This board meeting featured: a financial update & membership updates by Robin Giller of Intel, DPDK Board Vice Chair and Treasurer; 2024 Summit updates for APAC (Bangkok) and North America (Montreal) by Evi Harmon, Events Coordinator of the Linux Foundation; tech stack updates on DPDK’s expansion, by Thomas Monjalon of Nvidia, Lead Maintainer of DPDK; and February 2024 Marketing Update and Vote by Ben Thomas, Marketing Coordinator of The Linux Foundation.
Robin Giller began the meeting with financial updates. He noted that all membership renewals have been paid for 2024, which will bring the project to 100% renewals for the third straight fiscal year in a row. The project’s financial posture is healthy, and is projected to remain so through the end of 2024. Key planned expenditures for this year include the DPDK Asian Summit in Bangkok (July 2024); the DPDK North American Summit in Montreal (September 2024); the purchase of new servers for the UNH Community Lab; and the salary of the project’s tech writer, hired earlier this year.
Evi Harmon then discussed the two DPDK events for 2024, including the Asian Summit, slated for Bangkok, Thailand from Jul. 8-9; availability has been cleared at a Bangkok Hotel and the contract is being finalized and signed this week; more details are forthcoming. Registration will be $20 for in person and virtual; all of the sessions will be recorded and will go on youtube after the event. There will be a reception on July 8th. Swag will include t-shirts and stickers. The event’s website and CFP will go live during the weeks ahead, and publicity has already begun.
The DPDK Summit North America will take place in Montreal from Sep. 24-25, 2024; availability of two hotels has been confirmed but neither has been locked in. Today’s meeting identified the hotel of choice and gave Ms. Harmon permission to lock it in. A contract will be finalized very shortly and more details are forthcoming. A website, publicity and a CFP will follow.
Thomas Monjalon then discussed DPDK’s planned evolution in three areas: hyperscaling/cloud, security, and AI, and laid out strategies for expansion in all three sectors.
The meeting wrapped with a summary of marketing accomplishments by coordinator Ben Thomas, who tied the Governing Board’s fiscal allocations for marketing/publicity in 2023 and its accompanying paid promotion budget to a dramatically expanded presence online and an upsurge in impressions and clicks. Mr. Thomas described organic upward trends in DPDK Downloads, website traffic, social media engagement, YouTube views, and engagement rates in our owned media. This positive momentum has persisted into Q124, particularly with notable growth in social media metrics. Q124 has demonstrated overall positive momentum, with PR mentions (earned media) rebounding from Q3-Q4 2023. Notably, February saw double the average number of mentions. The meeting concluded with Mr. Thomas’s request of the Governing Board for another paid marketing allocation from the budget for 2024, which received unanimous approval from all present.