DrupalCamp Kortrijk Speakers Preview Drupal Canvas, AI, Localisation, and Hosting

Speakers at DrupalCamp Kortrijk 2026 have shared additional previews of sessions on Drupal Canvas, autonomous Drupal workflows, context-aware translation, sovereign European hosting, and technical debt in AI-assisted development. The camp will take place in Kortrijk, Belgium, from 29 June to 30 June 2026.

This follow-up covers Fons Vandamme, Frederik Wouters, Mori Sugimoto, Ramon Fincken, and Dieter Blomme, whose responses were not part of the earlier speaker preview. Their sessions place emerging tools beside practical Drupal decisions, including page-building architecture, editor expectations, translation consistency, hosting sovereignty, and how teams discuss AI-related project risk.

Fons Vandamme will present “Turn big ideas into beautiful pages with Drupal Canvas” on 29 June 2026 from 11:10 CEST to 12:05 CEST in the Dropsolid room. The session brief frames Drupal Canvas as a component-driven approach to page building that gives teams more layout flexibility while preserving structure, scalability, and performance.

The session will cover the philosophy behind Drupal Canvas, component-first page building, implementation lessons, and examples of turning design concepts into flexible page experiences. The brief positions the topic for teams working on campaign landing pages, content hubs, and other use cases where editors need freedom without weakening site architecture.

Frederik Wouters will present “Autonomous Drupal: The fire is in our hands” on 30 June 2026 from 11:10 CEST to 12:05 CEST in the Dropsolid room. Frederik said in his written response that the Kortrijk session revisits material from his Drupal Developer Days keynote in Athens, with changes made after attendee feedback.

He said the talk includes working with agents outside Drupal, live interaction with Drupal from the stage, and examples involving AI-generated versions of Dries Buytaert’s images. Frederik also said the session will explain how the initiative developed over the past year and why he believes Drupal can grow its reach again.

“Editors will expect things of Drupal that we can not do yet.”

Frederik said he is also looking forward to experiencing the Kortrijk camp more as a speaker and attendee after not having time to help organise this edition. He added that he plans to organise the second European eurovi.be vibe coding competition during the event.

Mori Sugimoto will present “Reducing the Localisation Burden: Streamlining PO File Translation with Context-Aware LLMs” on 30 June 2026 from 12:05 CEST to 12:30 CEST in the Dropsolid room. Mori said the session addresses the difficulty of translating large numbers of Drupal user interface strings while keeping terminology consistent with existing translations.

Mori said large language models can help with translation volume, but consistency remains difficult when new strings need to match established terminology. His session introduces a retrieval-augmented generation tool that checks relevant existing translation entries before generating each new string.

“The volume problem can be solved with LLMs, but the real challenge is consistency.”

Mori said attendees should leave knowing that a tool exists to handle much of the heavy work in Drupal UI string translation. He said the session will explain what the tool does, how well it works, and where to find it.

Ramon Fincken will present “Steps to become a true sovereign European webhost” on 30 June 2026 from 12:05 CEST to 12:30 CEST in the Drupal.be room. Ramon said the session will cover GDPR, AVG, digital sovereignty, and data portability from the perspective of web hosting.

Ramon said the presentation will explain why websites face growing risk and how hosting choices affect control over data and infrastructure. He said the session will walk through the stack and decisions made by Klarned to become sovereign within the European Union.

“You’ll learn what real digital sovereignty means for web hosting.”

Ramon said attendees should come away with a clearer understanding of data sovereignty, data portability, and practical steps they can take when assessing their own stack or choosing a GDPR-friendly hosting provider. He added that no prior knowledge is required, though an active interest in digital sovereignty and technology will help attendees get more from the session.

Dieter Blomme, Technical Director at Dropsolid, will present “Managing Technical Debt in the Age of AI: What Changed Since 2023” with Jasper Lammens on 29 June 2026 from 14:40 CEST to 15:35 CEST in the Dropsolid room. Dieter said the session builds on an earlier technical debt talk from 2023 but has been reshaped as a standalone session focused on AI use in development.

Dieter said AI can help developers and knowledge workers, but it can also produce poor results when teams do not manage its risks. The session will focus on what to watch for, how to guard against problems, and how to discuss those risks with the right people.

“AI makes our lives more challenging.”

Dieter said the last part of that conversation matters because knowing the pitfalls and opportunities is not enough. Project teams and stakeholders also need to understand the risks and trade-offs around AI-assisted development.

The speaker responses also show that community connection remains a central reason for attending the camp. Frederik said he is looking forward to reconnecting with former colleagues from VRT, Mori said meeting friends and new people is one of the main reasons he enjoys Drupal events, Ramon said he is looking forward to meeting like-minded open source people, and Dieter pointed to Belgium’s active Drupal community and speakers travelling from outside the country.

Taken together, this second set of speaker previews adds page building, AI-assisted operations, translation consistency, sovereign hosting, and technical debt management to the wider DrupalCamp Kortrijk programme. The sessions show how the camp is pairing emerging tools with day-to-day decisions Drupal teams make when building, maintaining, and improving real projects.