Open source has an acute people problem. As usage accelerates — fueled in part by AI — the contributor and maintainer base supporting critical cloud-native projects remains dangerously thin, making the push for cloud-native diversity both an equity imperative and a sustainability strategy.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s Merge Forward initiative is working to close that gap by onboarding underrepresented groups into the open-source ecosystem. Less than a year old, the community-driven program already encompasses seven diversity groups and more than 300 members, according to Donia Chaiehloudj (pictured, left), software engineer at Isovalent, a Cisco Systems Inc. company.

“We all know that in open source we are missing a lot of people. We have many projects that are maintained by one [or] two main maintainers or core contributors,” Chaiehloudj told theCUBE. “People should care because it’s not only about a good-vibe initiative and being accessible — it’s all about the future of the ecosystem of open source, and at the end also about business and what we are building.”

Chaiehloudj and Anastasiia Gubska (right), lead software engineer at JPMorgan Chase and Co., spoke with theCUBE’s Rob Strechay at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon EU, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how Merge Forward is advancing cloud-native diversity through mentorship, accessibility and community building. (* Disclosure below.)

Cloud-native diversity and the path from contributor to role model

Merge Forward’s impact is already visible in the career trajectories of its members. For Gubska, joining the CNCF Deaf and Hard of Hearing Working Group transformed her professional ambitions from writing code in isolation to speaking on KubeCon keynote stages.

“The cloud-native community has opened that door for me to speak publicly,” Gubska said. “I never thought that would be something I can do.”

The initiative offers practical programs such as buddy mentorships to guide first open-source contributions and call-for-proposals workshops to help underrepresented engineers land speaking slots at events. At KubeCon + CloudNativeCon EU, Merge Forward also ran a kiosk and organized sessions ranging from sign language courses to neurodiversity workshops, Chaiehloudj noted.

“I really aim to be a role model for other deaf people working in tech, and particularly deaf women who are working as engineers,” Gubska said. “I hope that through my effort, I can grow that network [so that] potentially in years to come, in future generations, we’ll see many more deaf women working in the tech world.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon EU:

(* Disclosure: The Cloud Native Computing Foundation sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither CNCF nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE