DrupalCon Barcelona 2024 Recap
Once again, Drupal delivered a world-class conference, packed full of inspiring speakers and, of course, an amazing community spirit. Jump in to read about what happened during the week of DrupalCon Barcelona 2024.
Monday: LagoonCon and Opening Drinks
The week started with a warm-up event, “LagoonCon” hosted by amazee.io, an event centred around Lagoon, an open-source application delivery platform designed for developers. It offered insights into the platform’s features, its open-source hosting benefits, customisation potential, and how users can contribute to the project.
Toby Bellwood kicked off LagoonCon with an opening talk on what amazee.io has done this year and what they plan to do next for Lagoon. John Faber spoke about how Chapter Three is using Next-Drupal, with Lagoon for backend hosting and Vercel for frontend hosting, to improve their clients' return on investment (ROI). Lauren Morris shared her story on co-designing product engineering processes for the Lagoon team. Michael Schmid joined remotely to deliver an update on the product strategy for Lagoon and its role within Mirantis.
In the late afternoon, Kuoni invited the Drupal Association, along with the advisory board, for which I'm a volunteer, of DrupalCon Europe, to a welcome drink.
Image: DrupalCon Barcelona 2024 by Daniel Lemon
Tuesday: DrupalCon Officially Begins
DrupalCon officially kicked off with the opening ceremony by Baddy Sonja Breidart, Gábor Hojtsy, and Imre Gmelig Meijling, which was directly followed by the Women in Drupal awards. The Women in Drupal Award recognises outstanding contributions by women in the Drupal community, celebrating their impact on advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within the community.
In the Define category, Esmeralda Braad-Tijhoff was recognised for her innovative leadership in Drupal projects. Pamela Barone won the Build award for her contributions to developing advanced Drupal solutions and community engagement. The Scale award went to Alla Petrovska, celebrated for using Drupal to grow businesses and platforms. These awards showcased Drupal’s ongoing commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Image: Woman in Drupal Awards by Jakub Piasecki - CC BY-SA 2.0
Dries Buytaert's State of Drupal keynote highlighted the latest developments for Drupal and Drupal CMS, showcasing how site-building can be achieved through AI-driven tooling. Dries demonstrated how these innovations will allow experts and end users to create complex websites in minutes.
The rest of the day saw a flurry of activity, with over 100 sessions and workshops covering various tracks. Many attendees made the most of Barcelona’s vibrant streets, continuing the conversations outside the conference halls to get tapas together, a very good way to share and network in a friendly environment.
Image: Driesnote - DrupalCon Barcelona 2024, by Philippe von Bergen - CC BY-SA 2.0
Wednesday: Keynotes, Business Survey, and Volunteer Drinks
Wednesday was another packed day, starting with contribution workshops aimed at improving Drupal's core. The morning keynote by Monica Rikić. In her keynote, Monica challenged the dominant focus on AI and machine learning by emphasising the value of artistic research in technological innovation. She shared her experience working on assistive robotics, where she developed an artistic replica of an industrial robot, showcasing how creative experimentation can contribute to meaningful technological progress. Monica also highlighted the importance of maker-culture and learning-by-doing in alternative spaces like hacking camps, where technology is explored for fun, and open, self-managed environments offer anyone the chance to engage with tech in a non-traditional way. I really enjoyed her energy and thought-provoking deep questions that she challenged us, the audience, with.
Learn by doing, making is thinking” - Monica Rikić
I then caught up with various members of Local Drupal Associations based in Europe to discuss in a “birds of a feather” (BoF) meeting the future development of the “la_eu” project. A project that aims to modernise all Local European Associations to use the new, fresh, rebranding of Drupal for their respective websites.
After lunch, Theódór Gislason presented a keynote titled: Building Safer Digital Communities - The Mission of "Defend Iceland". Theódór highlighted his personal journey, sparked by a life-changing accident 30 years ago, which ignited his passion for hacking and community-driven cyber resilience. He featured the importance of community-driven defence models, aligning with the open-source spirit of Drupal.
We will do that by hacking our own country, and making it more secure over time” - Theódór Gislason
The “Defend Iceland” initiative is a cybersecurity initiative aimed at creating a nationwide bug bounty platform with a communal reward system. The project is funded by a €2.53M grant from the European Commission and seeks to democratise cybersecurity, making responsible disclosure accessible to organisations, ethical hackers, and hobbyists alike. He ended his keynote with a call to action for global collaboration to strengthen digital defences and build a safer, more secure world.
Image: Keynote - DrupalCon Barcelona 2024, by Bram Driesen - CC BY-SA 2.0
I attended the Drupal Association public board meeting, where they shared insights from the 2024 Drupal Business Survey, reflecting on the current economic climate's impact on the industry. Despite challenges, excitement for Drupal CMS is growing, with over 70 digital agencies coming together to refine their strategies for 2025. The public board meeting announced new Board Members, said goodbye to a few with expiring terms and introduced the Adopt-a-Document program in more detail. The evening concluded with volunteer drinks, a way for the Kuoni Tumlare team to say thank you and celebrate the contributions of those who helped make DrupalCon such a success.
Thursday: Closing Ceremony and Trivia Night
Thursday marked the final day of sessions, with over 1,100 participants from 67 countries gathering to celebrate DrupalCon’s success. The closing ceremony recapped the key takeaways of the week, reflecting on the incredible diversity of sessions, workshops, and collaborations that took place. In an exciting announcement, Vienna was revealed as the host city for DrupalCon Europe 2025. The evening culminated in Drupal's famous Trivia Night, sponsored by Amazee Labs and Zoocha, which brought the community together for a fun and competitive evening, rounding off the day with laughter and camaraderie.
Image: Group Photo - DrupalCon Barcelona 2024, By Bram Driesan - CC BY-SA 2.0
Friday: Contribution Day
The week concluded with a lively and motivated Contribution Day, where seasoned developers and first-time contributors worked side-by-side on a range of tasks, from bug fixes to new features. The energy in the room was palpable, with attendees enthusiastically tackling over 250 issues throughout the week. This collective effort highlighted the spirit of open-source collaboration, leaving everyone inspired and excited about the future of Drupal.
Image: PXL_20240927_111712651, by Gábor Hojtsy - CC BY-SA 2.0
DrupalCon Barcelona 2024 delivered on every front. It was a pleasure to be part of it and to gain wonderful insights, inspiration and memories. We can't wait until next year and hope to see you there!