It’s official. The All Things Open (ATO) conference that had it’s inaugural run in Raleigh last year wasn’t just a flash in the pan. As event chair Todd Lewis promised at the end of last year’s event, ATO is returning to the Raleigh Convention Center on October 22nd and 23rd. Again this year, FOSS Force is an official Media Partner of the conference.
During last year’s closing ceremonies, Lewis said he intended to make ATO the premiere open source conference on the East Coast. It appears as if he’s keeping his promise, as this year the conference will feature a greatly expanded schedule, with the number of tracks being increased to ten. Currently there are forty speakers lined-up for presentations, with more to be named soon.
ATO is primarily an enterprise level event, designed for those who put beans on the table and pay for their children’s education by working with open source. However, this doesn’t mean there’s nothing of interest at ATO for the open source enthusiast who has little interest in the big business aspects of OSS and FOSS. Last year’s event, for example, included a presentation by Leigh Heyman, Director of New Media Technologies for the White House, on the Obama administration’s use of open source technologies as well a presentation by Jason Hibbets, the head guy at OpenSource.com, on how open source is being harnessed by local governments to increase citizen involvement.
Some of last year’s speakers are on tap to return this year. Hibbets is scheduled, as is Mozilla evangelist Jason Weathersby, who’s talk last year on app development for Firefox OS played to a standing room only audience. Organizations with speakers already committed to the event include GitHub, the Open Data Institute, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft. Last year’s Microsoft presentation by Ross Gardler, “Microsoft & Open Source,” was quite entertaining when viewed from a free software angle. This year Scott Hanselman will be doing the honors for the-house-that-Gates-built. No doubt, FOSSers will find this interesting as well.
“First mover” rates, available for ATO until this Wednesday, July 31, are $99 for one day or both days for $149. For additional pricing information and to order tickets, visit http://allthingsopen.org/register-now/.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
