UbuConKenya2026

Community Events
, ,
1

By the time DjangoCon/UbuCon Africa 2025 wrapped up in Arusha last August, it was clear there was something magical in the air. Okay, that’s a bit dramatic, but the point is, we left the event with the distinct impression that we were on the cusp of something special with regards to African involvement in the open source world. Something had taken root and we didn’t want to lose this momentum.

This is how the first-ever UbuCon Kenya came about. Due to the events already on the calendar, March seemed like the most sensible option.

The village it took

As it turns out, organizing an event is tough, especially when you give yourselves just four months to pull it off. Who knew :grin:?

This being the first UbuCon Kenya ever meant there wasn’t an established community or process for organizing it. The timing also meant there were no events we could co-locate with. Every part of the organization and planning had to be done from scratch including finding a suitable location and volunteers, setting up a website, outreach, etc.

JOE00152
JOE001521920×1282 303 KB

This is why we are very grateful for the team of co-organizers and volunteers who came on board. Many came from existing tech communities including OpenInfra User Group Kenya, Nairobi DevOps community, and the two newly formed Ubuntu LoCos (Nairobi and Mombasa), while some were friends we made during past events, e.g., Muheue from Namibia who did a lot of the design work. We also had lots of help from students and faculty members from our venue partners, USIU-Africa (United States International University - Africa), and from within Canonical.

The big day: Part 1

On the first day of the event, we arrived at the venue bright and early. Most of the attendees did not :smiling_face_with_tear:. Anyone who has organized an event will tell you this is hardly surprising, and this did give us a chance to address the newly discovered compatibility issue with the AV system which wouldn’t play nice with Ubuntu :face_exhaling: (the disrespect).

We finally got things started an hour later than planned.

Duncan Njoroge kicked things off with his talk on using cloud-init and Multipass to create a unified workflow for consistent and repeatable deployments and was followed by Western Onzere - Building Enterprise Knowledge Systems with Agentic RAG and Knowledge Graphs and Mucheru Maina - LXD in Production:Building a Cost-Effective Private Cloud on Bare Metal.

Screenshot from 2026-04-13 11-22-55
Screenshot from 2026-04-13 11-22-55781×457 480 KB

After a quick break, our own Alex Lutay gave a talk on running PostgreSQL on RISC-V Ubuntu (deb/snap/rock/charm) and Stacey Ingolo, a student from Kabarak University, presented her Open Blueprint for Climate-Resilient Microrobots Swarm Using Ubuntu. Just before the much anticipated lunch break, the team from Signverse took us through their efforts to power inclusive communication and how they’re giving back to open source.

Screenshot from 2026-04-13 11-42-24
Screenshot from 2026-04-13 11-42-24778×563 63.3 KB

Signverse
Signverse1920×1282 182 KB

We had two talks in the afternoon before heading out for the workshops. Felix Jumason walked us through what it takes to build a secure homelab using a Raspberry Pi and Tailscale before Charles Odada highlighted how Launchpad is empowering open source collaboration and Linux-focused development.

We had three workshops running in parallel on the first day:

The big day: Part 2

A series of external events meant Maria Gitau had to step in as MC on Day 2 (and what an amazing job she did). The first day’s early hiccups left us with a packed line up for the second day, but some late cancellations accidentally gave us the breathing room we needed.

We were able to fit three keynotes before lunch:

  • USIU-Africa - Professor Gabriel Okello

  • Canonical (The Career Code AI can’t write) - Sebastian Trzcinski-Clément

  • Ubuntu LoCos (Kenya) - Doreen Nangira & Chris Achinga

We were also treated to eight engaging talks:

We had three more workshops lined up in the afternoon from Kenya Flying Labs (event partner), Professor John Ahenda - Beyond Code - Git and GitHub enterprise operations, and Abby Nduta - OpenStack Contribution Academy - Make your first OpenStack contribution.

Finally we wrapped up the last day of UbuCon Kenya 2026 with some customary lightning talks:

  • Vincent Chiriba - Why Most Beginner Apps Are Easy Targets and How to Fix Them

  • Duncan Njoroge - The Curious Engineer

  • Sharon Koech (and Mauro Gaspari in spirit :ghost:) - Ubuntu Local Communities

  • Brian Oginga - From Curious User to Confident Contributor: Your First 30 Days in Ubuntu & Open Source

  • James ‘Tron’ Oduor - Harnessing open source contribution for career transition.

And just like that, the first ever UbuCon Kenya came to an end with the closing speech delivered by USIU-Africa’s Professor Patrick Wamuyu.

Final remarks

The Kenyan tech space is one of the most discussed in Africa. This is why we were confident that we are ready to start hosting UbuCon events. In the aftermath of UbuCon Kenya 2026, many discussions were centered on what we needed to do “next time”. This subtle expectation that there would definitely be future UbuCon Kenya events is perhaps the strongest indicator that we had achieved what we’d set out to do; build an interest in Ubuntu and open source and set the stage for bigger and better things in the Kenyan open source ecosystem.

Event Photos - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sGjuiN4rTmHCAJZE06aoa1HL2NwPfU8q?usp=drive_link

Day 1 Presentations - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fL0Vyp6PzAMnApQB-jqq6WwKlbRslhDtKmzlq0mBkKI/edit?usp=sharing

Day 2 Presentations - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bsthSAwMrTfc0BBG_7sqaItBzuvrZvM5ylEKdZ23RfY/edit?usp=sharing

3 Likes