State of Open Con 2025: Full Schedule

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9:30am GMT

Plenary

Tuesday February 4, 2025 9:30am - 11:00am GMT

Tuesday February 4, 2025 9:30am - 11:00am GMT
Grand Hall 2

Plenaries

11:15am GMT

Open Source in the Financial Industry - a developer's perspective : Elspeth Minty, Managing Director, RBC Capital Markets

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT

Doddington Forum 2

Finance may not be the first industry that comes to mind when thinking about open source, but open source software is core to much of what we do. This session will look at the advantages and challenges of open source in finance, from the point of view of the developers who work with it every day. It will cover:
- How and where we use open source, What are some of the things we need to think about when choosing to use open source in a project.
- Encouraging an open source mentality in developing our own proprietary code. Open source is as much a mindset as it is software and we can bring that mindset to proprietary development.
- Examples of successful collaborations across the financial industry in developing open source solutions to industry problems. In particular the Open RegTech initiative that is bringing together finance companies, regulators, industry bodies and technology companies.
- Importance of organizations, in particular FINOS, the FinTech Open Source foundation, in fostering these collaborations.

Speakers

Elspeth Minty

Managing Director, RBC Capital Markets

Elspeth Minty is a Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets. Elspeth has worked in the financial industry for more than two decades, with a focus on core library development and code re-use. She has been involved in open source for a number of years, through FINOS, the FinTech Open... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT
Doddington Forum 2

Finance & Openness, Keynote

Subject Finance and Openness

11:15am GMT

How open source companies win : Emily Omier, Founder, Emily Omier Consulting

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT

Grand Hall 2

Open source companies have to be able to compete both against their own open source project as well as with pure proprietary solutions in order to succeed. They also have to make their open source project into a competitive advantage, when if managed incorrectly it can instead be a massive risk. Emily Omier will talk about how open source companies need to think about their positioning in the ecosystem, their ideal users and ideal customers, and the relationship between their open source software, their commercial product and the business outcomes project and product are supposed to deliver if they want to succeed. Attendees will leave with a framework for creating a strategy to win, even in a cutthroat software market, with concrete examples of how successful open source companies have won in their markets.

Speakers

Emily Omier

Consultant, Emily Omier Consulting

I help open source founders figure out how to win.Emily Omier is a product consultant who helps open source founders figure out how to win in their ecosystem. She hosts the Business of Open Source podcast and co-founded Open Source Founders Summit, a conference for founders of open... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT
Grand Hall 2

Future of Open Source, Keynote

Subject Future of Open Source

11:15am GMT

Offshore Energy Digital Strategy Group – Opening up data to drive an integrated energy sector : Nic Granger, North Sea Transition Authority, Director of Corporate

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT

Grand Hall 1

To ensure the UK has an integrated energy sector, large quantities of high quality data are needed. This session looks at how the creation of a public sector and industry collaborative body has enabled data principles to achieve this.

Speakers

Nic Granger

Director of Corporate, North Sea Transition Authority

Having worked internationally and UK in commercial and public sector, as a blended CIO/CFO, Nic leads an award-winning team delivering digital, data, technology and financial solutions.She Chairs the Offshore Energy Digital Strategy Group, is on the boards of CAST: the Centre for... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT
Grand Hall 1

Open Data, Keynote

11:15am GMT

Keynote : Allison Randal, Capabilities Limited. Open Source/Hardware Strategist

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT

Doddington Forum 1

Speakers

Allison Randal

Open Source/Hardware Strategist, Capabilities Limited

Dr Allison Randal is an open source/hardware developer and strategist. She is co-chair of the Microarchitecture Side Channels working group at RISC-V International, chair of the board at the Software Freedom Conservancy, board member at the Open Infrastructure Foundation, and board... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT
Doddington Forum 1

Open Hardware, Keynote

11:15am GMT

I inherited this project, and all I got was all these angry users : Jamie Tanna, Chief Blogger, jvt.me

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT

Hardwick Hub

Although I'd previously helped maintain more well-maintained projects, moving into this project, with one other overworked maintainer who was largely working in the very little spare time they had, I found that my work was cut out for me.

It didn't help that this was also one of the most widely used Go libraries in a fairly well used niche, and a very regularly discussed and recommended option, but the complexity of the domain led to a lot of difficulty in predicting the way that the library is used, and we (as maintainers) are actively driven by the use-cases from our users.

It's taken a couple of years of work to improve our triage process, documentation and re-testing old issues to see if they had been fixed in the meantime, and we've still got _so much_ more to do.

You'll hear some first-hand examples of the difficulty of being an Open Source maintainer, and some tips you can follow as a good Open Source citizen, to improve life for the maintainers of projects you use.

For seasoned maintainers, this will all be very familiar. For folks who are primarily users of Open Source, you'll learn some behind-the-scenes insights into what it's actually like behind the issues/PRs.

Speakers

Jamie Tanna

Overwhelmed Maintainer + Chief Blogger, jvt.me

Jamie is a serial blogger and Open Sourcerer, who enjoys building things in the open to solve his needs, but with the added bonus that others often find it useful too!

