The series brings Obsidian's engineers, partners and leaders together with industry guests to explore the real conversations shaping enterprise IT that extend far beyond product talk, says the company.

The Kernel sets out to do something different: speak honestly about the challenges facing teams today, from burnout to brittle systems, from cloud confusion to AI "hype" and from collaboration breakdowns to the realities of running infrastructure in Africa, adds the company.

It aims to give listeners practical insight into open source, collaboration tools, cloud architecture, resilience and the unpredictable, very human world of modern IT, using Obsidian Systems' favourite tools, says the company.

"The Kernel is about cutting through the noise," says Muggie van Staden, CEO of Obsidian Systems. "Our industry is full of buzzwords, but the real work happens in the trenches. We want to bring those conversations to the surface through highlighting the lessons learned, the problems we're all trying to solve, and the opportunities open source unlocks for Africa. This is a space for people who actually build things."

A grounded start: Welcome to the Open Edge

Episode one opens with Obsidian leadership unpacking why they believe open source matters right now in a world defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The team reflects on how the community has evolved, why the enterprise narrative has shifted and what the African tech ecosystem needs from open source in 2025, says the company.

Other episodes in the first season include:

Rebooting the Enterprise: Innovation, YAML and the Rise of Automation

A conversation with Obsidian's Karl Fischer and Bennie Kahler-Venter examining how organisations can innovate safely, deploy faster and stay secure by using technologies such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenShift and Ansible. The emphasis is not marketing but on value, honesty and what works in practice, says the company.

DevOps Collaboration That Actually Works

Nick Holdstock and Survaren Naidoo join to explore why silos still exist, how visibility changes the way teams deliver and what Atlassian tools like Jira, Confluence, JSM, Opsgenie, AI features and Assets bring to the table. The discussion dives into the "why" behind collaboration, not just the tooling, adds the company.

Cloud Pragmatism for African Realities

Karl Fischer and Deon Lottering discuss where cloud genuinely delivers, where hybrid wins and what African teams must consider when balancing resilience, cost, performance and infrastructure limitations, says the company.

Stories From the Front Lines

Sysadmins, engineers and consultants share the moments where "everything broke", what they learned and why resilience is as much cultural as it is technical, adds the company.

Africa's Tech Edge

Guests unpack what makes African innovation unique, how open source drives entrepreneurship and why the continent is not waiting for global trends to dictate its path, says the company.

Incidents, Automation and Learning Under Fire

Expert responders break down real outages and show how monitoring, automation and collaboration help teams recover faster, adds the company.

A Future Built on Open Enterprise and AI

The season closes with a wide-open conversation about automation, AI (proprietary and open source), risk, strategy and what the next five years could look like for African enterprises, says the company.

All episodes of The Kernel will be available on Podbean and on regular Podcast platforms. Listeners are invited to subscribe, send questions and participate in future discussions as Obsidian continues its aim to bridge global open-source innovation with real-world African realities, concludes the company.

For more information, visit www.obsidian.co.za. You can also follow Obsidian Systems on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or on Instagram.

*Image courtesy of contributor