The Rust Foundation is Headed to MWC + Talent Arena 2026!
Next week in Barcelona, the Rust Foundation is headed to Talent Arena — the hands-on, tech hub for professionals and students, co-located with Mobile World Congress. We’re thrilled to have our Executive Director & CEO, Rebecca Rumbul, presenting on the XPro stage, host two workshops with Silver member Fledgio, and see our Global Communities Coordinator, Ernest Kissiedu, co-hosting a meetup with Rust BCN!
Topics at Talent Arena range from CI/CD to using AI in a variety of workspaces, to ethics, and are focused on developers and engineers building their careers and skillsets. This is where innovation and conversations on “the next big thing” happen. Rust and the Rust Foundation are excited to be able to share our ideas with the broader tech ecosystem.
Here’s how we’re showing up in order of appearance:
On the XPro Stage: Dr. Rebecca Rumbul
Monday, March 2, Rust Foundation’s CEO/Executive Director, Dr. Rebecca Rumbul will present “Building the Future in Rust“.
In her session, Bec will make the case for Rust as a deliberate infrastructure choice — across safety-critical automotive systems, aerospace platforms, telecom infrastructure, embedded environments, and AI-driven systems.
The infrastructure conversation has shifted. Memory safety, performance, sustainability, and governance are no longer peripheral concerns; they are central design requirements. Rebecca will explore how Rust fits within that shift and outline why organizations are increasingly selecting it as part of their long-term strategy.
Workshops: Hands-On Rust Skill-Building
On March 4, Lawrence Freeman (Founder of Fledgio — a Rust Foundation Silver Member) will lead two Rust Foundation–facilitated workshops. Our Global Communities Coordinator, Ernest Kissiedu, will be helping to facilitate the workshops. These workshops will also mark the first issuance of the Rust Foundation Workshop Completion Badge via Credly (more on this below).
These sessions are designed for engineers working in environments where correctness, determinism, and performance are not optional, like automotive systems, aerospace platforms, telecom infrastructure, embedded environments, and AI inference engines.
9:30–10:45 “From fRusTrait-ion to Async Mastery”
A focused deep dive into traits and async patterns for production Rust systems.
16:45–18:00 – “When Floats Lie: Quantization, Performance, and Why Rust Keeps AI from Corroding”
Floating-point numbers are prone to subtle failure modes that erode performance and correctness. Attendees will build a small quantization framework in Rust, evolving step by step as we move from numeric fundamentals to Post-Training Quantization (PTQ) for AI inference. They’ll also learn how quantization works at the bit level, and why Rust is becoming critical infrastructure for high-performance, resource-constrained, AI-driven systems.
Rust Iberia Meetup
In addition to helping facilitate these workshops, our Global Communities Coordinator, Ernest Kissiedu, will join the Rust Barcelona meetup, reinforcing an important reality: sustainable industry adoption depends on strong local developer communities. At this event, attendees will get access to a talk by Jorge Ortiz (MadRust) called “Make Rusty AI: Building an agent from scratch using Rust and open‑source tools,” followed by community discussion and networking with Rustaceans from Barcelona, Madrid, and beyond.
Introducing: Rust Foundation Badges!
These workshops will also mark the first issuance of the Rust Foundation Workshop Completion Badge via Credly.
This credential is issued by the Rust Foundation, publicly verifiable, and tied to defined earning criteria based on participation in Foundation-facilitated workshops.
As Rust is increasingly chosen for high-assurance and performance-critical systems, employers need clearer, verifiable signals of practical skills. Engineers who invest in developing real Rust capability benefit from portable, credible ways to demonstrate that engagement. And as the ecosystem matures, professional recognition must evolve alongside technical adoption. We believe this simple badge pilot is a concrete step in that direction.
A Week That Reflects Where Rust Stands
Next week will bring several important signals into focus:
- Rust is increasingly selected for infrastructure-scale systems
- Engineers are deepening production-grade Rust expertise
- Global Rust communities continue to grow and organize
- There is growing demand for verifiable Rust skills (— and our workshop completion badges are a practical step in that direction!)
Taken together, they will show where Rust stands today: trusted in production and shaping conversations at Talent Arena, part of MWC: one of the most important gatherings in global digital infrastructure.
If you are attending MWC or Talent Arena, we encourage you to attend these sessions and connect with the Rust Foundation in Barcelona! https://talentarena.tech/
Lori Lorusso is Director of Outreach at the Rust Foundation. She has a passion and enthusiasm for working with developers and the open source community. She is an active member of multiple open source foundations, such as CNCF, CDF, OpenSSF, DoK, and has volunteered as a program committee member for Kubecon, Cloud Native Rejekts, cdCon, SOOCon, and FOSDEM. Lori has also given talks at conferences around the world, including KubeCon EU, All Things Open, FOSDEM, Devoxx Morocco, SOOCon, Open Source Summit, KCDC, The Linux Foundation Member Summit, SOSS Fusion, and CodeMash.
Lori is committed to helping open source and other tech communities grow and adapt in the ever-changing technical landscape.
