chore(blog): april summary article

pages/blog/2024-april-summary.md

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+---
+title: "Community Update: April 2024"
+date: 2024-04-25T06:00:00+01:00
+type: Communication
+tags:
+  - Project Status
+cover: /img/posts/2024-blog-banner/blog-banner-april.webp
+authors:
+  - name: Thulisile Sibanda
+    photo: /img/avatars/thulieblack.webp
+    link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/v-thulisile-sibanda/
+    byline: AsyncAPI Community Manager
+excerpt: 'Community update for April'
+featured: true
+---
+
+We are excited and commend [Specmatic](https://specmatic.in/) for their commitment to supporting open-source projects. They have sponsored [Pavel Bodiachevskii](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavel-bo/), whose project assists in parsing AsyncAPI specs in Java and converting the parsed specs into executable contracts using the jasyncapi library. This kind of support is truly invaluable to the community and open-source maintainers. Please [check out the latest jasyncapi release](https://github.com/asyncapi/jasyncapi/releases/tag/1.0.0-RC) for more details.
+
+## AsyncAPI Conf on Tour
+
+We are thrilled to announce that AACoT'24 will return to London this year, and [the Call for Speakers is now open](https://conference.asyncapi.com/venue/London). Start preparing your proposals today, and get ready to join us in September!
+
+On an exciting note, we're considering having an online edition sometime this year; [please attend the upcoming community meeting](https://github.com/asyncapi/community/issues/1184) for more context.
+
+
+## Spec X Tooling
+The [AsyncAPI Optimizer](https://github.com/asyncapi/optimizer) has reached v1.0 thanks to the collaborative efforts of [Viacheslav Turovskyi](https://github.com/aeworxet), who has joined as the new maintainer. For breaking changes, [check out the release notes](https://github.com/asyncapi/optimizer/releases/tag/v1.0.0).
+
+[Aklivity](https://www.aklivity.io/), one of the initiative sponsors, is developing Zilla, a multi-protocol service proxy for Kafka that now supports AsyncAPI v3 for configuration and validation. Please [read the announcement blog](https://www.aklivity.io/post/announcing-openapi-and-asyncapi-support-in-zilla) for more technical details and explore [the Zilla Petstore Kafka API v2 docs](https://tinyurl.com/zilla-petstore-kafka-v2) or [Petstore app demo](https://github.com/aklivity/zilla-demos/blob/main/petstore/README.md).
+
+In our efforts to improve the contributor experience, we have introduced new help commands: **/ptal**, which pings reviewers to please take a look at the PR, and **/update**, which triggers the AsyncAPI bot to update a PR to the latest upstream. We are grateful to [Priyansh Mehta](https://github.com/Priyansh61), [Khuda Dad Nomani](https://www.linkedin.com/in/khudadadnomani), and [Ashish Padhy](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashish-padhy3023) for their contributions.
+
+Don't worry if you don't remember all these commands; you can always use the **/help** command in a pull request, and the AsyncAPI bot will share a list of available commands.
+
+## Community Discussions
+Here are some community discussions that require your attention:
+
+### Marketing
+After some weeks of discussing the marketing efforts, we are now looking for someone to fill the role of **Community Marketing Specialist**. Please have a look at the [AsyncAPI Community Marketing Specialist Hiring discussion](https://github.com/orgs/asyncapi/discussions/1176) for additional context on the role.
+
+### AsyncAPI Working Groups
+We have a new Conference Coordination Working Group that focuses on planning, managing, and creating a seamless way to enhance the conference experience. If you want to join the working group or read more about their work, please check out the [Conference Coordination Working Group discussion](https://github.com/orgs/asyncapi/discussions/1170).
+
+## TSC x Ambassadors
+We're thrilled to announce a new automated TSC voting system! We want to thank [Aayush Saini](https://github.com/AayushSaini101) for working on the implementation, as this will make the voting process smoother, more efficient, and more transparent. With this new system, we hope to encourage greater participation and engagement. Please make sure to [read the voting docs](https://github.com/asyncapi/community/blob/master/voting.md) to familiarize yourself with the new voting system.
+
+## Coming in May
+- **AACoT'24 Helsinki** - The Helsinki Edition will take place on May 28th and 29th. Please keep an eye out for announcements on community tickets on Slack and our social channels.
+- **AsyncAPI Community Updates Newsletter** - The May Edition issue will arrive in your inbox this coming week. Ensure [you subscribe to the AsyncAPI Newsletter](https://www.asyncapi.com/newsletter); you don't want to miss out.

pages/blog/2024-march-summary.md

@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ authors:
     link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/v-thulisile-sibanda/
     byline: AsyncAPI Community Manager
 excerpt: 'Community update for March'
-featured: true
 ---
 We are excited to announce and welcome our new Silver sponsor, [Aklivity](https://www.aklivity.io/), to the AsyncAPI Initiative.