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:15am - 11:30am GMT
Hardwick Hub

Software & Security, Keynote

Subject Software and Security

11:35am GMT

Building Trust in open source in financial institutions : Elspeth Minty, Richard Sikang Bian and Manik Surtani

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT

Doddington Forum 2

Speakers

Richard Sikang Bian

Head of Open Source; Technical Strategic Initiatives, Ant Group

Richard led Ant Group Open Source initiative from day 1 and developed the initiative from a single person effort to a cross-functional OSPO team covering governance, strategy, developer experience, product development, growth and internationalization efforts. At this moment, the team... Read More →

Manik Surtani

Head of Open Source, Block

Manik Surtani is the Head of Open Source Programs at Block (formerly known as Square). At Block, Manik has previously led engineering teams at Square and Cash App.Before joining Block, Manik was Senior Principal Software Engineer at JBoss, a division of Red Hat. He is the founder... Read More →

Elspeth Minty

Managing Director, RBC Capital Markets

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT
Doddington Forum 2

Finance & Openness, Panel

11:35am GMT

Business shifts from open source licensing: The Impact : Emily Omier, Peter Zaitsev, Luis Villa

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT

Grand Hall 2

Speakers

Luis Villa

General Counsel, Tidelift

Programmer-turned-attorney focused on open technologies and communities.

Emily Omier

Consultant, Emily Omier Consulting

Peter Zaitsev

Founder, Coroot, Percona, FerretDB

Peter Zaitsev is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Percona, Coroot, FerretDB and other tech companies. As one of the leading experts in Open Source strategy and database optimization, Peter has applied his technical knowledge and entrepreneurial drive to contribute as a board member... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT
Grand Hall 2

Future of Open Source, Panel

11:35am GMT

The Benefits of Open Data Across Industries and Sectors : Nic Granger, Ian Betts, and Lee Fulmer

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT

Grand Hall 1

This panel will discuss the benefits of intra- and inter-industry collaboration on Open Data to accelerate change and innovation, as well as drive industry adoption of Open Standards more broadly.

Speakers

Lee Fulmer

Chair Finance Advisory Board, OpenUK

Lee is an experienced business technologist who has been creatively disrupting the technology, media and finance industries throughout his career. His blend of business acumen, creativity and technology experience brings a unique perspective on driving business change. From helping... Read More →

Ian Betts

General Manager Open Data Platforms, Shell

Nic Granger

Director of Corporate, North Sea Transition Authority

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT
Grand Hall 1

Open Data, Panel

11:35am GMT

Open hardware: it's not FOSS, it's not open data; it's not open AI: licensing, economics & community : Andrew Katz, Orcro Limited, CEO

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT

Doddington Forum 1

Speakers

Andrew Katz

CEO, Orcro Limited

Andrew Katz is a solicitor who has been advising on Open Source and Open Technologies for over 30 years. He is CEO of Orcro Limited, a specialist open source compliance consultancy, and Solicitor Consultant (Open Source) at Bristows LLP in the UK, one of London's leading technology... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT
Doddington Forum 1

Open Hardware, Panel

11:35am GMT

Are You Not Entertained? Open Source Isn’t the Coliseum : Kat Cosgrove,Independent, Open Source Advocate and Jeremy Rickard, Microsoft, Principal Software Engineer

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT

Hardwick Hub

What is the impact on contributors when maintainers fight, aren't welcoming, or don't lead inclusively? We are a community of doers who enable open source projects including Kubernetes, Prometheus, Envoy, and many others, but conflict between maintainers and contributors can negatively impact our projects and lead to resentment, drive contributors away, and in the worst of cases can escalate to code of conduct issues. When we maintainers don't have each other to lean on, what can we do? Sunlight is the best disinfectant and reflecting on these interactions can help us all do better and help our projects be more successful. In this talk, Kat and Jeremy will share some examples where communications went wrong, talk about the impact on contributors, and share a framework we can all use to do better.

Speakers

Kat Cosgrove

Open Source Advocate, Independent

Kat is a Developer Advocate focused on the growth and nurturing of open source through authentic contribution. In particular, her specialties are approachable 101-level content and deep dives on the history of technology, with a focus on DevOps and cloud native. She was the Kubernetes... Read More →

Jeremy Rickard

Principal Software Engineer, Microsoft

Jeremy Rickard is a principal software engineer at Microsoft where he works on the Azure Container Upstream team. He is currently a co-chair for SIG Release and serves on both the CNCF and the Kubernetes Code of Conduct Committees. He was also the Kubernetes 1.20 Release Lead.

Tuesday February 4, 2025 11:35am - 12:15pm GMT
Hardwick Hub

Software & Security, Talk

12:20pm GMT

From Fintech to Fintech Open Source - My Unique Open Finance Journey : Richard Sikang Bian, Ant Group, Head of Open Source; Technical Strategic Initiatives

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT

Doddington Forum 2

Speakers

Richard Sikang Bian

Head of Open Source; Technical Strategic Initiatives, Ant Group

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT
Doddington Forum 2

Finance & Openness, Talk

12:20pm GMT

When Your Open Source Turns To The Dark Side : Dotan Horovits, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), Developer Advocate, DevOps Specialist, Open Source Evangelist

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT

Grand Hall 2

Imagine waking up one morning to find out that your beloved open source tool, which lies at the heart of your system, is being relicensed. What does that mean? Can you still use it as before? Could the new license force you to open source your own business logic?

This doom’s day nightmare scenario isn’t hypothetical. It is, in fact, very real, for databases, for Infrastructure-as-Code tooling, and for other OSS, with several examples over the past year alone.

On this talk Horovits will review some of the less known risks of open source, and share his lessons learned facing such relicensing moves. If you use OSS, you’ll learn how to safeguard yourself. If you’re in the process of evaluating a new OSS, you’ll learn to look beyond the license and consider additional criteria.

