Stephen Chin and Cassandra Chin Lead CNCF’s Kids Days

This is Techstrong tv. Hey everyone, welcome back here to Techstrong tv. You know, well it's the new year.

January's already rocking and rolling. And when I look at my calendar, I really don't have any big trips planned till March. But March is gonna be a heck of a great month.

And really the centerpiece of it is heading out to Paris for, uh, cube Con Cloud Native Con Europe, which this year is in Paris. The dates I believe are March 19th to the 22nd. It's a Tuesday through Friday, which is a little different than in past CubeCon.

It's usually, usually kind of Monday's the zero day, uh, events or the pre-Con conferences. And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is, is CubeCon itself this year? I think it's a little, it starts on Tuesday and we go Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

Yeah, that's correct. Um, I'm happy to, you know, talking about CubeCon. I'm happy to have with me my friend Steven Chin.

Steven, Steven wears a lot of hats over all that hair he has there. But, um, Steven is VP of DeVere at Jfr, but he's also a board member at CNCF. So, and he's here in both capacities today, but he's here in another, had to, he's here as a proud, a proud dad today.

And we're happy to introduce you to our second guest, Cassandra Chen, who's one of the linchpins, if you will, the leaders of C C's program around kids days. And we're gonna find out more about Kids Days as well. Steven, first of all, welcome and happy New Year.

Cassandra, welcome and Happy New Year. Thanks all. If you don't mind.

Thank you. If you don't mind, I'd like to start with Cassandra, though. Cassandra, I don't, I know I've interviewed you with Cube Concepts before, but I don't know if I've interviewed you on Zoom like this and there's a lot of people out here who are saying, who is this young woman.

So if you don't mind, share a little bit. Hi. Share a little bit of your story.

Cassandra, tell us about you. So I've been teaching kids workshops for a pretty long time. Like I started teaching when I was about 14 years old, so I was like early middle school.

So I would go to like for kids that was the local Bay Area chapters for kids' workshops. So I would bring in my suitcase of Raspberry Pie hardware, about 15 kids. I would give it to the kids and teach them how to code a little.

And I started with the Raspberry Pie because it's like a mini computer. Kids are really Mm-Hmm. Used to just opening a laptop or tablet and it's like a game.

You don't even have to think about typing or anything hard. So when you open up a raspberry pie, you don't know what to do when you first open it. You kind of have to follow my instruction.

So it makes it easier for me. Mm-Hmm. And I like to put a little game on it so kids feel more engaged.

It's kind of like playing a game on an app, but they have to actually take more steps to get it running. Okay. Recently I've been getting involved in CNCF Kids Day.

I think I've taught about three CNCF Kids Day workshops now, which is about how old the program is. So for CNCF Kids Day, you have Fian friends. I like to include some of the characters in my workshop 'cause it also helps to introduce the kids to Cloud Native technologies, even if they're not learning about Cloud Native yet.

It's a good introduction. So they're a little bit involved in it. I love it.

Cassandra, I don't mean to embarrass you, but 14 wasn't that long ago for you, if you don't mind sharing. You know, you've been doing it for a few years. You don't have to give your age if you don't want to, but how many years have you been doing this?

Um, right now I'm 20. I'm in college. So I've been doing this for like maybe six years.

Six years. Excellent. Excellent.

And congratulations. I feel, well I first met you, it was probably maybe two years ago, or at least a year and a half. So that, that's just fantastic.

And then Cassandra, you were mentioning that in addition to the Raspberry pie kinds of programs that you've been running at at Kids days for CNCF, you recently kind of made a new class or a new course around ai. Tell us about that a little. I'm planning a new kids workshop for CNC CF Kids Day for Paris.

So because of all this like AI hype, I wanna teach the kids how to do ai. Like all the adults are focused on ai, mainly just focused on themselves. So I think We also are okay, Kids are surprisingly interested in ai.

Like since I'm at that college age, I see what my friends do with AI and they're really getting good at using Chat GPT to help them with their homework. So I think the interest is clearly there. They're eager to learn.

So I Wonder, I, I agree. I wanna teach the kids to about how AI actually works, not just how to use it. And to do that, I'll want to teach them by having a story with FPI to kind of tie it into Cloud Native again.

So for the workshop, I want them to program their own AI algorithm. So to actually program the algorithm, you can take like a fite, here's a Fite mm-Hmm. You take a bunch of photos of him on the webcam and that's how you teach the computer to recognize fpi.

So after you give all that data, then you show the computer a fpi and it should know that a Fite is a fpi. Excellent. So the workshop will have a few easy exercises like that.

And another project I'm planning is a kid's book about ai. It kind of ties into the workshop. So like 50 books already exist, kind of like this was the first one, this is how I got inspired to write my own Mm-Hmm.

