Last time I was at Porto Tech Hub was in 2024 as a speaker. This year, in 2026, Jakarta EE was among the sponsors, and I was there to cover the booth. Even if I didn’t do a talk this year, I probably spoke more than last time. The exhibition hall at Porto Tech Hub is very busy all day long. I barely had time to go an get a cup of coffee.The coffee at Porto Tech Hub is very good by the way.

Otavio was there to help staff the booth. In addition, he did a workshop on the topic of Implementing AI Architecture Patterns with Enterprise Java. The majority of the attendees at Porto Tech Hub are students, or graduates looking for a job opportunity or an internship. That means that most of the exhibitors are companies that are recruiting, so the visitors to our booth were a bit surprised when they found out that we were there to talk about technology, open source and Jakarta EE and not about open positions. We had some good conversations with them and gave them advice of how they can build their career profile and reputation by participating in well-known open source projects, something the Eclipse Foundation has in abundance. We also explained the Jakarta EE Mentorship program for future committers and pointed at that as a possible way to go.

All in all, Porto Tech Hub as a sponsor was a very pleasant experience, but I think I will prefer to be back as a speaker the next time I am here.