What a year it has been for Umbraco and its vibrant community! With the Umbraco US Festival still fresh in our minds, we attended its British counterpart, the Umbraco UK Festival in London. This time, the spotlight was on sustainability and the integration of generative AI.
The 2024 Umbraco UK Festival brought together about 300 Umbraco enthusiasts at CodeNode, a venue brimming with tech energy. According to the Umbraco UK Foundation, which hosted the event, the festival also served as a stage to unveil its new website—a dynamic example of how lightweight, fast, and robust digital products can be crafted with Umbraco tools.
The event featured mostly short yet impactful presentations centered on the key development pillars introduced at the last Codegarden: composability, sustainability, and AI. Among the attendees was our CEO, Paweł Nienartowicz, a member of the Umbraco Community Advisory Board, celebrating yet another triumph of one of the most effective, welcoming, and tight-knit communities in the open-source world.
The 2024 Umbraco UK Festival brought together about 300
Umbraco, Foundation & Friends
The talk that kicked off the festival centered on the Umbraco Foundation's contributions to the community and its commitment to sustainable development. Callum Whyte shared the Foundation's achievements over the past year, noting that they engaged with over 500 Umbraco developers across the UK. He also highlighted the importance of community involvement in events like the Umbraco Spark and UK Fest conferences and smaller gatherings like Code Cabin (which you can read about—with a touch of humor—in our e-book).
A key highlight of the talk was the announcement of the new Umbraco Foundation website. Callum emphasized its role as a central hub for information about Umbraco community activities throughout the UK, featuring resources on events, meetup groups, and ways to get involved.
Paul Daly, co-founder of uSkinned, explained why the Foundation chose uSkinned as the platform for their new site, praising its modern design and flexibility. Callum also shared plans for the coming year, including an expanded events program and efforts to deepen community engagement.
Is Sustainability Just Another Tech Buzzword or a Necessitiy
Asim Husain of the Green Software Foundation explored the intersection of IT and sustainability in his presentation "Doing for Sustainability What Open Source Did for Software." He introduced the Impact Framework, an open-source tool for calculating software carbon emissions and assessing the environmental impact of individual components.
Asim also emphasized the importance of training "watchers"—engineering and climate experts- to accurately evaluate and report the software's ecological footprint.
Marcin Zajkowski's session, "Unlocking Sustainability at Scale with Static Site Generation and Composable Architecture," focused on the rising energy consumption in IT, highlighting that data centers account for 7% of global electricity use. Marcin questioned the sustainability of microservices and composable architecture, encouraging thoughtful evaluation of their implementation. He presented tools like the Green Web Foundation, Azure's Carbon Optimization Dashboard, and the Impact Framework to measure carbon footprints.
New Backoffice and Multidimensional content
Lotte Pitcher shared insights on adapting the Umbraco backoffice in version 14 and beyond. She highlighted developers' challenges with older AngularJS-based versions and the new "extension-first" approach in version 14, where nearly every backoffice element is an extension. Lotte also covered the latest tools and libraries—Lit, TypeScript, and Vite—that make creating extensions easier, with a new template simplifying the setup and development process.
In her session "Creating and Delivering Multidimensional Content in Umbraco 13, 14, and 15," Laura Weatherhead discussed the growing need for personalized content and the challenges of managing multiple versions. Laura emphasized balancing flexibility with manageability, tailoring solutions to each project's needs.
In her session "Creating and Delivering Multidimensional Content in Umbraco 13, 14, and 15," Laura Weatherhead discussed the growing need for personalized content and the challenges of managing multiple versions. Laura emphasized balancing flexibility with manageability, tailoring solutions to each project's needs.Building your own Umbraco Copilot - AI Assistant
Callum Whyte returned to the stage to present one of the standout sessions, "Build Your Own Umbraco Copilot," where he explored integrating AI with Umbraco to create a "copilot" that streamlines editors' workflows. Using Azure AI Studio, he implemented the GPT-4 Mini language model and the Semantic Kernel library to achieve this integration. From a content editor's perspective, the most exciting features of the "copilot" include answering questions about Umbraco, generating content, navigating the admin panel via voice commands, and even creating new document types and compositions.
A vital aspect of the integration was the use of plug-ins to extend the copilot's functionality by accessing Umbraco data and features. Callum highlighted how Semantic Kernel's modular architecture makes creating and customizing plug-ins easy, enabling personalization and automation. He also demonstrated advanced techniques like context-sensitive copilot interactions and voice-based commands using GPT-4 Mini.
The presentation showcased that AI integration with Umbraco is possible and delivers tangible benefits, improving editors' workflows and unlocking new opportunities for web creators.
Umbraco 2025 and beyond
The UK Festival marks the final stop on our Tour de Umbraco 2024, but it's far from the end of our journey with the platform. Our Umbraco team is already rolling their sleeves to plan projects and collaborations for Q1 and Q2 of 2025.
If you're gearing up to implement any new features or upgrades discussed at the festival, especially with the EOL for version 8 on the horizon, don't hesitate to reach out. We'd love to help! Stay tuned for more updates about Umbraco on our blog and LinkedIn.
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