Speakers

Dotan Horovits

CNCF Ambassador, OpenObservability Talks

With over 20 years in the tech industry as a developer, a solutions architect and a product manager, Horovits brings a wealth of knowledge in cloud-native solutions, DevOps practices and more. Horovits is an international speaker and thought leader, as well as a CNCF Ambassador, and... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT
Grand Hall 2

Future of Open Source, Talk

12:20pm GMT

Saving the world by feeding the AI Dragon with unbiased open data : Kaj Arnö, MariaDB Foundation, CEO

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT

Grand Hall 1

Let us fight ignorance and prejudice in the world by enriching the most important sources for generative AI — Wikipedia and Wikidata—with accurate information based on reliable and established sources.
And let us use AI to simplify and accelerate that process.
The end result will be an improvement of the most trustworthy foundational data that ChatGPT, Claude, and all other models rely on for their training.
With the help of truth, in the form of credible sources, we can combat misinformation, right-wing extremism, dictatorship, and Russian propaganda.

Speakers

Kaj Arnö

CEO, MariaDB Foundation

Kaj Arnö is a software industry generalist and currently the CEO of the MariaDB Foundation. Prior to co-founding MariaDB, Arnö has a long Open Source database experience as the former Vice President of the MySQL Community at MySQL AB, Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation. Arn... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT
Grand Hall 1

Open Data, Talk

12:20pm GMT

Lessons from 10 Years of Certifying Open Hardware : Michael Weinberg, NYU Law, Executive Director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT

Doddington Forum 1

Exploring 10 years of certified hardware so far, discussing the next 10 years to come.

Speakers

Michael Weinberg

Board Member, OSHWA

Michael Weinberg is a long-time board member of the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA), and the project lead for OSHWA's Open Source Hardware Certification Program. He is also the Executive Director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU Law.

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT
Doddington Forum 1

Open Hardware, Talk

12:20pm GMT

Who owns your customer data: Open source, digital sovereignty and your marketing stack

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT

Hardwick Hub

With a month's notice to transition to a new workflow for managing incoming security reports for our open source project, join us to learn how we implemented GitHub's built-in security reporting feature in the Mautic project, and explore the highs and lows of collaborating with researchers, contributors and our security team using this system.

Speakers

Ruth Cheesley

Project Lead, Mautic

Ruth is an Open Source advocate with over 18 years of experience using and contributing to many different projects.Having served on the Community Leadership Team of the Joomla! project and built a full-service digital agency, she now works as Project Lead for Mautic, supporting the... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 12:20pm - 12:35pm GMT
Hardwick Hub

Software & Security, Talk

1:35pm GMT

GitProxy: Get code out of your org quicker, easier & securely : Katrina Warr, Citi, Open Source Culture Lead and Jamie Slome, Citi, Operations Lead, Open Source Program Office

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT

Doddington Forum 2

Join this session to discover why and how Git Proxy, an open source data leakage prevention tool, hosted by FINOS, has become so popular. We’ll cover real-life examples of how it’s made developer’s lives easier, allowing them to get code out of their organisations quicker and more securely, and what has helped to grow the Git Proxy community of users and contributors.

GitProxy recently won the OpenUK Finance Award 2024. Find out how the award winning project could help your organisation!

Speakers

Jamie Slome

Operations Lead, Open Source Program Office, Citi

Jamie Slome joined Citi in November 2022 as Operations Lead for Citi’s Open Source Program Office (OSPO). He is responsible for implementing developer tooling that enables Citi’s open source contribution initiatives, namely Git Proxy.Prior to this, he co-founded and served as... Read More →

Katrina Warr

Open Source Culture Lead, Citi

Katrina has worked with organisations globally across different industries to strategically use and contribute open source software and methodologies and to establish communities. She is passionate about fostering open source development as a standard working practice and strives... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT
Doddington Forum 2

Finance & Openness, Panel

1:35pm GMT

Forked Communities: Project Re-licensing and Community Impact : Dawn Foster, Stephen Walli, James Governor

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT

Grand Hall 2

Many popular OSS projects are owned and driven by corporations, and in today's difficult economic climate, those companies are under increasing pressure to protect their businesses or show stronger returns for investors. One response to this pressure has been the relicensing of popular projects to more restrictive licenses despite there not being consistent evidence that this generates improved financial outcomes. In some cases, this relicensing has resulted in a hard fork of the original project. Both the relicensing and the resulting fork create turmoil for the users of that project and the community of contributors. The audience will gain an appreciation of why relicensing results in hostile forks and how to think about this issue when selecting projects for contribution or usage.

Speakers

Stephen Walli

Open Source Ecosystem Team, Azure Office of the CTO, Microsoft

I'm a principal program manager at Microsoft in the Azure Office of the CTO. I was technical director at the Outercurve Foundation, and an open source software start-up founder. I've been around open source software for 30+ years. I'm presently Microsoft governing board member for... Read More →

James Governor

Analyst & Co-founder, RedMonk

Founded RedMonk in 2002 with Stephen O’Grady. We focus on developers as the real key influencers in tech. Understanding that people choose technology because of gut instincts, not facts per se. An ex-journalist, I have managed teams and news agendas in weekly publication grind... Read More →

Dawn Foster

Director of Data Science, CHAOSS

Dr. Dawn Foster works as the Director of Data Science for CHAOSS where she is also a board member / maintainer. She is co-chair of CNCF TAG Contributor Strategy and an OpenUK board member. She has 20+ years of experience at companies like VMware and Intel with expertise in community... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT
Grand Hall 2

Future of Open Source, Panel

1:35pm GMT

Opening Up Government: Kevin Keith, UK Open Government Network, Chair

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT

Grand Hall 1

Speakers

Kevin Keith

Chair, UK Open Government Network, United Kingdom

Kevin is the Chair of the UK Open Government Network (UK OGN), which brings together civil society and government to co-create policy commitments for the UK’s UK National Action Plan for Open Government. These plans, developed every two years, promote transparent, accountable... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT
Grand Hall 1

