Recapping day one of Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience 2021

The first day of the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience is all wrapped up, and we couldn't be happier with the turnout or the sessions. From the general session to Summit news to fun and games, it was a packed day.

Actually, it was several packed days if you count the schedules for all regions. We like to think we have exciting news this year, but asking attendees to get up before dawn or stay up after midnight is a little much. To help everyone stay well-rested we hosted schedules for North America & LATAM, EMEA and APAC to try to provide workable schedules for Summit attendees all over the globe.

This year we also provided closed captioning and audio streams in multiple languages, so attendees who prefer to consume the sessions in Chinese, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, and other languages could do so. We take no position in the debate of subtitles vs. dubbing, so we provide both.

Every CIO is a cloud operator

The general session, "Open hybrid cloud: Changing what's possible," provided a lot of food for thought about how the open hybrid cloud is evolving. We heard from Red Hat President and CEO Paul Cormier, with a look at Red Hat’s strategic vision and how our portfolio continues to deliver on the open hybrid cloud promise.

Cormier noted that digital transformation is one of the major uses of enterprise open source, alongside IT modernization and application development. (See our 2021 State of Enterprise Open Source Report for more on that.) As digital transformation becomes more important, organizations are having to blend services from multiple clouds into existing datacenter infrastructure, and this requires new skills, new tools and new tech.

In short, every CIO is a cloud operator now. What's that mean? Be sure to watch his sessions to get Cormier's insights.

Matt Hicks, Executive Vice President for Products and Technologies, talked about how Red Hat customers adapted quickly to the global challenges in 2020 while still delivering on planned change and addressing growth.

Red Hat’s Director of Developer Experience, Burr Sutter, was joined by his team to provide a demo on how Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Red Hat OpenShift, and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes can help over-extended IT operations teams and Linux system administrators regain control of their workloads.

Normally, Sutter focuses on the developer experience but this was a change of pace for Sutter and team combining technologies to show what life might be like for sysadmins. It's definitely worth a watch, and don't miss his day two demo that will include audience interactions and AI.

It wouldn't be a proper Summit without a word (well, several words) from Chris Wright, Red Hat’s Chief Technology Officer. Wright discussed how Red Hat is extending open hybrid cloud possibilities out to the edge, and how computational infrastructure and operations-centric design are changing what is possible. Check out Wright's sessions for all the details.

Recharge

All the news about our technology stack got you amped? Need to recharge? Get your body moving with a “stacked” HIIT workout led by certified fitness instructor Hannah Gooderham.

Gooderham’s “Fitness at Home” session offers a bootcamp style class that stacks six different exercises on top of each other, giving you an upbeat, full-body workout in about 30 minutes. Just come in some comfortable clothes and sneakers, and have some water nearby. No equipment needed!

Maybe your preferred method of recharging is something calmer and lower intensity. The “Eye Yoga + Gentle Movement” session provides a half-hour of breathwork, eye yoga, and tension relieving stretches led by Koya Webb. Webb is a spiritual, yoga and meditation teacher and founder of the Get Loved Up Yoga school and podcast. You can do a portion of the video or the entire session, and revisit it whenever you need to take a small break to relax and recenter.

In the “Mindful Eating: Embracing Superfoods” session, Chef Deryk Schnepf, executive chef of Colorado catering company Biscuits and Berries and Drew DeOrsey, a Colorado-based holistic nutrition and fitness coach, explain how superfoods like chia seeds and walnuts can help with mental clarity, focus, and energy. You’ll also walk away with some new recipes to incorporate more superfoods into your diet and get some pointers on how to make your own satiating bone broth at home.

It's game time!

We can't be together in person for Summit right now, but that doesn't mean we haven't set aside some time for fun and games, as well as prizes.

Attendees are automatically enrolled in our Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience game, and the leaderboard is open from April 27, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. EDT through today at 4:00 p.m. EDT. See the Leaderboard page for details and activities to rack up points, and view the game rules (PDF) and terms and conditions for more info.

Visit the Expo and Lounge

Visiting the Expo is one of the activities that can help you rack up points in the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience game (visit five booths and watch one video in each for a badge and points), and it's chock full of information to boot.

We have virtual booths for hybrid cloud infrastructure, developers, future technologies, our open source communities, services & support and much more. You won't want to miss the sponsor booths in the virtual expo, you can learn more about the companies that work with Red Hat to deliver solutions from innovative hardware technologies to database providers, public cloud providers to security leaders, and so many others.

What can we make together?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is an award-winning actor, director and screenwriter. This, you probably knew already. He's also the CEO of HITRECORD, a unique creative platform for users to collaborate on projects ranging from short films and music remixes, to poems and illustrations.

Gordon-Levitt talked with Red Hat Summit host Angela Andrews on the commonality in HITRECORD’s approach to making art with how the open source community approaches code. He said, “It’s not so much about people saying, ‘Hey world, here’s what I have made.’ It’s more about people saying, ‘Hey, what can me make together?’”

“Community First” is one of HITRECORD’s core values as a company, and it guides how it canvases user feedback and also its views on leadership. Gordon-Levitt explains, “Open doesn’t mean an absence of leadership. Open means that there’s ways that anyone can earn their place as a leader.”

Hear more about the open source principles found at HITRECORD and learn how you can start collaborating on the platform by viewing this Q&A session.

Breeding a creative culture and feeding the hungry

One of the day two activities that's not to be missed is the live, double feature Q&A session also hosted by Andrews. This special guest session will feature Mick Ebeling, Founder and CEO of Not Impossible Labs, as well as comedian, actor and writer Kumail Nanjiani.

This promises to be an extremely interesting conversation, with live Q&A from Summit attendees. However, if that isn't quite enough to pique your interest, consider that Red Hat is donating $10/watch—up to US$50,000—to Hunger: Not Impossible between April 28, 12:30 p.m. EDT to April 29, 4:00 p.m. EDT.

Join us for Day Two

So how do we top all that? Join us today and find out! Don't worry, if you've missed a session or two, you can catch them on-demand up to a year after they've aired.