish a data-driven approach.

I will begin gathering concrete data on the diversity of speakers and attendees. Once we have this baseline, we can explore and measure additional, targeted initiatives beyond our joint meetups to create truly inclusive spaces.

The journey of joint meetups in 2025 demonstrated that we are stronger together in technical collaboration. However, this combined strength should be intentionally leveraged to drive a more profound change. True allyship for systemic justice is not merely welcoming individuals. It is the commitment to dismantle the systemic barriers that prevent proportional representation in our communities and, by extension, the wider industry.

Our collaborative formula, connecting community groups across cities and technologies, is just one such initiative.

By committing to a data-driven approach in 2026, we are transitioning from recognizing the challenge to actively measuring and targeting the underlying structures of inequality, ensuring our local organizing efforts are a core engine for systemic change in tech.

Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa8ih7PAcrc

https://osseu2025.sched.com/event/25Vwd/understanding-the-need-for-systemic-change-in-open-source-through-intersectionality-imma-valls-grafana-labs

While open-source communities strive for innovation, achieving genuine diversity and inclusion requires a fundamental understanding of systemic inequalities.

This talk centers on the lived experiences of women navigating open-source spaces. We will reveal the persistent challenges related to safety, lack of representation, and the critical importance of considering intersecting identities. By applying an intersectionality lens, we can gain a clearer understanding of the systemic changes required to dismantle the barriers.

This session will then focus on the power of sponsorship and fostering allyship as key strategies for enacting this change. We will highlight existing initiatives and brainstorm solutions to build a more welcoming and equitable community where everyone feels empowered to contribute.

Join us to explore how understanding the need for systemic change through intersectionality and how actively fostering allyship and sponsorship can pave the way for a truly diverse and inclusive open-source future.

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7362908726724382720-yqar
• https://x.com/tacoverdo/status/1960691991953486112

This workshop was delivered with Karla Valeria Feijoo and Sevi Karakulak at Dutch Cloud Native Day 2025.

Privilege is not a binary concept—it’s multifaceted, contextual, and intersects with various aspects of identity and environment. Each of us holds privilege in some areas while lacking it in others. This talk explores how to recognize and understand these nuances of privilege, especially within today’s globally distributed teams. We will examine the role of systemic inequality and cultural bias in the workplace and provide practical strategies for supporting colleagues with less privilege. Through real-world scenarios, we’ll discuss fostering inclusivity, encouraging empathy, and contributing to a more equitable professional environment.

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cloudnativenl_inclusion-equity-diversity-activity-7343182353411829764-Ecnp
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/karla-valeria-feijoo-54934422_inclusion-equity-diversity-activity-7343192034591080448-oewP
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7343339635294593024-A1T1

This 15-minute keynote was delivered at Dutch Cloud Native Day 2025.

While open-source communities strive for innovation, achieving genuine diversity and inclusion requires a fundamental understanding of systemic inequalities.

This talk centers on the lived experiences of women navigating open-source spaces. We will reveal the persistent challenges related to safety, lack of representation, and the critical importance of considering intersecting identities. By applying an intersectionality lens, we can gain a clearer understanding of the systemic changes required to dismantle the barriers.

This session will then focus on the power of sponsorship and fostering allyship as key strategies for enacting this change. We will highlight existing initiatives and brainstorm solutions to build a more welcoming and equitable community where everyone feels empowered to contribute.

Join us to explore how understanding the need for systemic change through intersectionality and actively fostering allyship and sponsorship can pave the way for a genuinely diverse and inclusive open-source future.

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cloudnativenl_we-are-excited-to-announce-that-imma-valls-activity-7338175554497511424-iSlt

Social:

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7336626084341284864-0Q2X
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/apidays-india_womeninapis-techcommunity-publicspeaking-activity-7338877857126862849-XyJc/

Part 1

Video: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/specmatic_part-1-of-3-from-rural-spain-to-tech-leader-activity-7336241551053856768-ChXz

Here are three key takeaways:

1️⃣ Community Support Makes a Difference

Imma’s growth accelerated when she joined and contributed to tech groups. By sharing, she both found support and helped others.

2️⃣ Your Background is an Asset, Not a Barrier

Rural origins, unconventional paths, and career pivots aren’t obstacles to overcome. They’re perspectives that add value to technical discussions and make your voice distinct in the API community.

3️⃣ Intentionality Fuels Impact

Imma’s story shows the value of being intentional about career direction and community involvement. Getting up to speak – even when it’s outside your comfort zone – can fuel your career, and it’s also a powerful way to give back and help others navigate their own technical paths.

Part 2

Video: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7336242983010226176/

➡️ Growth Through Speaking
Public speaking, especially outside your comfort zone, can reveal skills and passions you didn’t know you had. For Imma, presenting and training delivery began her journey to developer advocacy.

➡️ Support Fosters Confidence
Sometimes all it takes is a nudge from a supportive manager or peer. Imma’s first talk happened because her manager encouraged her to try, with no pressure to continue if it wasn’t a fit.

Part 3

Video: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7336245247028432898/

➡️ Nerves Are Normal – Energy Comes After
Imma admits she still gets nervous before speaking publicly, but draws real energy and motivation from connecting with others at in-person events. If you’re hesitant, know you’re not alone – and that the payoff is worth it.

➡️ Authenticity Over Perfection
Early in her career, Imma felt pressure to fit in, often surrounded by men in tech. Her advice: bring your authentic self to work and resist the urge to chase perfection. Steer your career proactively, focusing on your passions rather than letting external forces decide your path.

➡️ The Value of Community
Finding and joining communities is key. Imma highlights how support networks help us realize we’re not alone in our struggles, offering unique perspectives and actionable advice. If one community doesn’t fit, seek out another until you find your support group.