About

The Home for Open Source Enthusiasts

Our mission, vision, who we're for, and the values that shape everything we build.

our foundation

Our Mission

OffOn exists to sustain the people behind open source and create the maintainers of tomorrow.

We are a vendor-neutral, community-driven space built around one goal: supporting open source contributors and maintainers at every stage of their journey, from the first pull request to long-term stewardship.

Most platforms, foundations, and content formats today are designed with enterprises, legal teams, or marketing goals in mind. Far fewer are built for the individuals who actually keep open source alive.

As the ecosystem navigates new realities around regulation, digital sovereignty, and AI, OffOn gives the community a place to learn, share, mentor, and grow, from curious users to confident contributors, and from contributors to sustainable maintainers.

Our Vision

A future where open source is not only widely used, but actively sustained by a new generation of contributors and maintainers who are trained, supported, and connected, regardless of which company, country, or project they come from.

We believe a real community has to be open. Open in its tooling, open in its governance, and open in how knowledge is preserved and passed on. OffOn is our attempt to put that belief into practice.

Who It's For

Curious learners and developers looking for a practical, guided path into open source
Engineers, SREs, and practitioners who want to deepen their skills through real-world challenges
Contributors and maintainers who want to share knowledge and help grow the next generation
Advocates, OSPO members, and community builders who want to amplify their work and strengthen the wider ecosystem
Non-code contributors (writers, designers, translators, organisers) whose work is essential but often invisible
Organisations and sponsors who want to support open source learning and connect with the community on the community's terms

What We Stand For

Open and vendor-agnostic by default. Every challenge, tool, and piece of content is built around open source. Sponsors fund the work; they do not shape the mission.
Reproducible and action-oriented. Real-world scenarios, hands-on challenges, and practical knowledge you can apply, fork, and build on, not marketing in disguise.
Built for people, not pipelines. OffOn is not a sales channel and not a source of revenue. It exists to develop the maintainers of tomorrow.
Knowledge that lasts. Unlike chat tools and social platforms that lose context the moment a thread scrolls away, OffOn is designed to preserve, structure, and pass on what the community learns.
Respectful and inclusive. Constructive feedback, zero tolerance for harassment, and a space where every contribution, whether code, docs, design, or mentorship, is visible and valued.

our story

The Story Behind the Firefly

When we rebranded, we wanted the name and the mascot to feel true to this community. We talked through a lot of ideas and kept coming back to the same question: what mascot could reflect a space built on curiosity, contribution, and learning by doing?

At one point, someone said firefly, and it clicked. That is how Nyx came to life.

Nyx is more than a mascot. The firefly reflects what OffOn is about: people showing up for each other, sharing what they know, and building something brighter together. Each person brings their own spark, but together, we glow brighter.

That spark matters more than ever. AI can write code, but when it takes over all the work, how do people discover their passion or the creativity needed to design the best solutions? When curiosity fades, growth stops.

Understanding how things work still matters. When we combine our thinking, that is where the real magic happens. The power of community is not just about being part of something. It is an engine that fuels human connection, curiosity, and genuine love for a topic. AI cannot replicate that experience.

the people

Board

The board guides the long-term direction of OffOn, stewarding its values, governance, and community priorities.

David Hirsch

Head of Community and Open Source at Dynatrace, leading a cross-functional Community and OSPO team. Co-founder of KCD Austria with a focus on open source governance, ecosystem building, and turning open source into a strategic asset. Recently completed an MBA with a thesis on internal development versus open source.

Katharina Sick

DevRel at Dynatrace and co-organizer of Cloud Native Linz. Passionate about building user-friendly Cloud Native and Kubernetes solutions, with a background in mobile and backend development. Found in tech and sports communities, inline skating rinks, and quiz nights across Europe.

Kenyatta Forbes

Program manager and community builder with deep roots in education and open source. Previously led product pilots reaching 189 million Google Classroom users, ran programs at Mozilla advancing the open internet, and started her career as an educator and technology coordinator for Chicago Public Schools.

Sinduri Guntupalli

Product Manager with a background in web development, configuration management, web analytics, and SEO. Active in the Drupal community as Marketing Manager for Drupal Austria and recipient of the Women in Drupal Award (Build). Open source enthusiast, positivity advocate, and continuous learner.

To be announced

Board seat to be announced.

To be announced

Board seat to be announced.

Challenge Builders

Adventures don't build themselves. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has put in the time and care to create them.

Simon Schrottner

CNCF Ambassador and maintainer of OpenFeature and JUnit Pioneer. Helps teams release faster and with more confidence through open standards, feature flagging, and the communities that make both possible. A familiar face at KubeCon EU, Devoxx, ContainerDays, and meetups across Europe.

adventures created

Blind by Design

Katharina Sick

adventures created

Start Curious.Break Things.Learn Together.Glow Brighter.

You bring your questions, your fixes, your ideas. We bring the challenges, the tooling, and the practitioners who care about the same problems you do.

Every spark starts with one person. Like Nyx, our firefly, together we brighten the whole open source ecosystem.

That's OffOn. always On. always Open. always Learning.

Join the Community View Challenges on GitHub