And it kind of teaches you about like cloud native technologies with Kubernetes into really strong detail. But I think this book is mainly for adults to share their passion to kids. And it's a little hard for kids to actually understand Kubernetes and get it.

So I wanna bring fpi down a bit and have them be more relatable to kids. So I wanna give content, which it's like a picture book. So your six-year-old kid can actually read it with their parent and slowly understand the story, get a meeting out of it and do a little project.

So, and I'll have the book set in Paris, 'cause CNCF will be in Kids' Kids' Day, will be in Paris next time and think it ties it well. And I see how excited my mom gets when I say Paris. So I think it's a good catch for adults too.

Absolutely. My, my wife will be coming. I, you know, that book you held up, was that the one by Matt Ferman?

Uh, Matt Cutler from Ferryman? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

'cause I, you know, it's an interesting story. Matt's actually the one who came up with Fit being the rest of the animals for his own daughter. Right.

He kind of in, you know, invented the whole story and it's, it's great stuff. Um, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to see you, you know, continuing this forward. Let me ask you a question though, Cassandra.

How do you find time to do schoolwork with all of these projects and everything you got going on? I'm actually taking an online school program. So I go to Colorado State University Global, but I've never visited the Colorado campus before.

I just work from home. I use a program. I have friends who are ribs from Colorado State.

It's supposed to be a beautiful campus. I've never visited the campus before. We'll get you out there.

We'll get you out there Steven. Let me turn to you, you know, proud papa moment number one. Right.

It's gotta be incredibly, uh, joyful as as a parent. I, I get it. Right.

I guess our folks out in the audience get that too. Talk to us. First is Cassandra's dad, then we'll talk to you, Steven Chin board member.

Yeah, No, I think, um, yeah, obviously I'm a a, a proud parent and, um, excited about the things and support of the things which Cassandra's doing to, to help educate, um, younger kids. But this also is the inspiration for, um, CNCF Kids Day, which, um, Arun Gupta, who's the, the chair of the CNCF, um, Eric Han from, um, NetApp and myself started a few years ago. And I think we, we reached a really important milestone at the last CubeCon event in Chicago because all four of the workshops we're taught by young adults teaching the kids and helping inspire them to get more involved by technology and education.

And I think it's, it's really about, um, you know, passing the torch in terms of, of di you know, teaching technology, teaching cloud native, um, technologies to kids. It's about diversity, getting kids involved more early, um, in learning technology and adopting technology. Um, so the, the getting kids involved younger, you get a better mix of girls and boys who are involved.

'cause the, the stereotypes, um, haven't set in yet and kids haven't decided what they want to be. Um, we can also reach a, a wider audience by getting kids in, um, underprivileged neighborhoods and places where they don't have access to technology to experience it, um, by bringing computers, by bringing raspberry pies, by bringing, um, technology content. And really we wanna give them just enough introduction to programming and cloud native technologies that they're inspired to learn more.

And then, um, hopefully they see this as something which they're personally interested in and they'll pursue at school, at home. Raspberry pies are very affordable. They're only $35, uh, maybe more with, uh, the latest version, but still very, very inexpensive and, um, get more kids, uh, knowledgeable about coming trends and technologies coming out.

Like, um, artificial intelligence and machine learning, which, um, you know, Cassandra mentioned it's something everyone's using and applying just like, um, search engines and other technologies, which we use in everyday life, but they don't really understand how it works, what's going on behind the scenes and, and how to program, how to, how to build the technology themselves. So we really need to, um, educate and train the next generation of developers to, to be very comfortable with and know how to, to build and use machine learning models. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And, and you know, even the AI stuff as well is Cassandra's, right? Uh, most adults are using the AI for their own uses.

And even in college, my my sons are in college and grad school as well, and you know, I think they're learning how to use it to do testing well and do their homework. But, you know, I I I want to, I want to believe there's a higher calling here, right? There's a higher use function of this.

And I, and, and what's interesting is, you know, I I call them digital na natives people. Cassandra, your age, right? You guys grew up, there was always an internet your whole life.

You, you've been surrounded by the internet for people like your dad and me, there wasn't always an internet. There was a before internet time and, and, uh, so your digital natives, but as the next generation, the people you're bringing this AI stuff to right now, are they gonna be AI natives, right? Where the, there was always an AI there for them that was helping them or augmenting or whatever word you want to use.

And, and what did, what's it, I mean, look at you at 20, what you do, Cassandra, right? From a technology is, is in your blood, so to speak. What's it gonna be like when kids who are four years old or six years old today or eight years old when they're 20 and they've had the last, you know, 10, 12, 14 years exposed to ai?

What, what are they going to be doing? What kind of stuff? You know, I hope it's not like the movie Wally or Walleye, whatever, where we're just sitting on, we're just morbid people sitting on power chairs moving around.

I think Within those 10, 12 years when they're growing up, AI will be growing up with them. Like the technology really is still developing. Mm-Hmm.

