State of Open Con 23 Announces Speaker Line-Up for 2023 Conference

  • Plenary keynote speakers include Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia; Salem Avan, Director of Policy, Strategy and Governance at United Nations; Eric Brewer, Google. 
  • Over 100 UK and international experts sharing knowledge across seven tracks
  • UK’s Department of Culture Media and Sport to present on software security and resilience policy

London, UK – 18 January 2023 – OpenUK, the not for profit organisation representing the UK’s Open Technology sector, has announced the line-up and schedule for State of Open Con 2023, its two day conference covering open technology, security, data and government policy on the 7th and 8th of February 2023. This year’s event will include a keynote from Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia on the future of the Online Safety Bill and a plenary session with Salem Avan, Director of Policy, Strategy and Governance at the United Nations.

“The future of free and open societies is directly connected to the future of open technologies. Free knowledge platforms like Wikipedia, built by volunteers from all over the world, would not be possible without software and data that everyone can share, and copyright laws that allow good ideas and information to spread. I look forward to OpenUK’s event as a chance to talk about how the UK government can protect and support our open movement,” commented Jimmy Wales.

The conference will include seven tracks covering government, law and policy; security; platform engineering; entrepreneurship; open hardware and open data, as well as an unconference track. Highlights from the conference sessions will include:

  • Security
    • Naomi Gilbert, Head of Cyber Resilience Policy at the Department for Media, Culture and Sport, on security and resiliency policy and the UK Government
    • Sal Kimmich, Director of Open Source, AI DevSecOps at EscherCloud, on Regulation by Telemetry by 2030
    • Rao Lakkakula, Head of Product Security at JPMorgan Chase on Open Source Supply Chain Security for Enterprises
  • Platform Engineering
  • Open Data
    • Francesco Bonfilglio, CEO at GAIA-X, who will present on the European Union’s approach to supporting digital economies
    • Panel session on how open data can transform lives and make physical activity accessible to everyone, with Jade Cation (Director of Impact and Innovation at London Sport) and Andrew Newman (Principal Data Specialist at the Open Data Institute)
    • Panel session on Power & Diplomacy: When Open Data and Realpolitik Collide with Emma Thwaites (Director of Communication & Marketing, Open Data Institute), Gavin Freeguard (Interim head of public policy, Open Data Institute), Jeni Tennison (Founder, Connected By Data) and Francisca Putz (Wikimedia)
    • Silona Bonewald, Executive Director Of IEEE SA Open, on best practices in open data
  • Open Hardware
    • Lesya Dymyd, Chair of the Open Compute Project Technology Symposium on Scaling up Future Technologies in a global open hardware ecosystem
    • Panel session on next generation cloud education and sustainability with Aerin Booth (Founder, Cloud Sustainability), John Booth (Technical Director, National Data Centre Academy), Simon Wardley (Fellow, Open Forum Europe), Anne Currie (CEO, WorkingProgram) and Amanda Brock (CEO, OpenUK)
  • Government, Law and Policy
    • Panel session on electric vehicle charging and the future for software infrastructure, featuring Lonneke Driessen-Mutters (Director of Standardisation, Open Charge Alliance), Chris Lloyd Jones (Head of Open Technologies, Avanade) and Amanda Brock 
    • Samson Goddy, Co-founder Open Source Community Africa, on the development of open source communities in Africa

In total, there will be more than 100 presenters involved across the event’s tracks over the course of two days. The State of Open Con event will include multiple tracks on open source software, open hardware and open data at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, on the 7th and 8th of February 2023. Tickets for the event will be available for £199 (inc VAT) covering the two days of the conference from https://stateofopencon.com/.

“This event provides a unique opportunity to bring together the communities that exist around open source software, hardware and open data to share the latest thinking and best practices that are developing, and to do so in an inclusive and supportive way that will enable everyone to get the most out of the content. This event will provide a focal point for the community, for governments and for enterprises to plan ahead around open technology. Our aim is to support the UK’s open technology community with a central event that can support long term economic development and knowledge sharing,” commented Amanda Brock, CEO at OpenUK.

OpenUK pledges that the event will make participation in the open technology community an enjoyable experience for everyone, and the organisers aim to support an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community. As part of the team’s endeavours to make the conference more accessible and inclusive, State of Open Con will run live transcription and other facilities. The event will also host a dedicated chill out area for neurodiverse attendants, and a creche and doggy day care to support more attendees that would otherwise face problems in attending the event.

About OpenUK

OpenUK is the organisation for the business of Open Technology, being Open Source Software, Open Source Hardware and Open Data across the UK.  Its purpose is UK leadership and global collaboration in Open Technology.OpenUK works on three pillars: Community, Legal and Policy and Learning. In 2022 OpenUK will focus on Skills, Security and Sustainability. OpenUK is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, company number 11209475.

Twitter: @openuk_uk

Mastodon: https://hachyderm.io/@openuk

LinkedIn: openukopentechnology

Website: openuk.uk

Contact:

Mark Kember

onebite for OpenUK

+44 (0)1635 887707 

openuk@onebite.co.uk