Large Turn-Out Demonstrates Government’s Interest in Open Source Software

June 13, 2012  - By
Image: GPS World

A sold-out crowd of more than 650 people filled the Kossiakoff Conference Center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on Wednesday, 30 May 2012 to participate in the Open Source Industry Day co-hosted by the National Security Agency and the Open Source Software Institute.

 

“The Open Source Industry Day event could not have gone better,” said event volunteer co-chairman John Farrell of HP Enterprise Security. “We had a sell-out crowd, fantastic speakers and packed panel discussions that kept audience and panelist engaged all day. Our thanks go to the many volunteer supporters and government participants who worked together to make this event successful.”
According to the day-long, unclassified event featured senior-level government leaders, tech industry representatives and open source community experts who participated in interactive panel discussions covering a range of topics identified by government users as specific areas of interest.
“We worked closely with our government partners to choose topics that were timely and relevant to helping meet their interest and mission needs,” Farrell said. “After we agreed on a set number of primary topics, we reached out to the top-level experts in each field and were flooded with responses from speakers and subject-matter experts. The overwhelming success of this event helps to demonstrate the level of interest for open source software solutions by government agencies.”
A list of discussion topics and participating speakers is available at the OSSI website: oss-institute.org.
The event also featured highly-regarded keynote speakers from the Defense and Intelligence Communities. Keynote speakers included John A. Marshall, Chief Technology Officer at US Joint Chiefs of Staff, J2 Intelligence Directorate; Charlie Stein, Program Executive Office for Information Assurance at the National Security Agency; Don Davidson, Chief Outreach & Standardization (Trusted Mission Systems & Networks) at US Department of Defense; and Dan Risacher of the Office of CIO at US Department of Defense.
As follow up to the Industry Day, OSSI is using the feedback from the event to prioritize follow up discussions at their regular monthly meetings and there will be a “Call for Papers” shortly.
“The event attracted leaders and senior level professionals from nine government agencies and more than 300 corporations in what can only be described as an open and honest discussion,” said OSSI Regional Director Carl Livesay. “OSSI leveraged resources in the open source community to organize, manage and provide speakers for the event. The results were a tremendous value to attendees and a collaboration from contributors. We thank those who attended and those who contributed.”
OSSI is in discussion with several other government agencies to hold similar events focused on their individual missions.
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