Meet the Speakers: DrupalCon Singapore 2024 Part III

The much-awaited DrupalCon Singapore 2024 is just a day away, and the Drupal atmosphere cannot contain the excitement. It will be three days long, with nine tracks and a considerable number of sessions covering everything from Community Health to Leadership and Management. Taking place from December 9 to 11, 2024, the schedule includes presentations on topics such as server-side rendering with Next.js, decoupled web portals, and behavior-driven development automation.

Let's head into the third and final part of the "Meet the Speakers: DrupalCon Singapore 2024" series.

Supercharge your company with an open-source business model

"The core of my talk will be based on the challenges that Dries raised in his now-famous 'Solving  the Maker-Taker Problem'"

shares Owen Lansbury, Co-founder of PreviousNext about his session, "Supercharge your company with an open-source business model."

The session will offer a compelling case for rethinking the traditional digital agency model. Drawing on 15 years as co-founder of PreviousNext, Owen will showcase how a commitment to open-source contribution—specifically with Drupal—can significantly boost profitability, staff retention, and overall business success.

"Our company is almost four times more profitable than the industry average, and our team retention is more than triple that of the broader tech industry," 

says Owen, highlighting PreviousNext's remarkable achievements. With a stable team of 22 experts primarily based in Australia, PreviousNext has been recognized as the world’s top-ranked Drupal Certified Partner. This focus on contribution, rather than mere consumption, has enabled the company to consistently win high-value client projects against larger competitors.

The session will explore how traditional agencies often remain dependent on proprietary software or fail to engage meaningfully with open-source platforms like Drupal, resulting in short-term project cycles, high staff turnover, and low profitability. By contrast, PreviousNext’s strategy views Drupal contribution as an investment, not a cost, positioning them as industry leaders. Owen’s talk will offer clear, actionable insights for agencies looking to achieve similar success by shifting from passive reliance to active participation in open-source ecosystems.

Alongside his role at PreviousNext, he contributes to Drupal as a volunteer member of the Drupal Association Board. 

"Over the years I’ve had many people ask me about running a DrupalCon in Asia and the most exciting thing is that we’ve now made that happen. The goal is that Singapore is the first edition of an annual Drupal event in Asia that showcases Drupal as the best CMS choice for large-scale organizations, driving more business for Drupal agencies in the region. If your agency does rely on Drupal, now is the chance to raise your company’s profile by sponsoring DrupalCon Singapore and sending your team members to attend. Showing this support now will demonstrate you want to see this event run annually into the future."

concludes Owen.

Level Up Your Impact: Building Socially-Driven Projects with Drupal as a Digital Public Good

"Level Up Your Impact: Building Socially-Driven Projects with Drupal as a Digital Public Good" by Aastha Shrivastava explores Drupal’s recognition as a Digital Public Good (DPG) and how it is a testimony to Drupal's social conscience.  As a Full Stack Engineer at QED42, Aastha will showcase how Drupal's features can be harnessed to tackle real-world issues like education, citizen engagement, and environmental sustainability.

"This session aims to spread knowledge about what are DPGs and why should we care if Drupal is one. It has been more than a year since Drupal achieved the DPG status but not a lot of people what exactly it means."

shares Aastha. The session will cover real examples of how DPGs help in making the internet a more equitable place and also how Drupal having DPG status can help you gain customers. Attendees will learn how to leverage Drupal's tools for social interaction, collaboration, and content moderation while exploring best practices for security, scalability, and sustainability. By the end of the session, participants will be equipped to create more meaningful, community-driven solutions and position themselves for new growth opportunities.

On asking about her expectations for DrupalCon Singapore 2024,

"The event aims to make DrupalCon more accessible to the APAC region, and according to the data so far we have almost 50% who are going to attend a DrupalCon for the first time! I am excited to meet people from other APAC communities."