Open Data, Panel

1:35pm GMT

Supercharging Chip Development: Open-Source AI Plug-Ins for GenAI Co-Pilots : Deepa Palaniappan, AsFigo Technologies, DAV Engineer and Ajeetha Kumari Venkatesan, AsFigo, Director of Verification

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT

Doddington Forum 1

Chip design workflows, particularly with hardware languages like SystemVerilog and UVM, face challenges due to limited high-quality training data for generative AI. This results in large language models (LLMs) struggling to provide accurate, context-aware assistance. This session introduces a framework that leverages open-source tools like Verible, Slang, and UVMLint to address these challenges. The multi-agent system improves hardware code development through iterative feedback loops and supports targeted UVM code reviews with a noise-reducing linting approach. This approach enhances LLM performance, improving development efficiency and code quality in semiconductor design.

Speakers

Deepa Palaniappan

DAV Engineer, AsFigo Technologies

Deepa Palaniappan (deepa@asfigo.com) is a seasoned engineer working on multiple disciplines in IC design and verification. Her interests include open-source simulators such as Verilator, Icarus and libraries/frameworks such as GO2UVM, SVUnit etc. She contributes to few open-source projects such as SVA IP on Verilator... Read More →

Ajeetha Kumari Venkatesan

Director of Verification, AsFigo

I am serving as Director of Verification at AsFigo (https://www.asfigo.com), a UK-based chip design start-up specializing in open-source chip designs. I also concurrently continue to run my other 2 ventures one on EdTech and the other a consulting company based out of Bangalore, India.My main contributions to open source in recent years are UVMLint, SVALint... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT
Doddington Forum 1

Open Hardware, Panel

1:35pm GMT

Open Source Security: The Good, The Bad, The Vulnerable : Divya Mohan, Nelson Batsford, Mike Bursell and Aeva Black

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT

Hardwick Hub

Speakers

Aeva Black

Mike Bursell

Executive Director, Confidential Computing Consortium

Mike Bursell is the Executive Director of the Confidential Computing Consortium. He is one of the co-founders of the Enarx project (https://enarx.dev), and was CEO and co-founder of Profian, a start-up based on Enarx. He has previously served on the Governing Boards of the CCC and the Bytecode Alliance and currently holds advisory board roles with various start-ups. Previous companies include Red Hat, Intel and Citrix, with roles in... Read More →

Nelson Batsford

Sales Engineer, SUSE

Divya Mohan

Principal Technology Advocate, SUSE

Divya is a Senior Technical Evangelist at SUSE, where she contributes to Rancher’s cloud native open source projects. She co-chairs the documentation for the Kubernetes & LitmusChaos projects & has previously worked extensively in the systems engineering space during her tenure... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 1:35pm - 2:15pm GMT
Hardwick Hub

Software & Security, Panel

2:20pm GMT

Compliance Framework - An Open Source OSCAL Compliance Automation Framework : Ian Miell, Container Solutions, Partner

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT

Doddington Forum 2

Open source automation for audits, real-time compliance, and DORA readiness.

Speakers

Ian Miell

Partner, Container Solutions

Ian Miell has over 25 years' experience in software consulting on, writing, running, architecting, and maintaining software and infrastructure for dozens of businesses from large to small. He now focusses on unblocking organisations from making technical changes from the top to the... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT
Doddington Forum 2

Finance & Openness, Talk

2:20pm GMT

How sustainable is open source software today? Sophia Vargas, Program Manager, Researcher, Google

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT

Grand Hall 2

Many open source creators, consumers, and participants are concerned with the general state of open source sustainability. But is this something we can quantify outside of our feelings or targeted examples? Perhaps if we can identify and calculate metrics that characterize and quantify this concern, we can collectively work to address this issue. In this talk, we will explore and interpret available data, identify gaps in knowledge, and discuss opportunities to work together to improve open source sustainability.

Speakers

Sophia Vargas

Program Manager, Researcher, Google

Sophia Vargas is a Program Manager and researcher within Google’s Open Source Programs Office. In this role she leads efforts that span project health, contributor experience, and open source economics. She is also on the Governing Board and an active contributor to the CHAOSS... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT
Grand Hall 2

Future of Open Source, Talk

Subject Future of Open Source

2:20pm GMT

carbon.txt : Hannah Smith, Green Web Foundation, Director of Operations

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT

Grand Hall 1

This talk will cover Green Web Foundation’s most recent open source project - carbon.txt.

In it Hannah will explain:

- The problem this project addresses - the difficulty in finding and using sustainability data that is already published into the public domain.
- The web-first, connect not collect style approach that underpins how it works and how it is designed to be extended by default.
- How people can get involved in using the code or data the project surfaces.

Speakers

Hannah Smith

Director of Operations, Green Web Foundation

Hannah is Director of Operations for Green Web Foundation and co-founder of Green Tech South West. She puts a strong emphasis on fostering a joyful and effective delivery culture.She has a background in Computer Science. She previously worked as a freelance WordPress developer, and... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT
Grand Hall 1

Open Data, Talk

2:20pm GMT

Automotive grade chips with Open Source : Robert Taylor, ChipFlow, CTO

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT

Doddington Forum 1

We’ll talk about the latest developments in building commercial automotive grade ICs using an open source toolchain, including safety considerations like ISO26262

Speakers

Robert Taylor

CTO, ChipFlow

Rob is driven by his passion for empowering individuals to unleash their creativity, believing this will enable new products and business models that we can't yet imagine. With over 20 years of commercialising Open Source Software, and two previous successful exits (rev £10m), he... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT
Doddington Forum 1

Open Hardware, Talk

2:20pm GMT

Using European Open Source to build a Sovereign Multi-Cloud : Francisco Picolini, OpenNebula Systems, Open Source Community Manager

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT

Hardwick Hub

The European Commission has clearly identified open source as an strategic tool for bringing some balance to an EU cloud market currently dominated by a handful of non-EU hyperscalers. Part of that commitment comes through a series of ambitious, multi-million EU projects like the COGNIT project and the multi-country “Important Project of Common European Interest on Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services” (IPCEI-CIS).

