Pick up any English dictionary and look up the definition of "champion". While the champion noun refers to someone who has won a competition, the champion verb describes someone who "stands up for, defends, and advocates". To celebrate the engineers who not only top the Isovalent labs charts but also selflessly advocate and teach Cilium, we are introducing the exclusive Isovalent Lab Champion program. Who is Eligible for the Isovalent Lab Champion program? Anyone who has completed at least 10 of the Isovalent labs will be automatically added to the program (and can, of course, opt-out). The folks who have completed over 10 or 20 labs will receive the following digital badges via Credly: What are the Isovalent Labs? The Isovalent Labs were initially introduced in 2022, starting with the "Getting Started with eBPF" and "Getting Started with Cilium" labs. The free, online, hands-on labs let users learn about different features and use cases of Cilium, Hubble, Tetragon, and their Isovalent Enterprise editions. Late in 2022, we started an accreditation program to recognize the efforts of the individuals who had completed the labs. In the past 12 months alone, nearly 7,000 badges have been awarded to thousands of engineers worldwide. Here are some of the badges available: As more labs were being built, we realized we needed to break them down into clearer learning paths and adapt them to the most popular Cilium user roles. We introduced bespoke Cilium Learning Paths for platform engineers, network engineers, SecOps professionals, and more. We even created an interactive fun map where you could see your progress on your journey through the world of Cilium. You can even see an anonymised daily lab leaderboard! The labs are constantly maintained and updated to the latest Cilium version. At the time of writing, there are 33 publicly available labs, but we remain committed to quality over quantity. All labs are well-reviewed, with a star rating above 4 out of 5 for every lab. In the past year, over 37,000 labs have been played by over 12,000 engineers. What are the benefits of the Isovalent Lab Champion program? Lab Champions will receive some of the following benefits: Access to exclusive labs or labs in developments Privileged access to online and live events Discounts for CNCF Cilium Exams, such as the Cilium Certified Associate exam. We aspire to provide other benefits, such as giving champions opportunities to develop labs – we will keep you all informed as we progress. How do I join the Isovalent Lab Champion Program? As mentioned above, the only requirement is to have completed 10 of the Isovalent Labs. If you're unsure how many you have already, log on to your Credly account to track your progress. Anyone who completed a lab at the most recent KubeCon could also collect, at the most recent KubeCon, the Cilium Badge Sticker book and the special Lab Champion pin reserved for our champions. We hope you will soon boost the ranks of the Lab Champions and join the likes of Benoit, who has completed the full set of labs! Who Will Be The Next Champion? It could be you! Start your learning by picking the right learning track for your roles or simply browse through the list of labs! Happy learning!