I am a software engineer by education, but a problem solver by attitude. In my 12 years of experience spanning across various industries such as E-commerce, Cloud, SaaS Technology, Payments, Investment banking and Fintech, I have worked and managed large-scale, complex and multi-geographic projects in Technology and built products that customers love. During this time, I have worn multiple hats such as Product Manager, Go to Market strategy and execution, Team leader, Coach, etc.

Aleksey Tsalolikhin started his IT career in tech support at EarthLink (ISP) in the nineties. Wrangling EarthLink’s server farms by hand, Aleksey developed an abiding interest in automating system administration and in improving the quality of life, efficiency and morale of IT Operations practitioners.

Aleksey has been teaching at conferences since 2010: at USENIX/LISA, LinuxCon, Ohio Linux Fest, SoCal Linux Expo, Cascadia IT Conference, IBM SHARE, ShellCon, and others. Aleksey has delivered private trainings through his training and consulting company Vertical Sysadmin, Inc.

Aleksey is a recognized CFEngine Community Champion (2011) and LOPSA Mentor of the Year (2011).

Alex is an Austin-based DevOps and Site Reliability Engineer with over 15 years of experience keeping Linux systems highly available, currently supporting enterprise infrastructure at EPAM Systems. He's a lifelong Linux lover and devoted self-hoster who runs a sprawling homelab built. Alex is the creator of ProxUI, an open-source Proxmox management UI, and spends his free time building tools that make infrastructure easier to run. When he's not in the terminal, he's enjoying Hill Country life with his beautiful wife, son, and three black cats.

Autumn Nash is a software engineer at Microsoft Azure, open source contributor, speaker, and community leader who explores what it means to build excellent engineers in an age of rapid technological change. Her work sits at the intersection of Linux, open source, AI, and engineering culture, where she helps teams think beyond tools to the judgment, stewardship, and collaboration that create resilient engineering organizations.
At Microsoft, Autumn works on Azure Linux with a focus on Linux security and open source collaboration. Previously, she was a software engineer at AWS working on Amazon Corretto and contributing to OpenJDK, after serving as a NoSQL Solutions Architect helping customers build distributed systems at scale.
Beyond her engineering work, Autumn co-hosts the Fork Around and Find Out podcast, serves as Education Board Chair for MilSpouse Coders, and founded The Little Guild, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening local communities. Whether contributing to open source, mentoring engineers, or speaking at conferences, she's passionate about leaving the engineering profession stronger than she found it.

Boris is a software engineer based in sunny Austin, TX working on large-scale engineering platforms that span High-Performance Compute (HPC), container orchestration platforms, and cloud systems. He cares about practical DevOps, improving feedback loops, and making complex systems less frustrating for the people who use them. He writes about HPC, DevOps, and applied AI at bss8.dev.

Very passionate about security, high availability, and automation.

I have more than 30 years experience working with Linux. I specialize in security, high availability, and automation. I write software in several languages, Golang currently being the most used. My firm believe is setup your system so that is secure and highly available so that it doesn't intrude on your time off.

Currently a Senior Systems Software Engineer at Cloudflare. I like to build things. I have a master's degree in Computer Engineering and 19 years of experience in software development and leadership both writing code and leading teams.

My mission is to make the world better where I can. Through my work I want to make the Internet more secure and reliable for everyone. In my free time I enjoy coaching and inspiring a future generation to grow, innovate and create a better world.

Cody Lee Cochran is a Principal Engineer and Enterprise Architect for a small, family-owned defense contractor, Global InfoTek, Inc. He is an open-source contributor, former Red Hat Certified Engineer, and former Racker. He enjoys using Linux, Bash programming, and automating all the things.

Cornelius is into multi factor authentication since 2004. He is the project lead of the MFA system privacyIDEA.

As a consultant Cornelius learnt to understand customers requirements in heterogeneous networks first hand. He planned and implemented several public key infrastructures for smartcard usage and was one of the first to work on the interoperability of the Aladdin eToken between Windows and Linux.

