We’re Headed to Atlanta!

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025 is just around the corner, and the Upbound team couldn’t be more excited to head to Atlanta. During November 10–13, we’ll join thousands of cloud-native practitioners, builders, and dreamers for a week full of learning, sharing, and connecting.

Find us at Booth #940, where we’ll be sharing what’s new in Upbound Crossplane 2.0, our most developer-friendly control plane platform yet. Stop by to see how teams are simplifying their platforms, learning from one another, and shaping what’s next in platform engineering.

Crossplane 2.0: The Cloud Native Framework for Platform Engineering

The Crossplane team and community have been hard at work, and we’re thrilled to share what’s new with Crossplane 2.0 and the latest release, v2.1.

Crossplane 2.0 brings even greater consistency, flexibility, and maturity to how teams build and manage control planes using the Kubernetes API model. Whether you’re just getting started with platform engineering or scaling a multi-cloud platform, Crossplane continues to provide an open, extensible foundation for the cloud-native ecosystem.

Visit the Crossplane Kiosk (#3B) in the CNCF Project Pavilion to meet maintainers, ask questions, and see what’s next for the project.

Upbound + Crossplane: Building Intelligent Control Planes

At Upbound, we’re helping teams take the power of Crossplane even further with Intelligent Control Planes. With Upbound Crossplane 2.0, we extend open-source Crossplane with AI-enhanced insights and lifecycle management, giving platform teams a new level of visibility and confidence in how their infrastructure operates.

Swing by Booth #940 to see Upbound Crossplane 2.0 in action and grab some brand-new Upbound and Crossplane swag.

Also attending Platform Engineering Day? Let’s kick things off early! Join us Monday, Nov 10, at Platform Engineering Day (Table #Z36, Building B) for early community connections and platform deep-dives.

Catch a Session or Workshop 

 We love sharing what we’ve been learning! Here’s where you can find the Upbound team (and friends) during the week:

💻  Build Your Internal Developer Platform With the Experts
🕒  Tuesday, Nov 11, 2:30–3:45 PM | Building B, Level 5 | Thomas Murphy Ballroom 2–3
🎤  Speakers: Ana Margarita Medina (Upbound), Cortney Nickerson (Nirmata), Scott Rosenberg (TeraSky), Christian Hernandez (GitOps Advocate)
A hands-on workshop for anyone eager to build an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) using open source CNCF tools. We’ll cover how Crossplane, Backstage, Argo CD, and Kyverno can work together to deliver self-service platforms and share real-world lessons from organizations that have made it work.

🍭  Crossplane – The Cloud Native Framework for Platform Engineering
🕒 Tuesday, Nov 11, 4:15–4:45 PM | Building C, Level 3 | Georgia Ballroom 1
🎤 Speakers: Jared Watts & Nic Cope (Upbound)
An in-depth session by the maintainers of the Crossplane project. Jared and Nic will walk through Crossplane v2, highlight the most impactful improvements, and share the project’s roadmap.

🤖 The Evolution of Platform APIs in the Age of LLMs
🕒 Tuesday, Nov 11, 4:15–4:45 PM | Building B, Level 3 | B312–314
🎤 Speakers: Mauricio “Salaboy” Salatino (Diagrid) & Viktor Farcic (Upbound)
A look at how AI is reshaping the way developers interact with platforms. From dynamic APIs to model-driven interfaces, Viktor and Salaboy explore how generative AI can serve as an intuitive, maintainable interface for internal platforms, simplifying service consumption, management, and troubleshooting.

🚀 Contribfest: Contribute to K8gb’s Journey Toward CNCF Incubation
🕒 Wednesday, Nov 12, 2:15–3:30 PM | Building B, Level 2 | B208
🎤 Speakers: Yury Tsarev (Upbound) & Andre Aguas (Accenture)
Help drive K8gb toward CNCF Incubation! In this Contribfest, you’ll dive into real open issues, refactor strategy logic, improve testability, and modularize the control loop,  all while learning how to run a multi-cluster local testbed. Your contributions will directly shape the next phase of this project’s journey.

🔐 Tools and Strategies for Making the Most of Kubernetes Access Control
🕒 Thursday, Nov 13, 11:00–11:30 AM | Building B, Level 5 | Thomas Murphy Ballroom 1
🎤 Speakers: Lucas Käldström (Upbound) & Micah Hausler (AWS)
Struggling with least-privilege policies or Helm chart permissions? This talk is for you. Lucas and Micah will showcase open-source tools for auditing and right-sizing RBAC rules and preview Kubernetes’ upcoming Conditional Authorization feature.

Party With Crossplane and Upbound at Puttshack

The Crossplane community knows how to have fun! Join us for a night of mini golf, great food, and better company at Puttshack Midtown.

Use the secret password Upbound<3Crossplane to register. Space is limited, and it’s first-come, first-served. This event is open to KubeCon Atlanta attendees only; a badge and a valid form of ID are required.

Let’s Chat 1:1

Looking to take your platform strategy to the next level? Save time and book a meeting with us today.

We’d love to connect one-on-one! The Upbound team will be on-site all week, hosting chats and live demos of Upbound Crossplane 2.0. Whether you’re exploring how to get started, scaling your existing control planes, or curious about where AI fits in. We’re here to listen, share ideas, and show what’s possible. 

See You in Atlanta 

If you’re attending KubeCon in person, we’re truly excited to connect with you. Engaging with our growing community, contributors, and customers is always the highlight of KubeCon for us.

I’ll be there alongside the Upbound team, Crossplane maintainers, and community members, all ready to chat about Upbound, Crossplane, and building platforms with control planes. Whether you’re curious about Crossplane 2.0, want to see a live demo of Upbound Crossplane 2.0, or just want to share what you’ve been building, we’d love to meet you.

Find us at the following locations during the week:

• The Upbound booth during Platform Engineering Day, located at Building B Table #Z36

• The Upbound booth in the Solutions Showcase, located at booth #940

• The Crossplane kiosk in the CNCF Project Pavilion, located at Kiosk #3B

• On-site 1:1 meetings: Schedule a time with our team to connect directly, explore your platform journey, or see a personalized demo

We can’t wait to see you in Atlanta! Safe travels, and thank you for being part of this incredible community.