For the first time in the history of the European Union, it is the EU industry who will be leading large-scale open source projects aimed at building European strategic technologies.

In this talk we will explain in detail how specific European open source technologies are being brought together as part of some of those projects to start building Sovereign Multi-Cloud solutions that ensure interoperability and digital sovereignty for European users while preventing vendor lock-in in the cloud market, opening up competition in the emerging 5G/edge.

Speakers

Francisco Picolini

Open Source Community Manager, OpenNebula Systems

Madrilenian with argentinian accent. Currently working on promoting a sovereign european cloud, OpenSource advocate, with some interest on Mechanical Keyboards and stuck in 90's music. Previously @Codemotion & @Mozilla. I believe in an Open Web.

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:20pm - 2:45pm GMT
Hardwick Hub

Software & Security, Talk

2:50pm GMT

‘Stewardship’ as a Model for Open-Source Software Governance: Critical Reflections : Jennifer Tridgell, University of Cambridge, PhD Candidate

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:15pm GMT

Grand Hall 2

The EU’s Cyber Resilience Act creates a novel category of ‘open-source software stewards,’ creating a ‘light touch’ regime for designated entities. It has proven controversial, sparking debate about who may benefit – or not. Whilst the EU is yet to clarify what ‘stewardship’ shall entail, likely in 2025, there is little past practice as an internal governance principle within OSS.
Drawing upon key international law contexts where the ‘stewardship’ concept shapes governance regimes and informs stakeholders’ responsibilities, the presentation critically analyses potential implications of this approach for the future of OSS governance in the EU and beyond. For better or worse.

Speakers

Jennifer Tridgell

PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge

Jennifer is an independent legal consultant and PhD Candidate (International Law x Computer Science) at the University of Cambridge as a World Ramsay Scholar. She researches global governance of open-source software. An experienced Australian public international lawyer, she has advised... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:15pm GMT
Grand Hall 2

Future of Open Source, Talk

2:50pm GMT

The challenges of addressing modern Financial Crime – How Open Source might help : Shelley Anderson, Sarah Sinclair, Joseph Goksu and Rob Reeve

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:30pm GMT

Doddington Forum 2

An introduction to Tazama, a project in the Linux Foundation that provides real-time transaction monitoring for fraud and money-laundering detection.
We will cover the origins and its roadmap
We will provide an overview on how it is enabling financial inclusion
We will introduce the standards body that will collect and publish standards for reporting, sharing and actioning information on Financial Crime.

Speakers

Sarah Sinclair

CEO + Co-Founder, Change Gap

Hiring and utilising global talent across UK, Portugal, Singapore and Ghana

Joseph Goksu

Site Reliability Engineer, Obrizum

Joseph Goksu is a Site Reliability Engineer at Obrizum, specializing in cloud-native architectures, security, and high-throughput systems. At LexTego, he was among the first engineers on the Tazama project, an open-source transaction monitoring platform funded by the Bill & Melinda... Read More →

Shelley Anderson

Program Director, Alliance for Innovative Regulation

A seasoned innovation leader, Shelley spent 16 years at the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority before joining AIR in January 2022. Starting in 2015, she was part of the FCA’s Regtech team, designing and leading TechSprints and developing the regulator’s approach to interacting... Read More →

Rob Reeve

CEO, LexTego

A senior Executive with a track record of delivering innovative Digital Financial Services. Comfortable in a large corporate or small business. A highly motivated professional capable of defining FS strategy and delivering new financial products, combined with a deep understanding... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:30pm GMT
Doddington Forum 2

Finance & Openness, Panel

2:50pm GMT

Reshaping the Web with the Solid Project : Jesse Wright, Louise Burke, Professor Pierre-Antoine Champin and Laurens Debackere

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:30pm GMT

Grand Hall 1

Imagine a Web where individuals truly control their personal data, where privacy, data portability, and user-centricity are foundational principles baked into the Web’s architecture. That’s the promise of Solid—a groundbreaking open-source initiative founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web.

In October 2024, the Open Data Institute (ODI) took stewardship of the project to foster the open-source community and drive global adoption. In this session, Louise Burke (CEO, ODI) and Jesse Wright (Solid Lead, ODI) will provide a brief technical overview of Solid, highlight its adoption across projects and industries, and outline how you can contribute to its growth. Whether you’re a developer, policymaker or c-suite executive, join us in building a user-centric Web.

