The Zephyr Project community is coming back to Austin, Texas!
Join us on Thursday, June 25, 2026, for an in-person Zephyr Project Meetup hosted by Analog Devices. The event will take place at the Analog Devices Austin office, located at 5001 Plaza on the Lake, Suite 250, Austin, TX 78746, United States.
This meetup is open to anyone interested in open source, embedded systems programming, software development, real-time operating systems, connected devices, signal processing, sensing, connectivity, and the broader embedded ecosystem. Whether you work with Zephyr every day, are evaluating it for a future product, or are just curious about what the ecosystem looks like in 2026, this event is a great opportunity to learn, connect, and exchange ideas with the community.
What to Expect:
The Austin meetup will feature an evening of short talks, hands-on hardware demos, technical discussions, and networking with engineers, developers, contributors, and organizations working with or interested in the Zephyr RTOS.
Attendees will have the opportunity to hear from community members, explore real-world use cases, learn more about Zephyr development, and connect with others building products and platforms with open source embedded technologies.
Event Details:
- Date: June 25, 2026
- Time: 5:00 PM – 7:30 PM CT
- Venue: Analog Devices, Inc.
- Address: 5001 Plaza on the Lake, Suite 250, Austin, TX 78746, United States
Agenda
17:00 – 17:30: Registration and welcome
Doors open, demos live, food & beverages available
17:30 – 18:00 – Networking Session
18:00 – 18:15 Welcome Note – Maureen Helm, Distinguished Engineer, Analog Devices
In this welcome session, Maureen Helm will introduce Analog Devices and share a brief perspective on its ongoing support and involvement in the Zephyr Project. The talk will highlight Zephyr’s role as a scalable RTOS and the importance of upstream collaboration between silicon vendors and the open source community.
This short opening will set the context for the evening, including the technical talks, demos, and opportunities for discussion and networking.
18:20 – 18:35: Zephyr RTOS: 10 Years, 1000 Boards, so What’s Next? – Kate Stewart, VP, Dependable Embedded Systems, Linux Foundation
Ten years ago, Zephyr set out to solve a problem that many embedded teams quietly struggled with: how to build dependable real-time systems without being locked into a single vendor, toolchain, or proprietary stack. What followed was more than steady adoption. Zephyr introduced a new model built around portability, adoption of security best practices, modern tooling, and a shared ecosystem of drivers and middleware.
The combination of applying open source and security best practices and aiming to fill the gaps that embedded developers flagged in our initial research has helped steer Zephyr’s development. Following these practices has steadily resulted in more developers adopting it as an efficient and effective way to create products, which has led to over 1000 boards being upstreamed in the project.
As we look forward to the next 10 years, we again reached out to survey organizations that are using Zephyr, as well as those that are not, to identify what are the gaps, and what areas are important to developers. This talk will go through some of the insights we’ve gained from that survey and provide a peek at the topics that the community will be addressing in the upcoming years.
18:45 – 19:00: The Hexagon architecture port of Zephyr – Brian Cain, Principal Engineer, Qualcomm
The Hexagon DSP architecture is used in laptops, phones, IoT boards and more. There’s a new port of Zephyr that is under review. I will describe unique/interesting features of the ISA and where we’re going with Zephyr.
19:05 – 19:20: ELD: Rethinking Link-Time Behavior for Embedded Systems at Scale – Shankar Kalpathi Easwaran, Principal Engineer, Qualcomm Inc
Qualcomm open-sourced ELD (Embedded Linker) approximately a year ago, releasing a production-grade linker developed and deployed extensively within Qualcomm’s LLVM toolchain for embedded systems development. ELD addresses
constraints that general-purpose linkers often fall short of—including strict memory budgets, customized memory layouts, tight performance expectations, and deep visibility into the linking process—serving as Qualcomm’s default
linker for firmware and software images across Hexagon, ARM, AArch64, and RISC-V architectures. Key capabilities include a fast GNU-compatible core, advanced diagnostics, detailed map files, and a flexible plugin framework, all
designed to improve developer productivity and enable faster root-cause analysis in complex embedded environments. This talk covers ELD’s design principles, lessons learned from production deployment at scale, ongoing efforts to
validate reliability through Zephyr RTOS integration, and the roadmap for future enhancements in extensibility, diagnostics, and ecosystem integration.
19:25 – 19:30: Giveaways & Thank you note
19:30: Event wraps up
Registration Is Required:
Registration is required for this meetup so the hosts can plan the space and logistics accordingly. Register today to secure your spot.
Thanks to Our Supporters
Thank you to Analog Devices, Inc. for hosting the Zephyr Project Meetup in Austin and for supporting the event as both the venue sponsor and food and beverage sponsor.
Analog Devices is a Platinum member of the Zephyr Project and an active contributor to the open source embedded ecosystem. ADI’s Austin engineering team works across signal processing, sensing, and connectivity, and has been hosting Zephyr community events in Austin since 2024.
Thank you also to our hardware sponsors for supporting the community:
- Analog Devices
- Nordic Semiconductor
Their support helps make hands-on learning, hardware demos, and community engagement possible for attendees.
About the Community Meetups:
This meetup is part of the Zephyr Community Meetup Series, gatherings hosted by community members, with support from the Zephyr Project.
If you are excited about the Zephyr Project and want to share it with your local community, consider hosting an event in your city. Whether you are in Austin or halfway across the globe, we encourage passionate individuals to get involved.
Reach out to us and explore how you can bring Zephyr to your community and make a difference in the world of IoT development.
To keep up to date about the project, subscribe to the Zephyr quarterly newsletter or connect with us on @ZephyrIoT, Zephyr Project LinkedIn or the Zephyr Discord Channel to talk with community and TSC members.
We look forward to seeing you in Austin!