Highlights from Drupal Mountain Camp 2025

Keynotes: Leading Perspectives

Olga Baranova, co-founder of CH++, shared insights on Switzerland's first federal-level open-source law in her keynote, "Public Money, Public Code: The Legal Journey of Open Source in Switzerland," exploring the intersection of open-source initiatives and institutional politics. Olga provided a fascinating look into the legislative landscape and detailed the challenges and triumphs of navigating institutional politics. Attendees were particularly engaged by her insights into how citizen-focused digital policies are shaped, and the importance of ensuring that publicly funded software remains publicly accessible.

Cristina Chumillas, Drupal CMS UX Lead, presented "Drupal CMS now and beyond," covering the evolution of Drupal since its inception, highlighting its current roadmap, and discussing the critical role of community collaboration in shaping its future. Cristina offered a clear picture of the roadmap for Drupal CMS, emphasising the crucial role of community collaboration in its ongoing development. Cristina's passion for Drupal was evident, and her insights into the future of the platform were met with enthusiastic applause. Attendees appreciated her focus on the user experience and her vision for making Drupal even more accessible and powerful.

Lauri Timmanee, Product Lead for the Experience Builder initiative, provided updates on the project aimed at empowering site builders with no-code theming and website-building tools in his keynote, "Update on the Experience Builder Initiative." Lauri's presentation on the Experience Builder Initiative was highly anticipated, and he did not disappoint. He provided a comprehensive update on the progress of Experience Builder, showcasing how it aims to empower site builders with no-code tools for theming and website creation. The audience was particularly interested in the potential of this initiative to democratise Drupal development and make it easier for non-developers to build sophisticated websites. Lauri's clear explanations and demonstrations of the Experience Builder's capabilities generated a lot of excitement and positive feedback.

Vera Herzmann, a systemic organisation development consultant, presented “Neurodiversity: An Underrated Superpower in Business,” highlighting the strategic advantages of fostering neurodiverse workforces. Vera brought a unique and valuable perspective to Drupal Mountain Camp with her keynote on neurodiversity in the workplace. She highlighted how embracing diverse cognitive styles can drive innovation and creativity, and she provided practical strategies for fostering inclusive work environments. Vera's message resonated deeply with attendees, many of whom were inspired to rethink their approaches to team building and collaboration. Her emphasis on the strategic advantages of neurodiversity sparked thoughtful conversations and a renewed appreciation for the power of diverse perspectives.

Sessions: Deep Dives and Drupal Discoveries

Beyond the captivating keynotes, Mountain Camp 2025 offered a wealth of insightful sessions. A key highlight was Alex Moreno's featured session, “Shaping the Web - Drupal's Success and the Future with Drupal CMS.” Alex explored Drupal's journey over the past two decades, emphasising its evolution into a preferred solution for enterprise-level content management and digital experience platforms. Drawing on insights from Dries Buytaert and Tim Doyle, Alex delved into Drupal's evolving strengths, highlighting recent innovations like the “Recipes” approach and the development of “Drupal CMS.” Alex emphasised how these advancements simplify the creation of flexible software solutions, making Drupal both powerful and user-friendly for projects of all sizes. Furthermore, the session shed light on the Drupal Association's efforts to empower local communities and discussed Drupal's ongoing impact on the web, offering a glimpse into the future of Drupal CMS and the Drupal community.

Christophe Jossart and I presented a session on “Decoupled Drupal with GraphQL and Gutenberg,” exploring how these technologies can facilitate seamless communication between Drupal, Gutenberg, and front-end frameworks. We demonstrated how GraphQL enables major backend changes, such as migrating from the “Paragraphs” module to the Gutenberg editor, without impacting the front-end or GraphQL schema. We also explored how GraphQL can be leveraged across CMS, JavaScript frameworks, and Storybook to enable Static Site Generation (SSG) with instant preview.

Michael Schmid’s session, “Kubernetes Demystified: What is actually happening when you deploy a Drupal site,” was a highlight for many, myself included. Michael expertly broke down the complexities of Kubernetes, making it accessible and understandable for attendees with varying levels of technical expertise. This was especially valuable for those interested in understanding the foundation of modern hosting platforms like Lagoon. Lagoon, an open-source application delivery platform for Kubernetes developed by amazee.io, streamlines the deployment and management of applications in cloud environments. Michael's explanation of how Kubernetes and Drupal interact to host some of the world's largest websites provided crucial insights into the technology that powers highly available, performant, and secure Drupal deployments. By covering topics like application deployment and Drupal rollouts within Kubernetes, Michael provided a practical understanding of how this powerful technology is used in real-world scenarios, directly relating to the infrastructure solutions that amazee.io provides.

Frederik Wouters led a highly anticipated workshop on “Drupal & AI the ultimate workshop: AI for editors / AI search / Automated content input,” providing participants with practical, hands-on experience in integrating AI into Drupal. Attendees gained practical skills, leaving with working examples of AI-powered features like semantic site search, editor assistants, and automated content input. The workshop covered configuring AI models (Mistral, OpenAI) and integrating them with Drupal tools (translate, ECA, CKEditor), empowering participants to leverage AI for content creation and enhanced user experiences.

Celebrating Success: Splash Awards and Community Spirit

The Splash Awards event was a highlight, showcasing the exceptional talent and innovation within the Swiss Drupal community. Congratulations again to all the winners! Winning projects demonstrated the versatility of Drupal and we were proud to celebrate alongside such outstanding contributions to the Drupal landscape.

Beyond the Code: Fondue, Fun, and Friendship

The social events were equally memorable. The fondue evening, complete with a torch-lit night walk down the mountain, provided a unique and enchanting experience. It was a fantastic opportunity to connect with fellow attendees in a relaxed and informal setting. To end the conference, we had a little mini pub quiz, held within the venue, fostering camaraderie and friendly competition.

A Heartfelt Thank You

To conclude, I’d like to highlight the opening and closing ceremonies, as Tobias Tschopp and Lukas Fischer delivered a very thought-provoking talk. Tobias's calming dialogue story set a serene and engaging tone for the camp. The interactive icebreakers — from lining up by Drupal.org registration age to mapping our travel distances, and then to the lively rock-paper-scissors tournament — fostered instant connections and a strong sense of community. Similarly, their closing ceremony “mini-retrospective” provided a valuable opportunity for reflection, encouraging attendees to share their highlights and learnings. Tobias and Lukas created a welcoming and reflective atmosphere that truly enhanced the Drupal Mountain Camp 2025 experience and their contributions were deeply appreciated by all.