Top 10 highlights at Red Hat Summit 2019

As we careen into Fall, we at Red Hat have had a few months to catch our breath after another fantastic Red Hat Summit. Which means… we're busy planning for next year's Red Hat Summit. As we get everything lined up for next year, let's take a look back at some of the highlights from our time in Boston.

10: The hallway track

In case we haven’t driven this point home quite yet, open source is all about the people. Bringing together thousands of open source users and contributors is, in its own right, special. Once a year we get to bring together an amazing community of people who share their stories, experiences and their problems. A lot of that happens between sessions, during meals or at social events around Red Hat Summit.

Every year we are amazed by the profound insights that come from what we hear from Red Hat’s customers, our contributors, and partners outside of sessions. 

9: 13th Annual Innovation Awards

Every year the Red Hat Innovation Awards recognize the technological achievements of Red Hat customers around the world who demonstrate creative thinking, determined problem-solving and transformative uses of Red Hat technology. 

The 2019 winners were: BP, Deutsche Bank, Emirates NBD, HCA Healthcare and Kohl's. In addition, HCA Healthcare was voted the 2019 Red Hat Innovator of the Year for its efforts to use data and technology to support modern healthcare. A cross-functional team of clinicians, data scientists and technology professionals at HCA Healthcare used Red Hat solutions to create a real-time predictive analytics product system to more accurately and rapidly detect sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition.

8: The ecosystem expo 

Every year, one of the areas that draws the most attention at Red Hat Summit is our Ecosystem Expo. Filled with more than 100 partners and technology leaders showcasing some of the best in enterprise technology, it gave attendees the chance to connect directly with strategic technology partners. Not to mention all the exciting swag, like stickers, buttons, phone charges, hoodies and hammocks. Let’s just say, no one went home empty-handed! 

Beyond all the booths filled with information, we brought in some good old fashioned fun to give attendees’ minds a rest. They jumped around in a 180 degree, 3D GIF photo booth, took a call with 2019 Red Hat Innovation Award winners while immersed in an artistic sensory display, made 3D printed keychains or just reflected on the limitless possibilities with open source within the infinity room. 

7: Expanding pawsibilities 

Doggos, puppers, good boys, doges, floofs or woofers, no matter what you call them puppies make everything better right? We agree and that’s why we had furry friends visit Red Hat Summit last year for our attendees to play, snuggle and boop! 

We worked with the Great Dog Rescue New England to have puppies on the Ecosystem Expo floor during the event. The Great Dog Rescue saves dogs from kill shelters, streets, and takes in dogs from owners who can no longer care for their pets. The best part, aside from the snuggles and joy that puppies bring to the event, is that all the dogs were available for adoption and every single one found a new home! 

6: New brand, who dis? 

Technically, we announced the evolution of our logo ahead of Red Hat Summit. But the refreshed logo went over big at Red Hat Summit, with attendees flocking to the on-site Cool Stuff Store to stock up on items with the new mark. 

We also had lots of associate love for the logo, with a number of Red Hat employees sporting it as a tattoo. Red Hat's executive vice president of corporate marketing, Tim Yeaton, even showed off his fresh ink on the main stage. (And, yes, it’s real!) 

If you missed out, or want to restock, visit the Red Hat Cool Stuff Store online and pick up some of our new brand items. We hear they make great stocking stuffers.

5: Women in Open Source Awards

Anyone familiar with Red Hat knows that we love celebrating the contributions of members of the open source community. And one of our favorite ways we do that is through that the Women in Open Source Awards. The program was created to honor women who make important contributions to open source projects and communities, or those making innovative use of open source methodology. 

This was the fifth time that we recognized the winners on stage at Red Hat Summit. Our winners were: Limor Fried, the founder and lead engineer at Adafruit Industries, an open source hardware company designed to be a place for people to learn about and purchase open tools, equipment and electronics online; and Saloni Garg, a student at the LNM Institute of Information Technology, where she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science. 

4: Red Hat OpenShift 4 announced

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform has been an important platform for our customers. How many customers? Well, more than 1,000 worldwide organizations as of May this year. So you can imagine our excitement (and that of attendees) for the launch of OpenShift 4. 

OpenShift 4 represents the realization of our vision and plans laid out when Red Hat acquired CoreOS, and the work the Red Hat and CoreOS teams (now one team!) put forward in the upstream Kubernetes and container communities. 

OpenShift 4 brought to the table a new approach to installing, upgrading, and managing the platform as well as advanced day two management and automation for application services that run on the platform. If you missed the announcement from the main stage, go back and relive Paul Cormier's announcement for OpenShift 4 at Summit.

3: Like Rockets and Open Source Stories onstage 

How many technology movements do you know that have their own song? Well if you were at Red Hat Summit last year, you remember the moment Michael Bratsch (aka Mr. B) and the Futureboys & Girls Club rocked the mainstage with a song written just for us called We Become Stronger! 

We first encountered Mr. B and his students as part of Red Hat’s CO.LAB program in late 2018. We were so inspired by their story that as part of Red Hat’s Open Source Stories, we launched an article series - Like Rockets—that chronicles the process they went through as they created their school’s new song. Having the students join us on stage at our biggest event of the year brought everything full circle. All we can say is that the song is still stuck in our heads!

2: Demos, customer stories, and dancing on the main stage!

At Summit we like to share the stage with those who make us successful, and those who inspire us. We also, if we're being honest, like to show off a little bit about what our products can do. On Thursday morning we had Burr Sutter and friends putting OpenShift and Tensorflow through its paces to show off AI in action doing gesture recognition. Don't miss the OptaPlanner demo, and also the "dance off" for gesture recognition. 

But that's not all! We had an opportunity to hear from UPS, Lockheed Martin, OPTUS, HCA Healthcare, BMW Group, DBS Bank, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, ExxonMobil, and Emirates NBD--just to name a few! Be sure to check out our general sessions on YouTube if you weren't there, or just wanted to relive the experience. There's one general session that you really, really needed to be there in person to witness, though...

1: The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 launch 

Hands down, the number one highlight (even better than puppies!) was having Stefanie Chiras, vice president and general manager of the RHEL business unit, and Denise Dumas, vice president of software engineering, onstage officially taking the wraps off Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and bringing many of the folks responsible for RHEL 8 on stage to celebrate. Complete with confetti and t-shirt cannons and a champagne toast! 

While we couldn’t have everyone who contributed to RHEL 8 onstage (something about travel budget and “the stage is too small”), seeing many of the people who work behind the scenes to deliver Red Hat Enterprise Linux get a solid round of applause was pretty satisfying. Then the entire general session audience got to get in on the celebration with an opening night party in the Ecosystem Expo hall!

Did you miss Red Hat Summit 2019? Avoid the FOMO and save the date for Red Hat Summit 2020, taking place in April 27-30 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.