Drupal CMS v1 Launched: DrupalTvm Celebrates with Kerala’s FOSS Community
January 15, 2025, marked the fulfillment of months-long anticipation for Drupalers worldwide. The idea of Drupal CMS, then the Drupal Starshot initiative was first floated by Dries Buytaert, the founder and Project Lead of Drupal at DrupalCon Portland 2024 in May. Drupal CMS is a revolutionary platform, an ambitious project rooted in the Drupal Core that will transform the digital experiences for marketers and content creators even without prior knowledge in Drupal. Eight months down the lane, version 1 of DrupalCMS was released on the 24th birthday of Drupal, which was witnessed by hundreds of Drupalers and celebrated by 60 launch parties around the globe.
DrupalTvm, a small community-based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, has made its mark on the Drupal map with its Drupal CMS Launch Party, held in association with the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) on 15 January 2025 at 5:30 PM IST at the ICFOSS Campus, Green Field Stadium, Karyavattom, Kerala.

"We decided to celebrate the launch while we were in DrupalCon Singapore. A lot of people helped to make this a reality and make it a grand success."
shared Anish Anilkumar, DrupalTVM member and event organiser.
The event, which started as a small gathering, soon scaled into a big one with the support of ICFOSS and attendance from Drupalers, developers, students, businesses, startups, government departments, and other FOSS communities in Thiruvananthapuram. The Drupal CMS Launch Party, Thiruvananthapuram, had more than 80 participants, and The DropTimes, as its Media Partner, played an instrumental role in scaling up the event.
"We had a very nice time organizing the event as a group of volunteers. What started as something very small during the initial planning stages, saw many good people coming together to make this a grand event."
shares Anto Jose, another event organiser. He continues,
"The interactions with all these key government officials, long-time community members coming from far, startups coming to see what's new in Drupal, college students full of enthusiasm, was so valuable."
The event was presided over by Dr. Sunil Thomas Thonikuzhiyil, Director, ICFOSS, Kerala. He is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in free and open-source software, engineering education and technology management.

"The latest Drupal CMS release is here, packed with powerful features to elevate your web experience. From enhanced performance and security to user-friendly design tools and seamless integrations, this update empowers developers and site owners alike. Whether you’re building dynamic websites or scaling your digital presence, Drupal continues to set the standard in open-source content management. We at ICFOSS is looking forward to seeing use cases for our associates and customers."
shared Dr. Sunil Thomas.
Anvar Sadath, Executive Director at Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education, delivered the keynote address and shared a fun fact about Drupal: Wikipedia and Drupal, two pioneers of the internet world, share the same birthday. He also discussed the presence of Drupal worldwide. It is a powerful CMS that powers 14 percent of the top 10,000 websites, including those of governments and organizations such as Tesla.

Drupal TVM also took a mighty step at the Launch party revealing the logo for Drupal Kerala. Considering the acceptance Drupal CMS has garnered and the pride in organizing a successful event, the Drupal Kerala initiative ensures that the DrupalTVM community is determined to continue its winning streak with more ventures. Chief guests Dr Sunil Thomas and Anvar Sadath did the honours.

"We plan to have meetups in several other cities in Kerala. We also have to think of some beginner workshops - that was something that the college students asked for."
shares Anto. He also gave a report on the functioning of Drupal TVM in the past year. It is important to note that the successful Drupal CMS Launch Party at Thiruvananthapuram is the culmination of many small meetings that have taken place before.
The event also hosted knowledge-sharing sessions. Anish Anilkumar gave an in-depth introduction to Drupal CMS, which included a live demo of the installation.
"The release of DrupalCMS is a landmark movement. I am sure that this will make Drupal not only ‘Developer friendly’, but also friendly towards non-developers. I am waiting for more features like experience builder to be available in DrupalCMS."
concludes Anish.

Dr. Rajeev R.R., Head of e-governance at ICFOSS in Kerala, spoke in detail on "Supporting FOSS in Government." Kerala has a rich culture of adopting FOSS into its IT functions. It is also the world’s first State to undertake the largest deployment of FOSS in the Education Sector. Together with Dr. Rajeev, Anvar Sadath, and Dr. Sunil Thomas, we cut the cake to celebrate the launch of Drupal CMS v1. Thomas P Thomas, CEO of Zyxware Technologies, Nijo Lawrence, CTO of Power CMS, Kala Jayan L, CEO & Co-founder of Linuse Technology Solutions Pvt.Ltd, Biju SB of CDIT, Abdul Basheer of IT Mission, Mubashir Kocheri Kuzhiyil, CEO, Heidelberg Medical, Robin Alex Panicker of Finotes representing Kerala Startups, Tarun Udayaraj, community strategist of TDT, Sebin Abraham Jacob, Chief Editor, TDT, Alka Elizabeth, Sub-Editor, TDT, and Sandeep Sasikumar, Senior DevOps Engineer, Zyxware lead the celebrations.

The event was concluded by clicking a group photo, sharing refreshments, and a very productive networking session. ICFOSS acted as a great platform to bring people from different walks into this celebration.
"And I cannot thank the volunteers enough - there were a few things we missed to think about earlier, but all of that went so smoothly, thanks to people who volunteered to help us with those.
All of this was a good reminder of what we have heard again and again: Come for the Code, Stay for the Community!"
concludes Anto Jose.