Speakers

Louise Burke

CEO, ODI

Louise is the ODI’s Chief Executive Officer and leads the team to deliver on the organisation’s mission and vision. Having joined the ODI in 2012 Louise previously held roles as chief finance officer and chief operating officer. She has expertise in data governance, data literacy... Read More →

Professor Pierre-Antoine Champin

Pierre-Antoine is the W3C Staff Contact for the Linked Web Storage (Solid) Working Group. He joined W3C in February 2021, as a fellow from ERCIM, then from Inria. He is a member of the Strategy Team, with a focus on Data Interoperability. Before that, he has been involved in many... Read More →

Laurens Debackere

Laurens Debackere is co-chair of the W3C Linked Web Storage (Solid) Working Group and Lead Solution Architect with Digitaal Vlaanderen's data platform, specializing in Semantic Web technologies and decentralized data exchange. With deep expertise in Solid and Linked Data, he has made... Read More →

Jesse Wright

Solid Lead, The ODI

Jesse Wright, is a researcher, software engineer, and open-source advocate dedicated to advancing user-centric web technologies. As the Solid Lead at the Open Data Institute (ODI), Jesse steers the technical roadmap, governance, and community engagement for Sir Tim Berners-Lee's Solid... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:30pm GMT
Grand Hall 1

Open Data, Panel

2:50pm GMT

OpenUK'S Sustainable Data Centre for COP30 : Amanda Brock, Mark Bjornsgaard and John Laban

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:30pm GMT

Doddington Forum 1

Speakers

John Laban

Mark Bjornsgaard

Amanda Brock

CEO, OpenUK

OpenUK CEO and Executive Producer State of Open Con, Amanda’s 25 years’ legal experience includes being instrumental in shaping open source’s legal frameworks and internet law in 2000’s. Sought-after international keynote speaker, tech press contributor and editor “Open... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:30pm GMT
Doddington Forum 1

Open Hardware, Panel

2:50pm GMT

The future of platform engineering : Paula Kennedy, Nicki Watt, Leena Mooneeram, Shweta Vohra

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:30pm GMT

Hardwick Hub

As platform engineering continues to gain traction within the tech industry, the role of internal developer platforms (IDPs) is becoming essential in streamlining application delivery. According to Gartner, by 2026, 80% of large software engineering organisations will have established platform engineering teams. This prediction is already materialising, with the latest State of DevOps Report by DORA revealing that 89% of organisations are using some form of internal developer platform.

However, as Gartner positions platform engineering at the peak of its hype cycle, it raises the question: what comes next? Will the industry face the "trough of disillusionment," or will platform engineering continue to evolve and mature? This panel discussion will explore the future trajectory of platform engineering, examining current trends and their implications for the industry.

Key questions we will address include:
- Where are current trends in platform engineering taking us?
- Will the market see a proliferation of new tools, or will we see more consolidation?
- Will organisations move toward a single, unified platform, or will multiple, specialised platforms emerge to meet different needs?

Join our expert panelists as they share their insights and discuss what the future holds for platform engineering.

Speakers

Shweta Vohra

Enterprise Architect, Booking.com

Shweta is an Enterprise Architect and a Cloud Navigator! 🚀 As a seasoned Architect with a vast toolkit in Cloud, Platforms, Data, and ML technologies. She has spent over two decades crafting solutions across various domains and complexity levels. She is a frequent conference speaker... Read More →

Nicki Watt

CEO & CTO, OpenCredo

Nicki Watt currently serves as OpenCredo’s CTO and CEO, a pragmatic hands on software consultancy with specialisms in platform and data engineering as well as cloud native solution development. Her career has seen her wear many hats from Engineer, Systems & Technical Architects... Read More →

Leena Mooneeram

Senior Platform Engineer, Chainalysis

Leena is a Senior Engineer at Chainalysis, the Blockchain data platform. With a strong focus on reducing friction and cognitive load for Chainalysis engineers, Leena is at the coal-face of DevProd and DevEx daily. When she's not busy optimising workflows, Leena enjoys playing the... Read More →

Paula Kennedy

COO, Syntasso

Paula is Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of Syntasso; previous roles include Senior Director at VMware Tanzu, Pivotal and Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of CloudCredo.With 20+ years experience in IT, Paula champions community, diversity and inclusion and has a range of... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 2:50pm - 3:30pm GMT
Hardwick Hub

Software & Security, Panel

4:30pm GMT

Enabling Adoption of Open Source Software Without Fear of Patent Litigation: Keith Bergelt, Open Invention Network, CEO

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT

Doddington Forum 2

Speakers

Keith Bergelt

CEO, Open Invention Network

Keith Bergelt is the CEO of Open Invention Network (OIN) & is responsible for enabling, influencing, & defending the integrity of Linux and adjacent open source software as it relates to threats from patent aggressors.He was CEO of 2 Hedge Funds; a senior advisor to TPG; head of business... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT
Doddington Forum 2

Finance & Openness, Talk

4:30pm GMT

Evolving Corporate Reciprocity : Chad Whitacre, Head of Open Source, Sentry

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT

Grand Hall 2

Corporations co-evolved with the global market economy, but Open Source is a gift economy. How might we continue evolving our corporations to participate more fully in Open Source?

Speakers

Chad Whitacre

Head of Open Source, Sentry

Chad Whitacre got his start in Open Source in 2001. He participated in the Python web development boom of the 2000s that gave rise to Django and Flask. Along the way, he experienced first-hand the tension between volunteer Open Source work and paid closed source work, so he spent... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT
Grand Hall 2

Future of Open Source, Talk

Subject Future of Open Source

4:30pm GMT

What's a Data Lake and What Does It Mean For My Open Source Stack? Robert Hodges, Altinity, CEO

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT

Grand Hall 1

Data lakes on open table formats like Iceberg are a popular way to manage large datasets for analytics, data science, and AI. This talk explains how data lakes work and how to adapt open source analytic stacks to use them. First, we'll tour projects like Arrow, Iceberg, and Unity Catalog that make data lakes possible. Next, we'll see how analytic engines like DuckDB, ClickHouse, and Spark are adapting. Finally, we'll survey a few projects that enable applications written in Python, Golang, or Rust to deliver fast query. You'll have to build the app yourself but this talk will show you a path to use data lakes and open source successfully.