So they'll be learning with ai. Oh, for sure. They'll be learning.

It's what they'll, what they're gonna learn and what they're gonna do with what they learn, you know, the changes. Not to sound like cat in the hat, but Oh my Right. What, what, what we're gonna see with this, Steven, if you don't mind, um, beyond the kids' days, Paris, I know there's a lot of, uh, expectations around this being maybe, maybe the biggest CubeCon ever.

Yeah, no, I, I think that from a, just a growth perspective, cube con's really become the, the mecca of, um, different, um, technology audiences, different tribes coming together to, um, you know, share how to build technologies, share how technologies are used. The, um, A IML hub that they did for the first time at Chicago was packed and like just a, a great place to, to meet all the, the minds who are working on new technologies, building the, the future model repositories, the technologies which underlie our, our AI revolution. Um, and I think that we're gonna see a continuation of this in, um, Paris.

So, um, it's, it's slated to be the biggest CubeCon ever. Um, one of the efforts which was kicked off, um, earlier, um, was an a i ML working group. Um, actually that's something which, um, Cassandra's involved in, um, some of the folks at jfr were also participating in.

And, um, it's really about how you achieve scale with cloud native technologies to support the explosive growth of, of AI technologies. And there's a lot of work, um, in Kubernetes and different CNCF projects that, that are needed to provide that infrastructure and support. And I think when you, when you look at like, the technological technological evolution, so, um, you know, DevOps has a lot of its roots in, um, agile infrastructure and processes and, and ways of thinking.

Um, DevSecOps was kind of like an evolution of DevOps to approach security and, and how you're, um, integrating security into your, um, overall pipeline. And I think the next revolution for us as an industry is to take these best practices and knowledges on how to build, um, scalable systems, which are easy to support, easy to maintain, have good processes across organizations, and extend that to how we, we build and we deploy, um, machine learning models. So I think that this, this is a big focus for the entire cloud native community.

But you know, also for Jfr as a company, we're, um, kind of the DevOps platform and infrastructure for, um, all of the top companies. And, um, having the ability to treat machine learning models like any other, um, binary and software deliverables, extremely important. 'cause that's what's gonna power the, um, platforms and technologies we're building for the, the next decade and beyond.

Absolutely. And of course, JFR, as you mentioned, will will be a Paris at these A-A-M-L-A-I workshops, but also as jfr, you know, their own stand and, and exhibit and so forth. Yeah.

And we should have a lot of exciting announcements coming up as well for, for March. So I, I think it's gonna be a, it's gonna be a huge event. I'm, I'm looking forward to it.

I, I think as Cassandra said, a lot of spouses are looking forward, and mommies and daddies are looking forward to it as well. I know, I know on my team, almost everyone is bringing a significant other with them. Um, so it's gonna be a party in, in addition to just a great learning experience as well.

But what a great, great location springtime in Paris. What could be bad? Um, let's talk a little bit about maybe someone out there saying, man, I'm bringing my daughter or son with me, or I live there, or what have you.

I'd like to get them registered for kids days. How can we, how can we get people registered here? So, um, there's A-C-N-C-F Kids Day website.

Um, we, we haven't launched the page for Paris yet, but, um, we will be launching that soon. And we're gonna send out, um, uh, a message to CubeCon attendees who want to, or who are interested to attend or have their kids attend the Kids Day workshop. It's free for, for anybody, for, you don't have to be a CubeCon attendee.

You don't have to be, um, somebody who's, who's involved in the, the cloud native community. We try to get kids lo especially local kids, um, involved and get like a wider, more diverse, um, set of kids to expose them to technology. Um, so I think it's coming soon and we'll, we'll also have a blog about this on the CNCF site about the kids day Watch.

Cassandra, how are you going deal if most of the children speak French or not English? Can, can the course translate? Well, I've actually taught my workshop in multiple countries before, like I taught in Morocco and mm-Hmm.

There are some parents helpers who can translate, but I think it also helps the kids to get some exposure to English when I present, like even if I'm presenting in English, like the slides have pictures, they can follow along. Very cool. You know what, it's, that can do attitude.

I love it. I I remember when I used to have that attitude. You two Steven.

Um, anyway, guys, we're about outta time. You know what, uh, Paris CubeCon Cloud Native Con will be here before we know it. CNCF Kids Days Landing in Paris.

Uh, as Steven says, we'll have more information shortly about pre-registration and stuff like that. Cassandra, I may stop in. Maybe we'll bring some of our video team in and we'll take a quick, uh, quick video of, of your course there.

That'll be fun. And I'm looking forward to seeing you all in Paris. Yeah, no, this is great.

Thanks, Helen. Thank you. Steven Chin and Cassandra Chin.

Thank you. 20 years old, conquering the world. Fantastic.

We're gonna take a break here on Techstrong. We'll be back in a minute.