I'm writing this, finally (mostly) recovered from the post-conference plague that knocked me out for a week and a half. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat.
Ash Summit accompanied Goatmire, the first Elixir conference in Varberg Sweden from 10-13 September 2025, organised by Lars Wikman (and his family): Check out his report as an organiser.
Getting There: An Adventure in Itself
This was only my second trip overseas, and the first since before the pandemic. Just organising travel for myself felt overwhelming - how do airports even work again? James Harton graciously agreed to meet me midway so we could travel the rest of the way together, which probably saved my sanity. When we spent an hour standing in completely un-air-conditioned customs at Copenhagen airport, sweating and exhausted after 30+ hours of travel, I was so grateful not to be navigating that alone.
The Ash Core Team, IRL
Before Goatmire and the Ash Summit, something pretty special happened. For the first time, most of the Ash core team were actually in the same physical space. Josh and Zach organised a private day for us to get together, and honestly? It felt surreal to see faces I'd only known through Discord avatars, and video/phone calls.
We had Josh Price, Zach Daniel, myself, James Harton, Barnabas Jovanovics, our newest core team member Torkild Kjevik, and Jonatan Männchen all in one room.
While part of us wanted to geek out and catch up properly, Josh (being Josh) kept us focused on planning and brainstorming. You get these organic discussions that just don't happen on Discord - bouncing ideas off each other, talking about where Ash goes next, hashing things out in ways that aren't public. Sometimes you just need to sit in a room and talk without an audience. Which, in retrospect, was the right call given what was about to happen.
When 20 Became 56
When the idea for the Ash Summit first germinated, we thought maybe 20-30 people would show up.
We were wrong. Very (wonderfully) wrong.
The Ash Discord has 2,002 members, and 56 people came to our first-ever Ash Summit. Fifty-six! People who were so engaged they wanted to spend a day diving deep into this framework we've all been building together. Some folks didn't even attend the Goatmire conference - they came specifically for the Ash Summit.
When the free tickets first became available, they vanished within a week. Lars - absolute champion that he is - secured a larger venue so we could offer more spaces. Those disappeared just as quickly, and the energy was palpable before we even started.
Beyond Business Advantage
Zach built Ash for business advantage. That's the origin story. But what blew me away at the Summit was seeing how people have taken Ash and run with it in directions we never imagined.
Howard Bussey shared how he's using Ash to help dyslexic students with lesson planning. Dyslexic students! That's not a use case any of us had on our bingo card, but it's exactly the kind of thing that makes you realise you've built something that matters. It's moved from "we're going to use this as a competitive advantage" to "this is helping people have real impact on lives”.
And we had so many talks that Barnabas literally gave up his speaking slot. The one-hour core team panel we'd planned for the end? Ten minutes. That's all we needed because everyone had already said, shared and built so much.
The Surreal Celebrity Moment
People knew who I was. I'm just this little girl from Perth who wrote a book, but people came up to me: "Thank you so much for the book!" and "I love the book!"
It was very surreal, but very cool to see that I've been sitting over here working on a book and it's actually impacting people in the real world.
I have been that person on the other side, so thank you to everyone who approached, said ‘hi’, wanted my autograph and took selfies with me!
The Book That Almost Was (and now is!)
I tried. I really tried to get physical copies of the Ash Framework book to the event, but sometimes things just don't align.
But Josh Price, in true community spirit, grabbed notepads from the hotel and encouraged everyone to collect Zach and my signatures to stick in their books when they arrive. It's such a small, scrappy solution, but it worked! It was so humbling to meet and talk to so many people who have already read and benefited from the book.
And thank you to those who shared some ideas about expanding the book - it almost sounds like there is enough material for a second book (no promises).
If you’d like your own copy of Ash Framework book, click here.
What Comes Next
I came home from Ash Summit absolutely buzzing with ideas, inspiration and energy. Then I promptly got sick for a week and a half. Such is life.
At the summit, when asked "if you could fix one thing about Ash, what would it be?" my answer was immediate: I hate Ash Admin. I want to rebuild it.
The Cinder table library I built is the very tiny first part of that vision. I said to Zach two years ago when we started the book: after we do the book, my next thing is rebuilding Ash Admin. Now that the book is done, that's the next big project.
People also suggested taking the app from the book and building a community version with extra features - file uploading for album covers, multi-tenancy (which I didn't realise was such a big deal!), all the stuff we wanted to include but didn't have space for. Accompanying blog posts showing how to implement common features. Making it not just a starter app, but a fully-featured reference implementation.
And I'm thinking a lot about projects like Clarity - Jonatan's interactive introspection and visualization tool for Elixir, Ash, and Phoenix projects. There's so much potential in making our tools not just powerful, but intuitive and delightful.
The Real Magic
The real takeaway is that the community is bigger than I thought. People have read the book who I'd never spoken to before. They're using Ash for things I never imagined. The Ash Discord has 2,002 members, but the community extends far beyond that.
Ash started as a framework for business advantage. It's becoming something bigger: a community of people who believe in declarative design, who get excited about solving hard problems elegantly, and who show up for each other. It's helping me find where I fit into making the world a better place.
The first Ash Summit exceeded every expectation we had. Not just in numbers, but in energy, ideas, and the sheer human connection of being in a room with people who care about the same things you do.
If this is how our first Ash Summit is received, I know our next Ash Summit can only be better with such an engaged community behind it. Thank you to Lars Wikman, Josh Price and the rest of the Ash core team!
If you would like to read my colleague James Harton’s reflections on Goatmire, the conference that Ash Summit accompanied, check it out here.