Speakers

Robert Hodges

CEO, Altinity

Robert Hodges serves as CEO at Altinity, a leading software and services provider for ClickHouse. Robert has more than 30 years of experience with database systems and applications including pre-relational databases such as M204, online SQL transaction processing, Hadoop, and analytics... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT
Grand Hall 1

Open Data, Talk

4:30pm GMT

Introduction to the CHERI Alliance

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT

Doddington Forum 1

Speakers

Marno van der Maas

Principal Hardware Engineer, lowRISC

Dr Marno van der Maas completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2022 on protecting trusted execution environments from side-channel attacks. During this time, Dr Van der Maas also worked on implementing and testing processors that enforce bounds and permissions on memory pointers... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT
Doddington Forum 1

Open Hardware, Talk

4:30pm GMT

As easy as PII - and that's GDPR, not GBBO : Mike Bursell, Confidential Computing Consortium, Executive Director

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT

Hardwick Hub

Regulators are coming for you if you're not looking after your customers' (or your employees'!) Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Luckily, Open Source, coupled with Confidential Computing, can give you a chance to be star baker. And while this session doesn't promise a Paul Hollywood handshake, let's at least try to avoid a soggy bottom to your security and risk policy.

Speakers

Mike Bursell

Executive Director, Confidential Computing Consortium

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:30pm - 4:45pm GMT
Hardwick Hub

Software & Security, Talk

4:50pm GMT

Cloud Native, Cost Conscious, No Comprimise: Leveraging Open Source Databases in Financial Industry : Lori Lorusso, Ann Schlemmer and Alex Chircop

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT

Doddington Forum 2

In the fast-paced world of fintech, the pressure to deliver innovative solutions while controlling costs is relentless. Cloud-native architectures offer a path to agility and scalability, but the choice of database technology is critical. This talk explores how open source databases, optimized for cloud-native environments, can be the cornerstone of a cost-conscious and high-performing infrastructure.

Many financial institutions rely on open source databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MongoDB. These databases offer in conjunction with Kubernetes and the broader CNCF ecosystem offer powerful tools to optimize resource utilization, automate database management, and significantly reduce operational costs. The next evolution of controlling costs when managing your data on Kubernetes is Percona Everest. Everest is an open source platform that empowers enterprises to streamline database operations across diverse environments, ensuring a seamless user experience without sacrificing features or falling prey to vendor lock-in - a perfect compliment to financial institutions need for scalable, cost effective and efficient solutions.

Speakers

Ann Schlemmer

Co-Chair, Percona

Alex Chircop

Chief Architect, Akamai

Chief Architect at Akamai. Previously a founder and CTO of Ondat (formerly StorageOS), building software defined solutions for cloud native environments. Alex is also a co-chair of the CNCF Storage TAG. Before embarking on the startup adventure he spent over 25 years engineering infrastructure... Read More →

Lori Lorusso

Head of Community, Percona

Lori has a passion and enthusiasm for working with the developer and open source community. She is a CNCF Ambassador, former CNCF Marketing Committee Chair, former Chair of the CDF Outreach Marketing Committee, program chair of cdCon 2023, and is active in the OpenSSF devrel committee... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT
Doddington Forum 2

Finance & Openness, Panel

4:50pm GMT

Old meets new: The maintainer challenge in a new open source world of corporations and regulation : David Burns, Kat Cosgrove, Cortney Nickerson

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT

Grand Hall 2

Speakers

Kat Cosgrove

Open Source Advocate, Independent

Cortney Nickerson

Developer Advocate & Solutions Architect, Kubeshop

Cortney is a Developer Advocate at Kubeshop and a co-organizer of the CNCF Bilbao Community. Initially, a non-techie turned tech lover, she began her career as employee number 7 at a DevSecOps startup (acquired by DataDog) and wrote the newsletter and other content for the Data on... Read More →

David Burns

Chair, W3C Browser Testing and Tools Working group

David is the Chair of the W3C Browser Testing and Tools Working group and co-editor of the WebDriver specification, trying to ensure automation frameworks in browsers are interoperable. He was an engineering manager at Mozilla within Developer Experience working on tooling and infrastructure... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT
Grand Hall 2

Future of Open Source, Panel

4:50pm GMT

Space: The Data Frontier : Ed Parsons, Denise Mckenzie and Professor Emma Edman

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT

Grand Hall 1

Speakers

Denise Mckenzie

Managing Partner, PLACE Trust

Ed Parsons

Open Data Lead, Google

Ed Parsons is Google’s Geospatial Technologist, with responsibility for evangelising Google’s mission to organise the world’s information using geography. In this role he maintains links with Governments, Universities, Research and Standards Organisations which are involved... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT
Grand Hall 1

Open Data, Panel

4:50pm GMT

CHERI Panel : Agata Samojlowicz, Nuala Kilmartin, UKRI, Deputy Director Digital Security by Design and Simon Hart

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT

Doddington Forum 1

Speakers

Simon Hart

Head of Cyberphysical, Innovate UK

Simon is Head of Cyber-Physical Infrastructure and Digital Twins at Innovate UK; the UK's Innovation Agency. Simon is happiest when given something to fix; like cars, electronics, boats, buildings or a combination of these. Prior to joining Innovate UK, Simon led the Connectivity... Read More →

Nuala Kilmartin

Deputy Director Digital Security by Design, UKRI

As Digital Security Innovation Lead for the Digital Security by Design Programme within InnovateUK, UKRI, Nuala is accountable for driving the market development of the challenge and working in partnership with Government, Industry and Academia to gather the real industry benefits to create demand and onboard advocates for this transformational techno... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT
Doddington Forum 1

Open Hardware, Panel

4:50pm GMT

The State of Open Source in Numbers: Metrics, Trends, and Predictions : Avi Press, Brian Douglas, Dawn Foster, Jennifer Barth

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT

Hardwick Hub

In the past few years, the open source ecosystem has seen transformational innovation in the way we measure and analyze open source world - from development to community engagement, usage, economic impact, and beyond. In this panel, we gather the experts to discuss the state of open source from the hard numbers. We will discuss which indicators to watch, what we can learn from them, and what they might suggest about the future of open source as we know it.

