Red Hat at the 2016 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists. It’s become one of the tech industry’s biggest events showcasing the research and careers of women in computing. This year’s event, taking place Oct. 19 - 21 in Houston, TX, is expected to attract more than 15,000 attendees.

For Red Hat, the Grace Hopper event presents an opportunity to highlight the important role women play in open source, diversity in open source more broadly, and our efforts in these areas. In addition to Red Hat being a gold sponsor and a sponsor of Open Source Day, several Red Hatters are slated to speak:

• Jessica Forrester, principal software engineer, is delivering a session titled, “Containerization of Applications: What, Why and How";

• Gina Likins, part of Red Hat’s University Outreach team, will present on “Constructive Conflict Resolution: or how to make lemonade out of lemons” and moderate the panel “Open source belongs in your class. Where do you start?”;

• Hope Lynch, business operations manager, will moderate the panel “Why Open Source is Good for Business”;

• Preethi Thomas, quality engineer, will discuss “Engaging Open Source Community in Quality Assurance”; and

• Marina Zhurakhinskaya, senior outreach specialist working on open source community diversity and inclusion, will speak on “Diversity in Open Source: No Longer at Square One.”

We will also take part in the event’s Career Fair, where Red Hat representatives will be talking to attendees about life at Red Hat, and conducting on-site interviews. If you are at the event, we invite you to join us at any of our speaking sessions, or by stopping by our booth #2620.

Red Hat’s involvement in the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is one example of our commitment to advancing diversity and women in technology. Another is the Women in Open Source Award, which we present each year to recognize women’s contributions to open source. Nominations for this year's award open later this month.