There was a lot to take in from day one of the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience. Just in case you missed it, here are some of the highlights and a sneak peek at day two.

Maximum flexibility for a dynamic world

In our first general session, Red Hat president and CEO Paul Cormier talked with Jim Whitehurst, IBM president and former Red Hat CEO and president, about today's environment and how Red Hat and IBM continue to work together. 

We also featured conversations with Red Hat customers and partners, including executives from Verizon, Ford, and Credit Suisse, as well as Microsoft and Intel about how our industries and organizations are responding to challenges, and consider the impact that technology choices can have on our ability to react quickly and effectively.

The stories of open source

It's hard to overstate how much open source has changed the world, and all the doors that open source has helped open. But open source is only part of the story the people who use and drive open source are the other, more interesting part of the story.

Today we heard from Brian Gerkey, CEO of Open Robotics. Gerkey offered an insider's view of how the present, and future, of the robotics industry have been shaped by open source software like the Robot Operating System and Gazebo.

Gerkey was part of Willow Garage, an R&D startup that aimed to advance the state of the art in robotics. Even though Willow Garage disbanded in 2014, thanks to open source its software products are powering innovations in autonomous driving and space exploration. If you didn't catch it already, you don't want to miss Gerkey's session or the trailer for our next Open Source Stories film, How to Start a Robot Revolution. 

The passion behind open source

What draws people to open source? Why are developers so passionate about it? Founder of CodeNewbie and Command Line Heroes host Saron Yitbarek dug into this with science and technology journalist Clive Thompson. 

Yitbarek deep dive into the lessons he's learned by interviewing hundreds of developers for his book, Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World. 

Women in Open Source Awards and Women's Leadership Community Virtual Event

Red Hat's Women in Open Source Award was created to honor women who make important contributions to open source projects and communities, or those making innovative use of open source methodology. Now in its sixth year, we accepted nominations for two categories: academic and community. 

During the first day of Summit, we honored the Women in Open Source Award winners, Megan Byrd-Sanicki and Netha Hussain. Byrd-Sanicki was recognized in the community category for her work creating sustainable and thriving open source communities. Hussain, recognized in the academic category, was selected for sharing her medical knowledge and increasing the number of topics relevant to women and contributions by women on Wikipedia. You can find out more about our winners and their achievements here.

For the last 10 years we've been hosting a luncheon at Red Hat Summit to provide an opportunity for attendees to network with women in tech who are using open source to create innovative solutions, and to hear inspiring leadership stories. 

We've changed up the format this year to bring the celebration online, with a conversation kicked off by the chair of the Women's Leadership Community and vice president of software engineering, Denise Dumas and featuring DeLisa Alexander, our executive vice president and chief people officer, and Yitbarek. 

Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year 2020

Every year we recognize Red Hat Certified Professionals who have demonstrated ingenuity, hard work and expertise by making a difference in their organizations. We were happy to recognize Fabrice Harbulot, cloud engineer and Red Hat Certified Architect Level VII as the 2020 Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year.

Harbulot has earned a number of Red Hat certifications and is an active member of the Red Hat Learning Community. His journey to this award started early, when Harbulot was given his first computer and discovered a love of coding at the tender age of five. Harbulot's interest in computers continued through college, where he studied Linux at the advice of a cousin already working in IT. 

Read our full post celebrating Harbulot's achievements and join us in congratulating him on winning the Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year. 

But wait, there's more!

Day one of Red Hat Summit 2020 Virtual Experience has been packed with useful breakout sessions, conversations with industry experts and leaders, and we've had the chance to recognize people doing amazing work in open source.

But we're not done! Join us again for day two and you'll get a look ahead into the future. We'll have exciting technology demos that take you from the private data center to the edge of the network, led by our own chief developer evangelist, Burr Sutter. You also don't want to miss Red Hat CTO Chris Wright's general session and our networking social hour to close out the day. We also continue the Open Neighborhood, breakouts, Ask the Experts, and much more through the rest of Red Hat Summit 2020 Virtual Experience.


About the author

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies.

Read full bio