Passing the Torch: My Eight Years with BcnRust

After more than eight years, I’m stepping down as the organizer of BcnRust, the Rust community in Barcelona that I founded in July 2018.

I started BcnRust because Rust had captured my curiosity. It was still a relatively young language, the local community around it was small, and I wanted a place where people in Barcelona could meet, learn together, and talk about what they were building. There was no elaborate roadmap. In the beginning, I relied on people I already knew to give talks, and sometimes gave them myself. The plan was simply to find a venue, put together a session, and hope that people would show up.

Fortunately, they did.

The first meetup set the bar unexpectedly high, with Ashley Williams and Steve Klabnik joining us as speakers. It was an extraordinary way to begin and felt almost unreal at the time.

RustFest Barcelona in 2019 made the growth of the local community particularly visible. Helping organize an international Rust conference in the city required a significant collective effort, but it also connected the group we had built in Barcelona with the wider Rust ecosystem.

Over the years, organizing BcnRust meant coordinating speakers, venues, sponsors, and collaborations with companies adopting Rust. We connected local developers with companies looking for Rust talent and built relationships with other technology communities across Barcelona and Spain.

None of those individual milestones, however, is what turned BcnRust into a community. That happened because people kept coming back. They shared what they knew, asked questions, helped newcomers, and continued conversations long after the talks had finished. BcnRust became a welcoming and inclusive space because its members chose to make it one.

So, why am I stepping down now?

The honest answer is that my interests have changed. Since the arrival of AI and the changes it is bringing to software development, I have gradually lost interest in Rust and, more broadly, in programming languages as a subject. The questions that capture my attention today are different from the ones that motivated me in 2018, and I want to give myself the freedom to follow that curiosity.

Rust has been an important part of my professional and personal journey. It introduced me to ideas, projects, and people I might never have encountered otherwise, and I’m grateful for everything that came with it. Now my attention has moved elsewhere. I also believe a community deserves leadership from someone who is genuinely excited about its present and future, rather than someone staying in the role out of habit.

That is why I’m happy to pass the torch to Cristian Sánchez and Alberto Méndez, who are now leading the BcnRust meetups. The community is still active, and it is in good hands.

If you are interested in Rust, whether you already use it professionally, are starting to learn it, or are simply curious, I encourage you to visit the BcnRust website, follow the Meetup page, and join the community on Discord. More importantly, attend a meetup, share something you have learned, or simply start a conversation with Cristian, Alberto, or any other member.

I want to give special thanks to Alberto Méndez. A former colleague, a tireless organizer, and above all, a good friend, Alberto has been alongside me in the work behind BcnRust and RustFest almost from the beginning. Without his help and support, none of this would have been possible. The good news is that he will continue supporting the community in this new chapter.

Thank you as well to everyone who attended, spoke, hosted us, sponsored an event, suggested a topic, or helped another member feel welcome. You are the reason a small meetup created in 2018 grew into a community that has thrived for over eight years and continues to do so today.

I’m closing this chapter with gratitude and with curiosity about whatever comes next. I may still turn up at a meetup from time to time, only now I won’t have to worry about the venue, the speakers, or whether the projector works.