Welcome to Red Hat Summit 2020: From here, anywhere

When we started planning Red Hat Summit 2020, we were looking forward to seeing thousands of our closest friends in San Francisco and sharing information about progress and plans for the Red Hat product portfolio through 2020 and beyond. Things didn't go quite as planned, but we're excited today to open the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience and welcome so many more of our customers and partners who might not have been able to join us in person. 

Meeting you where you are

We made the decision to transform Red Hat Summit to a virtual event less than two months ago, and I couldn't be prouder of the collaboration and resourcefulness of our teams that have come together to pull off this event. 

Proud, but not surprised. Part of Red Hat's DNA is our absolute commitment to open source, and with that comes the knowledge that Red Hat doesn't have a birthright to its success. We have to earn it, every day, by collaborating upstream, by working together with our partners, and by supporting our customers and enabling their journey to the hybrid cloud. 

We believe in meeting customers where they are in their journey, providing organizations with the freedom, agility and portability to move workloads wherever they need them to be. We thank you for meeting us today to join us for this virtual experience. 

What we have in store

As you'd expect from Red Hat Summit, we'll be offering a mix of general sessions, breakout sessions,  training, and special sessions that help you relax and have a little fun with Red Hatters and other Summit attendees. 

Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, you'll have the opportunity to catch amazing speakers in our general sessions, a full slate of breakout sessions, 20-minute mini sessions, and training webinars and product demos. We'll also have a number of discovery sessions, panel discussions with SMEs on achieving tangible business outcomes. Many of our sessions will be available on-demand but some things can only be done live.

We have a packed agenda that includes our ever-popular "Ask the experts" format. Attendees can ask questions of Red Hat subject matter experts across a number of IT topics, including, Kubernetes, automation, containers, Linux, and more. "Ask the experts" runs throughout the day Tuesday and Wednesday, and this is a live Q&A so be sure to take advantage of the opportunity while you have the chance! 

We'll also have a few opportunities to relax and chat with our partners and other attendees. The Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience will feature the Open Neighborhood, moved online to help facilitate those hallway track discussions that are so valuable to us at Summit. The digital expo hall will offer resources on everything from AI/ML to Open Innovation Labs, and networking lounges organized by topic.

You can even try your hand at Red Hat trivia throughout Summit to win exclusive Red Hat swag. This time you won't even have to find room in your luggage for it. 

You'll definitely want to catch the Red Hat Women's Leadership Community Virtual Event on Tuesday from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. EDT. This year we're welcoming Saron Yitbarek, founder of CodeNewbie and the host of our award-winning podcast Command Line Heroes. Saron will sit down with DeLisa Alexander, Red Hat’s executive vice president, chief people officer and WLC executive sponsor, to discuss Saron’s career, her experience starting her own company and her advice for women working in technology.

Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. EDT we'll provide a preview of the Open Source Stories film How to Start a Robot Revolution. This is the story of how the Robot Operating System (ROS) got its start at the Willow Garage incubator, and how it lived (and thrived) after the incubator closed. You won't want to miss this. 

As you can see, we've got a lot in store for you this week and we're eager to talk about our technologies, our products, and how we can work together in the coming year to help you in one of the most challenging environments we've ever faced. We really appreciate you coming to hear our story, and we hope to see you in person soon.