We were really excited to join Percona University Istanbul last weekend, an event which was sponsored by FerretDB and HostedPMM.
While working at Percona, I regularly attended Percona University events in many different parts of the globe, from Uruguay to Germany. When it comes to FerretDB, the reason we sponsored the event is because we firmly believe that local, free and open source database-focused events are an important part of building our community. First, because not everyone has the ability, means or desire to travel to the opposite side of the world to attend a conference. And second, local events like this brings like-minded people together, allowing them to share their unique experiences.
Around 80 open source database enthusiasts gathered together to discuss a variety of topics - PostgreSQL, MySQL, Security, Monitoring, or the general state of open source databases. Most of them were MySQL and PostgreSQL users, and about a quarter of the attendees were MongoDB users. The former group still felt important to remain up to speed with open source technologies, even though MongoDB itself is no longer open source.
It's always fascinating to me how tightly knit the open source database community is. It's almost a given that whenever and wherever I have the chance to attend a similar event, I will surely meet friends and former colleagues.
Globally-known, but local experts, such as O'Reilly authors Sveta Smirnova and Alkin Tezuysal also gave talks. And we had experts who visited the event from outside Türkiye, such as Ibrar Ahmed, my Co-Founder Peter Zaitsev, among others.
It was also great to see the diversity-focused Technologist Women Platformu, who are working on increasing the level of Technology - Digital Literacy of women, to attend the event.
Towards the end of the event, our Co-Founder and CTO, Alexey Palazhchenko gave a talk about how we develop FerretDB on top of PostgreSQL - you can download the slides here.
As for ourselves - we would like to express our gratitude to the local open source database enthusiasts in the wonderful city of Istanbul. We will return soon!