In 2006 he started one of the the first open source one time password systems implementing the HOTP algorithm. Three years later Cornelius initiated an enterprise OTP solution as product manager. In 2014 he kicked off the open source privacyIDEA project. It is a vendor independent authentication system, which can be used to manage arbitrary authentication objects to implement many different ways of multi factor authentication.

Cornelius spoke at several conferences in Germany, in Austria, in the Netherlands, in Belgium (FOSDEM), in Denmark and in the U.S.

Dave Stokes is the DBeaver Community Manager

David Duncan is a Principal Partner Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services, specializing in enterprise Linux ecosystems. He works with Red Hat, Canonical, SUSE, and community distributions (Fedora, AlmaLinux, CentOS) to optimize Linux for cloud-native and AI workloads. An active contributor to the Fedora Project since 2007 and former coordinator of the Central Texas Linux User's Group, David brings both deep technical knowledge and community perspective to his presentations. He is based in Austin, TX.

Dwayne McDaniel is a Principal Developer Advocate who has been on a mission to "help people figure stuff out" for over a decade. At GitGuardian, he specializes in secrets security and non-human identity governance across cloud and DevOps environments. A frequent speaker at events like DevOpsDays and BSides, he helps security and engineering teams better understand complex issues.

Carl is a RISC-V true believer and one of the founding members of the Works with RISC-V ecosystem project. He's also been in the Linux community for over 30 years at this point, so please treat him like the Elder Millennial he is :D

Eduardo Robles works as a Cybersecurity Analyst IV for County of Hidalgo IT department.

A Linux nerd interested in Information Security, Cyber Security, Open Source, tacos, and coffee.

You'll probably catch me ripping music to my Sony Minidisc or using Emacs for InfoSec.

Elizabeth K. Joseph is a Linux systems administrator who now leads the Open Source Program Office for IBM Z where she works with the community to explore Linux and z/OS workloads on mainframes. In the course of her open source career, she's been deeply involved in various projects, including Ubuntu and OpenStack (and has written books on both) and across various industries where you might not expect open source software to be popular. In her role today as part of the IBM Z Ecosystem team, she regularly works with open source software communities on their own porting efforts.

Eric “The IT Guy” Hendricks is a former Linux Systems Administrator turned Product Marketing Manager and an instructor at Johnson County Community College. He’s spent over 15 years in IT building, breaking, and teaching Linux systems. Eric now focuses on helping others navigate tech careers with honesty, humor, and a deep love for open source and community.

Frank Karlitschek is a long time open source contributor and former board member of the KDE e.V. He founded Nextcloud in 2016 to create a fully open source and decentralized alternative to big centralized cloud companies. Frank was an invited expert at the W3C to help to create the ActivityPub standard. Frank has spoken at MIT, CERN, Harvard and ETH and keynoted LinuxCon, Latinoware, FOSSASIA, Campus Party and many other conferences. Frank is the founder and CEO of Nextcloud GmbH. He is also a fellow of Open Forum Europe and an advisor to the United Nations regarding Open Source. Frank won the European SFS Free Software Award 2023 and the Acteurs du Libre European Award 2023.

One half hillbilly and one half (cyber)punk, Hobbs is a Mercenary Janitor that hails from the foothills of the Ozark "mountains." He has been daily driving Linux since the mid-90s. He works as a freelance engineer supervised by three cats.

JJ works the Architect for the IBM OSPO representing IBM all over the world. If he isn’t building automation to make his work streamlined he’s building the groundwork to do just that.

He lives and grew up in Austin, Texas. A father and husband, trying to learn to balance his natural nerdiness with family life. He enjoys a good strong dark ale, hoppy IPA, some team building Artemis, and epic Gloomhaven campaigning.

He has recently dove headfirst into Fedora since IBM buying Redhat, but still secretly wants FreeBSD everywhere. He’s always trying to become a better web technology developer, though normally just uses bash to get the job done.

Jonathan is the Infrastructure Team Lead for AlmaLinux. He has been consuming open source and building infrastructure in the web hosting industry for over 20 years and actively contributing to open source for roughly the past 6 within the AlmaLinux, Fedora, and EPEL communities, among others. Outside of technology he is an avid hunter and conservationist, boating and water sports enthusiast, member of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, and instrument-rated private pilot.

Senior Technical Marketing Manager - Red Hat

I am focused on creating content for the RHEL community. Over a Decade in IT, cyber-security advocate, conference organizer, and open-source enthusiast. Hobbies include homelabs, podcasting and 3D Printing.

I started tinkering with computers when I was 11 with Ubuntu's Wubi installer alongside Windows XP. 3 years later I started an IT consulting business providing managed networking and virtualization services to small and medium business. That took me to Kenya to deploy Raspberry Pis on car batteries for hospitals and the African Great Lakes region to develop custom communications systems for peace keeping teams. After selling that business to pay for college, I got my degree and have worked in a variety of jobs including lead engineer migrating a large research university's internal tooling from Perl on Solaris to Python on all platforms, principal engineer for a Nebula communications platform for threat detection and deep packet inspection at scale and now as the Vice President of Engineering for a platform hardening tool. With any luck, I can spend the next many years sharing my knowledge and following my passion for educating other about digital privacy and delivering tools to help other protect themselves.

Kate Stewart works with the safety, security and license compliance communities to advance the adoption of best practices into embedded open source projects. She has launched the ELISA and Zephyr Projects, as well as supporting other embedded projects. With more than 30 years of experience in the software industry, she has held a variety of roles in software development, architecture, and product management, primarily in the tooling and embedded ecosystem working with international teams.

Kevin Purdy is the Technical Content Manager (read: blogger-in-chief) at Tailscale. He has previously written for Ars Technica, Wirecutter, iFixit, Lifehacker, and other publications. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, his dog, and a collection of CPUs and bikes.

KL has spent the better part of two decades as a software engineer and solutions architect with strong opinions, like maybe you shouldn't run critical infrastructure on a language that was thrown together in 10 days and immediately became the go-to for GeoCities page designers dead set on fairy dust mouse trails.

UNIX whisperer.

Major Hayden is a Senior Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat, where he works Red Hat Enterprise Linux. He's spent more than two decades in open source, with stints architecting infrastructure at Rackspace during the early OpenStack days and serving in multiple leadership roles within the Fedora Project, including the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee and Fedora's Cloud SIG.

A Texas Linux Fest regular, Major has previously spoken on Ansible automation and the realities of building RAG systems in production. When he's not deep in Linux internals, he's running, chasing contacts on amateur radio (W5WUT), or nerding out over financial markets.

Mike is the Founder of Gluu, a cybersecurity infrastructure software vendor. He is the founder and BD of the Janssen Project, a self-funded Linux Foundation project to provide a home for open source identity and access management infrastructure. He hosts the “Identerati Office Hours” Livestream twice a week, which features discussions on all topics digital identity and application security. He hosted a podcast from 2018-2024 called “Open Source Underdogs”, which featured many leaders in open source business community. Mike resides in Austin TX with family and pigeons.

Alex is an open-source enthusiast with over 25 years of experience in Linux, Kubernetes, and other open-source projects. He specializes in helping people navigate complex technical challenges and is passionate about making systems and concepts more accessible and understandable. He is a frequent presenter and volunteers to mentor aspiring technologists. A lifelong learner, he believes the ability to learn is the most valuable skill in tech and is dedicated to helping others grow through shared knowledge.

Nathan Thornhill has spent the past 10 years working in Information Technology and Security. From fixing computers and troubleshooting networks, to administering systems and responding to security incidents, he’s seen a lot. Currently a full time Security Analyst with a small side business helping nonprofits access technology needs on a budget, Nathan is always excited to find new ways to use open source technology and bring it to the community.

Neal Gompa is a developer for – and contributor to – Fedora, AlmaLinux, CentOS, and openSUSE. Neal focuses primarily on the base Linux system components, such as package and software management, and desktop Linux. He believes in “upstream first,” which has led him all over the open source world. In addition to open source work as a consultant through Velocity Limitless, he is also a co-host on the Sudo Show podcast where he talks about "the business of Linux."

Neel Pandeya is a Principal SDR Engineer and Group Manager at National Instruments in Austin, Texas, USA. His background and interests are in open-source software development, kernel and embedded software development, wireless communications, 4G/LTE and 5G/NR networks, DSP and signal processing, FPGA programming, and software-defined radio (SDR). He has previous technical management experience and university teaching experience, and formerly held a TS/SCI government security clearance. He is a co-founder and co-organizer of the New England Workshop for SDR (NEWSDR), and is a co-organizer of the GNU Radio Conference (GRCon) as well as the 5G Workshop at IEEE MILCOM. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering (MSEE) from Northeastern University (NEU), and is a member of IEEE and Eta Kappa Nu (HKN). He has an Amateur Radio License, and is aspiring to obtain a private pilot license.

Pragya Keshap is a Technical Architect with more than 18 years of experience designing enterprise, cloud-native, and AI-enabled systems. She is a Google Developer Expert in Google Cloud and a Docker Captain.

Her work focuses on distributed systems, containers, Kubernetes, cloud security, API platforms, generative AI, and reliable agentic architectures. She has designed and led large-scale technology initiatives in the financial-services industry and regularly writes and speaks about building secure, observable, and production-ready AI and cloud-native systems.

Pragya’s technical articles have appeared in publications including InfoQ, O’Reilly Radar, DZone, Cloud Native Now, and HackerNoon. She has also presented at developer communities and technology conferences on Docker, Google Cloud, AI agents, confidential computing, and cloud-native architecture.

Rajesh Alwar is a Systems Engineer with a background in cloud infrastructure and enterprise-scale systems, including designing on-premises edge compute solutions. Outside of work, he builds open source tooling for personal data analysis and automation from local LLM experimentation with Ollama to Python-based stock market scanners and Strava analytics pipelines. Rajesh is passionate about local-first, privacy-respecting AI and enjoys exploring how open source tools on Linux can replace cloud-dependent workflows without sacrificing capability.

Senior Software Engineer, Red Hat

Open source advocate. Fedora package maintainer, EPEL package maintainer, and member of CentOS Alternative Images SIG. I actually like systemd...

Sean is a Software Engineer with 15 years of experience who has a passion for Virtualization in all its forms. When Sean is not working he is a host on the Hybrid Cloud Show, working on his homelab, or scuba diving. Ask him about why you absolutely need a homelab!

Lead Developer, Kalpa Desktop
openSUSE Board Member (2024-Present)
Packager for both openSUSE and Fedora
Community Moderator for openSUSE and Fedora
LXQt Maintainer, Fedora and openSUSE

Sophia's path into observability started in a biochemistry lab at UT Austin, where she discovered a passion for coding through her work at the DIY Diagnostics lab — a place where wet lab research and software development went hand in hand. After graduating in 2021, she joined GM as a Deployment Engineer/Analyst, later moving into a Software Engineering role focused on observing real-time LLM-based robotic systems on the plant floor. Today, as a Developer Advocate at Elastic, she draws on years of optimizing and troubleshooting logs, traces, and metrics in high-stakes, in-plant production environments, bringing both technical depth and practical insight to the challenges of observability at scale.

Steve Oualline has been programming for 60 years in C, C++, and Linux. He is the author of about a dozen books on programming and the programming process.

Thomas Cameron has been in IT since 1993. He started out with Novell NetWare, then worked with Microsoft technologies, then discovered Linux in 1995. He's been an Open Source geek ever since. He's managed large scale Linux environments for organizations from banking to real estate to chip manufacturing. He worked at Red Hat from 2005 through 2019, as a chief architect and global technical evangelist. He then went to AWS, where he was a senior technical trainer. Recently, Thomas came back to Red Hat as a senior principal solution architect specializing in Ansible. Thomas has achieved Red Hat Certified Architect, AWS Solutions Architect Professional, and had numerous other technical certifications. He's delivered technical presentations on Open Source in twenty countries on five continents.

President of the Public Enrichment and Robotics Laboratories 501(c)3 nonprofit organization;
Creator of the Navi AGI platform;
Camping & outdoors enthusiast!