JuneTech 2026: A New TYPO3 Community Takes Shape in Burundi

JuneTech is an event addressed mainly to young people. It brings together students, startups, and private entrepreneurs to present technologies, mostly open source, and to connect those people with Burundi institutions such as the Ministry of Youth and the Ministry of Education. The attendees were diverse: students, startups, private entrepreneurs, and representatives of the Burundi ministries and officials.

The event ran over five days from 24–28 June 2026 and was organized by KIT Digital Innovation Hub, a Burundi nonprofit that aims to support young people and women through training, mentoring, and opportunities in professional networks.

It was a privilege to represent the TYPO3 project alongside my colleague Philippe Fekete from the TYPO3 Community Expansion Committee.

A large group of people sit in rows of yellow and gray chairs in a bright hall, listening to a speaker standing at the front near a green carpeted stage. — A quick glimpse inside JuneTech’s main event hall, where students, entrepreneurs, and technology enthusiasts came together throughout the week.

TYPO3 Was Not New To Burundi

Our work with Burundi started before JuneTech, through the BRIGHTER project, a four-year Erasmus+ project focused on strengthening higher education, renewable energy, and technological innovation in Burundi. Through this work, the TYPO3 Community Expansion Committee became involved in supporting the digital work with the partner universities. We developed a TYPO3 website model that can be adapted across the five partner universities, alongside solutions supporting academic activities such as the management of grades and diplomas.

The model gives the universities a common foundation while allowing each of them to adapt it to their own needs. With TYPO3, universities can keep ownership and control of their digital infrastructure, while benefiting from a shared and sustainable solution. The model can also be extended to other Burundian universities, with the aim of making it available as widely as possible.

Group of five people in a lecture hall gathered around a laptop for a discussion or presentation — Getting hands-on with TYPO3: the workshop with the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) team gave everyone a chance to explore the CMS together.

Showing What TYPO3 Can Do

Together with Philippe, we introduced TYPO3 to the JuneTech community and presented the university website model and the website we developed for École Normale Supérieure du Burundi (ENS). Philippe was a great partner throughout the event. His technical experience and ability to explain things simply made the conversations easy and enjoyable.

The presentation quickly turned into conversations. During the technical workshops, in the breaks, and in the many informal discussions throughout the event, developers and young people interested in TYPO3 asked questions, shared ideas, and talked about the challenges they are facing. I really enjoyed these exchanges and the opportunity to see how TYPO3 could fit into their reality.

The conversations continued with the ENS teachers and technical team, representatives of the Ministry of Youth and the Ministry of Education, and the SETIC (Secrétariat Exécutif des Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication) team. Each meeting gave us a different perspective and opened new ideas for collaboration.

One message came up throughout these conversations: ownership matters. With TYPO3, institutions can keep control of their code and digital infrastructure while using a solution that can be shared, adapted, and developed locally.

JuneTech also gave us the chance to discover inspiring startups and student projects working on blockchain, Web3, IoT, robotics, and digital platforms. It was exciting to see so many different ideas and meet the people behind them.

Curiosity, Creativity, and a New Community

Burundi has incredible potential in its young people. Throughout the event I met students, developers, entrepreneurs, and educators full of curiosity and a genuine desire to learn, experiment, and solve local challenges through technology.

Beyond the technology, though, was the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit on display. What stood out wasn't just the technology itself, but the enthusiasm, creativity, and determination behind it.

It was inspiring to witness the first steps of a new TYPO3 community in Burundi. Every community starts with a handful of curious and motivated people, and I believe I witnessed exactly that. Open-source technologies provide the tools, but it is motivated people and strong communities that turn those tools into meaningful change.

Instructor teaching students in classroom with laptops and projector screen — Philippe in his element: sharing his TYPO3 knowledge and experience with the next generation of developers and technology enthusiasts.

What Comes Next

JuneTech was a great starting point, but the conversations and collaborations are already continuing.

We have a proposal ready for a second Burundi university outlining the university website model, and we are working on three more.

We will be exploring potential further collaboration with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Youth, and SETIC; and we’re supporting the emerging local TYPO3 community. To keep the community connected, we created a WhatsApp group during the event. This was Philippe's idea, and I think it was a great one, as WhatsApp is much more widely used than Slack in many African countries.

There is also an upcoming program called Women Building with TYPO3, which aims to train a cohort of 30 to 50 young women from Burundi to become proficient in TYPO3 as content editors, integrators, developers, and project coordinators. The details are still being worked out so stay tuned.

There is still a lot to explore, but it feels like a good beginning.