Plenary Speakers Announced For Drupalcon Global Open Source Digital Experience Conference

Mitchell Baker and Dries Buytaert join a diverse lineup of speakers at annual conference encouraging attendees to “Be Human, Think Digital”

Portland, Ore., July 2, 2020 - The Drupal Association is excited to announce plenary and featured speakers for its DrupalCon Global, the conference designed to bring people together to share thought leadership around open source and ambitious digital experiences, provide professional development opportunities and invigorate Drupal project momentum. 

 

Open Source Thought Leaders and Makers of the Free and Open Web

 

Mitchell Baker, Chief Executive Officer of Mozilla, will speak on Thursday, July 16 at 17:15 UTC. Heather Rocker, executive director of the Drupal Association states, “Mitchell Baker is a pioneer of the web and a strong advocate for open source. As the chairwoman of Mozilla for the last two decades, she is one of the most influential women in technology. We are honored to have her at DrupalCon Global and are excited to hear her speak on July 16th.”  
 
Baker co-founded the Mozilla Project to support the open, innovative web and ensure it continues offering opportunities for everyone. She is a strong advocate for the open internet, open source, and the importance of connecting technology to its impact on individuals and society.  TIME Magazine included Baker in its global list of “100 Most Influential People” and in 2018, she received the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award.
 
Per tradition, Dries Buytaert, founder and project lead of Drupal, will deliver the highly anticipated “Driesnote” on Tuesday, July 14 at 16:15 UTC, celebrating the successful launch of Drupal 9 earlier this month and detailing the vision for where Drupal’s powerful enterprise open source content management system is going next. Founder and CTO of Acquia, Buytaert was named a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, CTO of the Year by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, New England Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and a Young Innovator by MIT Technology Review. He blogs frequently on Drupal, open source, startups, business, and the future at dri.es.

Additional Featured Speakers Include (confirmed as of July 1st):

  • Ayodele Odubela, data scientist, SambaSafety
  • Grace Francisco, vice president, Worldwide Developer Relations, MongoDB
  • iAsia Brown, program manager II, Microsoft 
  • Jacqueline Gibson, software engineer, Microsoft
  • Leslie Mac, digital strategist and founder, Ferguson Response Network
  • Lev Kaye, founder and chief executive officer, CredSpark 
  • Stu Keroff, founder of Community School of Excellence, Asian Penguins and Aspen Academy Penguin Corp

 

Increased Focus on Diversity and Inclusion 


Re-imagined as a result of COVID-19 impacts, DrupalCon Global will be the first fully online DrupalCon event in its 15-year history. “In adapting DrupalCon for 2020, we committed to creating a virtual interactive experience that provides an outlet for our community to collaborate and contribute, as we strongly believe Drupal can be used to make the world a better place.” Rocker added, “Moving this event online had the added benefit of allowing us to widen our scholarship program efforts with a particular lens on diversity and inclusion, providing more access than ever before for those in underrepresented communities in technology.”  Drupal Association partnered with a variety of organizations for its DrupalCon Global scholarship program including: TechUp Women, SheCodeAfrica, WomenTech Network, Semicolon, Pehia, Progra{m}aria, WoMakersCode, Women in Technology Uganda, FOSSASIA, AfriLabs, iUrban Teen, Open Source Community Africa (OSCA), and Black Women in STEM 2.0. 

DrupalCon scholarship partner organization, She Code Africa, is a non-profit organization focused on celebrating and empowering young girls and women in technology across Africa.  Tola Olawumi, remarked, “We are a community that provides support, growth and guidance for ladies in tech and are excited to have ladies in our community attend DrupalCon Global where they get access to resources to help them spur their career in tech.”

 

Sessions, Summits and Networking for Leaders, Developers, Marketers, and End Users


The DrupalCon Global experience includes over 100 sessions and will feature 12 hours of programming each day including live interactive discussions, 1:1 networking, mini-summits, virtual exhibit hall, and access to hours of on-demand educational content. The event takes place online Tuesday, July 14 - Friday, July 17 from 13:00 -1:00 UTC and includes a dedicated day for project contributions.  DrupalCon Global is an excellent opportunity for businesses to invest in professional development for their teams - especially in this distributed workforce environment.  
 
Tickets to DrupalCon Global are $249 per attendee. Tickets, additional speaker and session information, and scholarship applications are available at https://events.drupal.org/global2020. 

 
About Drupal and the Drupal Association


Drupal is the most powerful enterprise open source content management software used by millions of people and organizations around the world, made possible by a community of 100,000-plus contributors and enabling more than 1.3 million users on Drupal.org. The Drupal Association is the non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the Drupal software project, fostering the community, and supporting its growth.


 
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For more information contact Heather Rocker, heather@association.drupal.org