Meet the 2026 PyTorch Foundation Ambassadors

Open source AI thrives when people come together to learn, build, share knowledge, and contribute. Behind every project is a community of developers, researchers, educators, and contributors helping make these technologies more accessible to others.

The PyTorch Foundation Ambassador Program brings together community leaders from around the world who share that commitment. Through education, mentorship, technical content, community events, and open source contributions, ambassadors help expand awareness, adoption, and participation across the Foundation’s growing ecosystem of open source projects.

The 2026 cohort welcomes 24 ambassadors across five program regions, representing communities from Nigeria and Burkina Faso to Singapore, India, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Each ambassador brings a unique perspective, technical background, and connection to their local community. Together, they are creating more opportunities for people to discover open source AI, develop practical skills, and contribute to the technologies shaping its future.

A community shaped by many kinds of work

The 2026 ambassadors bring experience across AI research, software and infrastructure engineering, technical education, open source maintenance, and community organizing. Some work on AI systems, model training, and infrastructure; others focus on documentation, workshops, mentoring, or applications that address challenges in their communities.

For someone new to PyTorch, that might mean attending a first hands-on workshop. For an experienced developer, it could mean discovering a new project, connecting with maintainers, or making a first open source contribution. Ambassadors help create these opportunities by bringing people together and connecting local communities with the wider ecosystem.

Advancing the PyTorch Foundation’s open source ecosystem

The PyTorch Foundation supports a growing ecosystem of open source projects that help developers and researchers build, train, optimize, and deploy AI systems. Beyond the core PyTorch framework, this ecosystem includes projects such as vLLM, DeepSpeed, Ray, Helion, and Safetensors, spanning model training, inference, distributed computing, performance optimization, and model sharing.

The Ambassador Program helps connect these technologies with communities around the world. Through technical workshops, meetups, educational resources, mentorship, and community-led initiatives, ambassadors help developers discover Foundation projects, understand their practical applications, and find opportunities to contribute.

An ambassador might organize an introductory PyTorch workshop for students, help developers explore scalable inference with vLLM, introduce engineers to distributed AI technologies, or create technical content that makes complex concepts easier to understand. By supporting learning, adoption, and contributions, ambassadors strengthen the communities that sustain open source AI.

Meet the 2026 ambassadors

The 2026 cohort brings together 24 community leaders across five program regions.

AFRICA

Adesina Lekan Samuel · Nigeria

Soumana Dama · Burkina Faso

Ronnie Atuhaire · Uganda

Farah Abdou · Egypt

Abraham Imani · Democratic Republic of Congo

Simanga Comfort Mchunu · South Africa

Mark Gatere · Kenya

ASIA

Alpha Romer Cooma · Philippines

Tsai Li Ming · Singapore

Mu Xiaohui · Singapore and Malaysia

Wang Zhipeng · Singapore

Sumantro Mukherjee · India

Parichay Das · India

Sudhir Dharanendraiah · India

EUROPE

Costin-Alexandru Deonise · Romania

Ricardo Noriega · Spain

Matthew Cossins · United Kingdom

MIDDLE EAST

Johnny Kozman · Egypt

Ali Tavallaie · Armenia

Amr Osama Abdellatif · Egypt

Özge Çinko · Turkey

NORTH AMERICA

Aditya Mehra · United States

Ali Gowani · United States

Samaresh Kumar Singh · United States

What being a PyTorch Foundation Ambassador means to our community

For the 2026 cohort, being an ambassador is an opportunity to share knowledge, give back to the communities that shaped their journeys, and create pathways for others to learn and contribute. In their own words, ambassadors share what excites them most about joining the program.

“Contributing to PyTorch documentation showed me how even a small contribution can become part of something much bigger. As a PyTorch Foundation Ambassador, I’m so excited to help more people experience that sense of belonging through practical learning, welcoming communities, and opportunities to contribute.” Özge Çinko · Turkey

“Most of what I know about building AI I learned from open-source communities, so I’m excited to give back by teaching, mentoring and bringing more engineers from Egypt and Africa into the PyTorch ecosystem.” Farah Abdou · Egypt

“As a PyTorch Foundation Ambassador, I’m excited to help more developers become open-source contributors through hands-on education and mentorship, while bringing the PyTorch and vLLM communities closer together in Singapore and across Asia-Pacific.” Mu Xiaohui · Singapore and Malaysia

Together, these reflections capture what makes the Ambassador Program meaningful: a shared commitment to learning, collaboration, and helping more people participate in open source AI.

Building the future of open source AI together

Over the coming year, ambassadors will help create opportunities for developers, researchers, students, and open source enthusiasts to learn, connect, and contribute across the Foundation’s ecosystem. From introducing new audiences to PyTorch Foundation communities and related projects to supporting technical education and community collaboration, their efforts will help strengthen the global open source AI community.

We’re grateful to this year’s ambassadors for bringing their time, expertise, enthusiasm, and generosity to the program. The strongest communities grow when people share what they’ve learned, welcome new contributors, and make room for others to build alongside them.

We look forward to seeing what the 2026 PyTorch Foundation Ambassadors will teach, organize, create, and contribute in the year ahead.

Learn more about the PyTorch Foundation Ambassador program at: https://pytorch.org/programs/ambassadors/

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