Hi all, I’m stepping out of the comfort zone and submitting my candidacy for a seat on the OpenStack Technical Committee. I’m a software architect at the Mass Open Cloud[0], a collaboration between the five major universities of the Boston area to create and operate a public cloud based on the Open Cloud eXchange model[1]. I’ve been involved with OpenStack for the past three years as a user, operator and developer. My main area of focus is in identity and federation. I’m a core reviewer for the Keystone project and the lead for MixMatch[2][3][4], which aims to enable resource federation among multiple OpenStack deployments. I believe my affiliation with academia and research will bring a different voice to the technical committee from a mostly underrepresented group. Furthermore, my experience with federation and operating a cloud with a diverse set of offerings not limited to OpenStack, but including other important pieces of a cloud provider’s toolbox will prove really valuable, especially with the vision dilemmas that OpenStack is facing today. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to take part in the discussion with regards to the technical vision for OpenStack. Regardless of election outcome, this is the first step towards a larger involvement from me in the important discussions (no more shying away from the important mailing list threads.) I have a lot yet to learn, and consider it a big privilege to be surrounded by so many kind people who have mentored me and continue to mentor me while I walk and stumble. I strongly believe in servant leadership, and I will devote myself in helping the community and mentoring the next wave of OpenStack contributors. I have found OpenStack to be one of the most welcoming online communities, and am very proud to be a part of this big family and for a chance to give back. Thank you for your time and attention, Kristi Nikolla (knikolla) [0]. https://massopen.cloud [1]. http://www.cs.bu.edu/fac/best/res/papers/ic14.pdf [2]. https://mixmatch.readthedocs.io [3]. https://github.com/openstack/mixmatch [4]. https://youtu.be/O0euqskJJ_8