Community
Selected community, nonprofit, educational, and publication activities connected to Minimum Distance.
This page highlights public-interest and community-facing work where Minimum Distance participated through Ronald Petty, its owner. The emphasis is on nonprofit leadership, event organization, public speaking, mentoring, technical education, and publication work across AI, cloud native technology, Internet governance, and society.
2026
Artificial Intelligence SF
Ronald Petty helped lead, facilitate, and speak at the event. Minimum Distance was also one of the sponsors. Ron helped lead AI Day SF alongside community collaborators, and the event page lists Ronald Petty, David Issa, Jacob Canter, and Boris Kurktchiev as the event team. The site also notes that the event was co-hosted by the Internet Society San Francisco Bay Area Chapter and the San Francisco Bay ACM.
Symposium.ai
Ronald Petty spoke as part of the program and contributed to the broader community conversation around cloud native AI and agentic systems. This entry reflects Ron’s continued role in connecting cloud native AI, agentic systems, and public technical education.
Live Longer, Live Better: Technology Advances and Aging
Ronald Petty contributed to a public discussion on technology and aging. The Commonwealth Club event page presents this as a recent event on technology advances and aging, aligning with Ron’s broader work at the intersection of technical systems and society.
The Asceticism of Technology
Ronald Petty gave the talk and developed the material on technology, discipline, and society. This talk extends the company theme of where technology meets society into public-facing conversation and community education.
2025
Generation Beta and AI: The Great Balance
Ronald Petty gave a public talk on how society responds to major technologies and how AI may be understood by Generation Beta. The conference post describes the session as part of a global, 24-hour live conference and summarizes Ron’s talk as connecting innovation, regulated markets, and society’s role in shaping AI.
The Human-Computer Dance - Coding’s Evolving Future
Ronald Petty gave a public talk on how coding is changing alongside modern AI systems. This continues the company’s educational and community work around technical change and its broader implications.
Cloud Native Artificial Intelligence
Ronald Petty gave a talk on cloud native AI, reflecting ongoing work to bridge infrastructure, developer practice, and AI system design for broader technical communities.
Technical Societies - What Are They and How Do I Participate?
Ronald Petty gave a talk on technical societies and public participation in professional communities. The subject aligns closely with Ron’s nonprofit leadership work and with the company’s community-oriented activities.
AI Hackathon
Ronald Petty contributed as a mentor, facilitator, and speaker in a youth-oriented AI hackathon setting, supporting technical education and community development.
Internet Day SF
Ronald Petty helped lead the event through his nonprofit community work. The event site describes Internet Day SF as hosted by the Internet Society San Francisco Bay Area Chapter and the SF Bay ACM, bringing together training and thought leadership around the Internet’s future.
Artificial Intelligence SF
Ronald Petty helped organize a prior AI Day SF program focused on public technical education and thought leadership.
2024
AI for Policy, and Policy for AI
Ronald Petty contributed to a panel on AI and policy, reflecting broader interest in large-scale technical change and its social, organizational, and governance implications.
Global Encryption Day San Francisco
Ronald Petty helped lead the event through nonprofit organizing and public-interest technology work. The site describes GEDSF as a partnership of ISOC SF Bay and SF Bay ACM and links to training and thought-leadership sessions from the 2024 event.
K8sGPT - Kubernetes and AI
Ronald Petty gave a talk on Kubernetes and AI, continuing a pattern of practitioner-oriented community education around cloud native systems and AI tooling.
Cloud Native AI and AI for Cloud Native
Ronald Petty joined as a guest to discuss the relationship between cloud native architecture and AI, a recurring theme in his public technical work.
Beyond the Net Large Grant / Administration Grant
Ronald Petty’s community leadership was connected to grant-supported nonprofit Internet Society work, including chapter-scale program support.
Practical Ruby Gems
Ronald Petty contributed technical review work, supporting the broader technical community through publication and knowledge sharing.
Toward Zero Trust with AI
Ronald Petty co-presented a session on AI and zero trust, helping bring practical security and AI themes into the cloud native community.
Cloud Native Artificial Intelligence - Top to Bottom
Ronald Petty gave a talk on cloud native AI, contributing to international practitioner discussion on AI infrastructure and architecture.
Cloud Native Artificial Intelligence Landscape
Ronald Petty contributed as a co-author and participant in the CNCF AI working group, helping shape shared resources for the broader ecosystem.
Cloud Native Artificial Intelligence - AI for Developers #12
Ronald Petty gave a public talk on cloud native AI for developers, helping translate technical architecture topics into accessible community education.
Cloud Native Artificial Intelligence Whitepaper
Ronald Petty contributed as a co-author of a CNCF AI working group whitepaper, supporting ecosystem-wide understanding of cloud native AI.
Cloud Native Artificial Intelligence - Professional Development Series
Ronald Petty led an in-person workshop for the ACM SF Bay Area Chapter, supporting professional development around cloud native AI.
Taking Generative AI Enterprise Models to Production
Ronald Petty gave a talk on moving enterprise generative AI into production, bridging practical engineering concerns with broader community learning.
Cloud Native Short Take - Kubernetes CronJobs
Ronald Petty created educational technical video work supporting practitioner learning in cloud native systems.
2022
Klustered Teams: Raft & RX-M
Ronald Petty participated in a public technical competition and demonstration that supported open technical learning.
Cloud Native Short Take - Containers: Images Overview
Ronald Petty continued producing educational video work for technical communities.
Networking Programming with Go Language, 2nd Edition
Ronald Petty contributed authorship and publication work to the technical community through books and long-form educational resources.
2021
Scaling Demo
Ronald Petty participated in public-facing cloud native demonstration work.
First Principles of Cloud Native Technology
Ronald Petty spoke at the conference on core cloud native ideas for a wide technical audience.
Enabling Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Through the Application of AIOps
Ronald Petty contributed technical review work to an AI-operations publication.
Service Mesh Patterns
Ronald Petty contributed technical review work to a service mesh publication.
2017
Network Programming with Go: Essential Skills for Using and Securing Networks
Ronald Petty contributed to technical publishing and community learning.
Test Driven Development in Ruby
Ronald Petty contributed to software engineering publication and knowledge sharing.
Beginning Ruby
Ronald Petty contributed early publication review work that supported accessible technical education.
For community partnerships, events, or speaking inquiries: