PREVIEW: LinuxCon and CloudOpen Will Include Linux Quiz Show, Comic Book Hero Costume Contest and 5K Fun Run

Costume contest, game show and more will complement keynotes, sessions and co-located events to celebrate community and increase collaboration and networking opportunities

SAN FRANCISCO, July 29, 2014 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and collaborative development, today released a preview of onsite activities, keynotes, co-located events and more taking place at LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America August 20-22, 2014 at the Sheraton, Chicago. Late-breaking keynote confirmations being announced include Douglas Balog of IBM, Michael Enescu of Cisco, and Imad Sousou of Intel.

The Linux and open source community has become a model for how collaboration can advance technologies and transform markets. From working together on deeply complex technology problems to celebrating the diversity of a global community, Linux and open source developers and users value a wide variety of opportunities to maximize their time at events.

“Linux Foundation events gather the world’s leading open source developers with the users who want to learn from them,” said Amanda McPherson, chief marketing officer, The Linux Foundation. “We work hard to ensure that the right projects and people are represented from the worlds of Linux and open cloud technologies, but we also work to ensure the right structures are there for communication and education. We have created a unique set of fun and engaging activities to hopefully strengthen the bonds and collaboration between our speakers, sponsors and attendees. So if you see an adult in an anime costume running in a 5k, you know LinuxCon must be in town.”

This year’s LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America introduce new activities to complement its technical content and leading keynote speakers. For more details on all of the exciting onsite activities, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-north-america/extend-the-experience/onsite-activities

Linux Quiz Show, Wednesday – Friday, August 20-22

Attendees will be able to watch their colleagues go head to head against top Linux developers. The Linux Quiz Show will take place on the keynote stage, and prizes will be given away to the winners.

• Wednesday, 10:30am-10:45am – Beat the Kernel Developer
• Thursday, 10:00am-10:15am – Back to the 80’s
• Friday, 10:00am-10:15am – Head in the Clouds

Comic Book Hero Costume Contest, Thursday, August 21

Attendees are invited to dust off their capes and stretch out their tights for the first ever LinuxCon and CloudOpen Comic Book Hero Costume Contest. Attendees can bring their costume or choose one from the costume store available onsite Wednesday, August 20 from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the Ballroom Office. Judging will take place during the evening Booth Crawl in the Sheraton Ballroom where winners will need to be present to win. Special prizes for the best costumes.

5K Linux Fun Run, Friday, August 22

The Linux Foundation will host an early morning run on the last day of the event. Participants are invited to meet in the Sheraton Lobby at 6:15 a.m.

Keynote Previews

An early look at a few of the keynotes confirmed for LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America are detailed in the following stories:

Michael Enescu, CTO of open source initiatives at Cisco, “Linux is the Single Best Tech for IoT,” http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/200-libby-clark/779505-cisco-linux-is-the-single-and-best-tech-for-iot

Anthony Moschella, vice president at Makerbot, “Makerbot Offers Lessons in Open Source Innovation with Linux,”

http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/200-libby-clark/781446-makerbot-offers-lessons-in-open-source-innovation-with-linux

Imad Sousou, vice president software and services group and general manager, Intel Open Source Technology Center, “The Future of Linux and Intel in the New, Connected World,” http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/200-libby-clark/780420-imad-sousou-the-future-of-linux-and-intel-in-the-new-connected-world

Additional keynote speakers include edX CEO Anant Agarwal; IBM’s Douglas Balog; HP’s Eileen Evans; Docker founder Solomon Hykes; Open Prosthetics Project’s Jonathan Kuniholm; Local Motors’ Jay Rogers; Linux creator Linus Torvalds; and The Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin. You can review the complete LinuxCon and CloudOpen program  here: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/cloudopen-north-america/program/schedule

Co-located Events

Co-located events at LinuxCon and CloudOpen include Linux Kernel Summit, Linux Security Summit, #MesosCon, OpenDaylight Mini-Summit, UEFI Mini-Summit, and Xen Project Developer Summit. More information about all co-located events is available at http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-north-america/extend-the-experience/co-located-events.

For a preview of #MesosCon, you can view the full schedule, including a panel moderated by Mesosphere CEO Florian Leibert, at http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/mesoscon/program/schedule.

Workshops and Tutorials

Workshops and tutorials will cover technical topics such as Linux as a Networking Platform presented by Cumulus Networks and a Container Sprint organized by LXC Maintainers. It will also host important workshops on women in open source and diversity in the community with an Ally Skills Workshop presented by the Ada Initiative and a Women’s Resume Writing Workshop presented by Leslie Hawthorn of Elasticsearch. Jono Bacon will also offer a Community Management Workshop.

A preview of Leslie Hawthorne’s workshop can be seen in this recent QA on Linux.com, “Why Women in Tech Can, and Should, Write a Better Resume” http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/200-libby-clark/780604-why-women-in-tech-can-and-should-write-a-better-resume

More information about these activities is available at http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-north-america/extend-the-experience/tutorials-workshops.

Receptions

Attendees can also take advantage of these networking opportunities onsite:

• VIP Reception for speakers, sponsors and members of the media, The dec Rooftop Bar at the Ritz-Carlton, Tuesday, August 19
• First-Time Attendee Meet and Greet, Fountainview Room, Tuesday, August 19
• Women in Open Source Networking Luncheon, sponsored by GitHub, Mayfair Room, Wednesday, August 20
• Attendee Reception, sponsored by Qualcomm, Museum of Science and Industry, Wednesday, August 20
• Attendee Happy Hour and Booth Crawl, Sheraton Ballroom, Thursday, August 21

Details on all the evening events can be found at http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-north-america/extend-the-experience/evening-events.

LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America sponsors include Diamond sponsor Cisco, Platinum sponsors Citrix, HP, IBM and SoftLayer; and Gold sponsors GitHub, Google, Intel, OpenDaylight, Qualcomm, RackSpace, Red Hat, Samsung and SUSE.

The Linux Foundation will again offer attendance at both LinuxCon and CloudOpen with just one registration fee.  To register for LinuxCon North America, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-north-america/attend/register

To register for CloudOpen North America, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/cloudopen-north-america/attend/register

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux and collaborative software development. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system and collaborative software development by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Collaborative Projects, Linux conferences, including LinuxCon and generating original research and content that advances the understanding of Linux and collaborative software development. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen, and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.