Speakers

Jennifer Barth

Founder, Symmetry

Brian Douglas

Head of Developer Experience, Linux Foundation

Brian Douglas is a Developer Advocate at GitHub where he works on increasing use of the GitHub API by iterating on the onboarding process and helping users with evergreen technical content.

Dawn Foster

Director of Data Science, CHAOSS

Avi Press

Founder and CEO, Scarf

Avi Press is a developer tool author, and functional programming language enthusiast, serving as a founder & CEO of Scarf. Avi loves thinking about and discussing how people can solve problems by more effectively sharing data, and how that applies to building a sustainable open-source... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 4:50pm - 5:30pm GMT
Hardwick Hub

Software & Security, Panel

5:35pm GMT

The Mojaloop Story : Paula Hunter, Mojaloop Foundation, Executive Director

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT

Doddington Forum 2

Speakers

Paula Hunter

Executive Director, Mojaloop Foundation

Paula Hunter is the Executive Director of the Mojaloop Foundation – a charitable nonprofit organization focused on extending the financial inclusion efforts of the Mojaloop open source software project. She leads the organization’s strategic planning and direction; grant, membership... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT
Doddington Forum 2

Finance & Openness, Talk

5:35pm GMT

The End Of The Beginning: Open After Regulation and AI : Luis Villa, Tidelift, General Counsel

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT

Grand Hall 2

After a quarter-century of artisanal, human-centric coding, open is going to be radically changed by regulation and new tools. How can we see this as a fresh start, rather than an end?

Speakers

Luis Villa

General Counsel, Tidelift

Programmer-turned-attorney focused on open technologies and communities.

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT
Grand Hall 2

Future of Open Source, Talk

5:35pm GMT

Stream: unlocking water data – the things we got wrong : Andrew Myers, Northumbrian Water, Project Lead for Stream & Lead Architect and Melissa Tallack, NWG Living Water, Stream Co-Lead

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT

Grand Hall 1

The concept behind Stream emerged back in Spring 2020 when eight water companies came together and agreed that it was better to explore the potential of open data together rather than each going it alone. Roll forward to the end of 2024 and Stream is now a well-established collaborative initiative between 16 of the UK’s major water companies and seven partners all with a shared vision to unlock water data to the benefit of customers, society and the environment.

The member water companies have progressed from publishing three simple datasets at the end of 2023 to 69 datasets in just under 12 months, including near real time event data relating to the high profile topic of storm overflow discharges.

Solid data sharing foundations have been put in place (people, process, data and technology) and the strategy for 2025-2028 has been agreed. The icing on the cake came as Stream was recognised at the 5th Open UK Awards, being awarded winner of the Open Data category.

But it hasn’t been all plain sailing. We got lots of things wrong on the way.

As Stream members, we have actively sought out and benefited from learning from other data sharing initiatives so we wanted to take this opportunity to tell the stories of what we got wrong, what we learned and ultimately, how we got a few things right.

Speakers

Andrew Myers

Project Lead for Stream & Lead Architect, Northumbrian Water

Andrew has 20 years’ experience in the water industry covering a variety of operational, technical and data focused roles & projects. Currently responsible for setting the strategic direction for technology at Northumbrian and leading the industry wide Stream Open Data project... Read More →

Melissa Tallack

Stream Co-Lead, NWG Living Water

Melissa is an experienced data and digital leader with 3 decades of experience in the water industry. Prior to setting up her own company last year to enable her to work with many companies, Melissa spent nearly 28 years at Anglian Water Services. There she experienced a variety of... Read More →

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT
Grand Hall 1

Open Data, Talk

5:35pm GMT

Build your own SoC from scratch: Marno van der Maas, lowRISC, Principal Hardware Engineer

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT

Doddington Forum 1

Tutorial on how to create your own SoC from purely open-source IP. This is based on lowRISC's Sonata system which we built using IP from multiple sources such as OpenTitan and Microsoft repositories.

Speakers

Marno van der Maas

Principal Hardware Engineer, lowRISC

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT
Doddington Forum 1

Open Hardware, Talk

5:35pm GMT

TBC

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT

Hardwick Hub

EQUIP (Ensuring Quality in Psychological Support) is a World Health Organization & UNICEF project using Drupal to deliver mental health support training and assessments in low and middle-income settings with low connectivity. As of March 2024, EQUIP's digital platform had been used in 794 training programmes in 36 countries with 3,760 trainees resulting in 10,001 competency assessments.
This case study will show how EQUIP was built using an human-centred approach to product design and Drupal-based open source technology, to provide an open-access platform for NGOs around the world.

Tuesday February 4, 2025 5:35pm - 6:00pm GMT
Hardwick Hub

Software & Security, Talk

6:00pm GMT

Conference Drinks and Booth Crawl

Tuesday February 4, 2025 6:00pm - 8:00pm GMT

Party