Joe Thompson's IT career is at the beginning of its fourth decade. He's been a Linux user since 1998, a professional sysadmin since 2001, and part of the cloud-native community since 2014. He's spoken at KubeCon (6x), Cloud Native Rejekts (2x), SCaLE 22x, and various local meetups, and enjoys showing how well-known tools and techniques can be applied to new platforms.
Working on database-backed, internet-based systems for over a decade, Robert is a published author and long-time open source contributor, having been recognized as a major contributor to the PostgreSQL project for his work over the years. An international speaker on databases, open source, and managing web operations at scale, he occasionally blogs at https://xzilla.net.
Phil Vacca builds teams that scale. As Director of Datavail's Global Postgres Practice, he oversees distributed engineering teams that support mission-critical PostgreSQL deployments from AI-powered applications to high-speed analytics platforms spanning multiple continents.
With nearly two decades of experience wearing every hat from developer to production data engineer to engineering leader, Phil has navigated the evolution of data infrastructure firsthand. His leadership philosophy centers on transforming reactive teams into proactive platform services through visibility, accountability, and blameless collaboration.
An active voice in the PostgreSQL community, Phil is a member of pgMKE (Milwaukee Postgres User's Group) and has shared his expertise at conferences including Postgres Open, SCaLE, LinuxFest Ohio, and the Boston Data Summit. Whether he's architecting cloud-native solutions or mentoring the next generation of data engineers, Phil remains passionate about one thing: empowering teams to harness the power of the world's most advanced open source database.
Allen Vailliencourt is Solutions Engineer at Tailscale with a long history in working with DevOps, security, public cloud, development, systems administration and more. When not helping customers solve secure access problems with Tailscale, you can find him trying to catch fish, play a new board game, or just spend time with wife, 2 fast growing boys, and the family dog.
Sebastian Val has been using and supporting Linux for over 25 years and he can frequently be found tinkering with and occasionally releasing open source Linux software. Sebastian has extensive experience in algorithm development, computer security, software design and implementation, database administration, routing and network protocols, and containerization and virtualization stacks. He holds a Masters degree in Data Science from University of Southern California (USC), and is currently at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the Science Data System Algorithm Development and Integration group.
Gina was wrong about wanting to be an English professor, but she didn't figure that out until she'd already earned her MA. She completed a web development bootcamp, started working in tech support, and made her way to DevOps Engineer at SOCi. She loves learning, teaching, and solving complex problems - preferably with a Bash script. She occasionally emerges from the shell to go hiking, play video games, and volunteer at a local horse rescue.
Xpaul acquired his nickname in the late 1900s at dot-com incubator Idealab! while still pursuing undergraduate studies at Caltech.
The Internet was all the rage, compiling X11 frame buffer drivers on Linux for laptops was the new hotness, and the apps of the time were X11 widgets like xterminal, xcalc, and x-googly-eyes, so when it turned out there was already a "paul" on the qmail server, "xpaul" was born.
Reared by ethical hackers, he since developed, operated, and supported production platform and development infrastructure for:
* dozens of teams,
* hundreds of websites,
* tens of thousands of servers,
* millions of users per month,
* hundreds of millions of dollars of assets under management,
* billions of pageviews per month,
at companies from startups to large enterprises, including Yahoo! and Disney, Deep 6 AI, Peer Street, and now Crexi, largely using Free/Libre and Open Source software.
His enthusiasm for solving intricate software problems has yet to wane.
David is a Senior AI/ML Engineer within the Office of the CTO at NetApp, where he’s dedicated to empowering developers to build, scale, and deploy AI/ML solutions in production environments. He brings deep expertise in building and training models for applications such as NLP, vision, real-time analytics, and even classifying debilitating diseases. His mission is to help users build, train, and deploy AI models efficiently, making advanced machine learning accessible to users of all levels.
Before NetApp, he was heavily involved in the AI/ML community, specifically in conversational AI solutions and driving AI platform growth in a DevRel and pre-sales role. David frequently shares his insights at industry conferences and events, offering hands-on guidance for implementing AI/ML in cloud environments. David's prior experience includes contributing to the Kubernetes and CNCF ecosystems, working hands-on with VMware virtualization, implementing backup/recovery solutions, and developing firmware and drivers for hardware storage adapters.
Open Source Contributions: http://www.github.com/davidvonthenen
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/davidvonthenen
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@davidvonthenen
Blog: https://davidvonthenen.com
Cong Wang is the Founder and CEO at Multikernel Technologies. He is a distinguished Linux kernel developer with 17 years of experience and has been a Linux kernel maintainer of the networking traffic control subsystem since 2017. With over 1000 commits to the Linux kernel project, he possesses a deep understanding of Linux kernel and cloud computing. Prior to founding Multikernel Technologies Inc., he worked at ByteDance, Twitter and Red Hat.
Michael White is a longtime IP telephony geek and the VP of Open Source Sales at Sangoma. He leads the strategy, growth, and community stewardship for Asterisk and FreePBX, two of the world’s most widely adopted Open Source communications platforms. Michael collaborates with engineering, product teams, and a global community to drive innovation, strengthen governance, and ensure the sustainability of the Open Source ecosystem. Passionate about turning community adoption into real business success, Michael helps organizations and partners build scalable, secure, and flexible voice solutions. His mission is simple: to empower businesses to achieve more with Open Source.
John Willis has worked in the IT management for over 40 years. He is researching DevOps, DevSecOps, IT risk, modern governance, and audit compliance. Previously, he was an Evangelist at Docker Inc., VP of Solutions for Socketplane (sold to Docker) and Enstratius (sold to Dell), and VP of Training & Services at Opscode, where he formalized the training, evangelism, and professional services functions at the firm. Additionally, Willis founded Gulf Breeze Software, an award-winning IBM business partner specializing in Tivoli technology deployment. As an author, Willis has written six IBM Redbooks on enterprise systems management and four books for IT Revolution, including the DevOps Handbook. He is working on his latest book, The Operational History of Generative AI.
Mark Wong is a Software Development Engineer at EDB and is a PostgreSQL Major Contributor. He first introduced himself to the PostgreSQL community in 2003 with open source benchmarking kits and performance data. Since then, he has continued to contribute to various aspects of the community such as a Google Summer of Code mentor, Conference Organizer, Portland PostgreSQL Users Group Co-Organizer, PostgreSQL Fundraising Group Member, and a Director on the Board of the United States PostgreSQL.
Dr. Fei Wu is a lead research scientist at Los Angeles County, Chief Executive Office, Chief Information Office. She received her Ph.D. from the Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA. Her research expertise includes longitudinal study, spatial analysis, and predictive analytics. She has been working closely with many County Departments and County-wide initiatives, such as the poverty alleviation initiative and justice reform, supporting complex data and research needs in the realm of public services.
Hunyue Yau from HYR, LLC (http://www.hy-research.com/) is an embeded Linux consultant, software and hardware developer and enthusiast with over a quarter century involvement in Linux touching on multiple Linux architectures including x86 and ARM. Areas of interest include almost any sensor/sensing technology, machine learning/AI low power and small footprint for embedded/mobility with focus on hardware/low level Linux infrastructure. Prior works include developement of one of the first Linux appliances and Android porting to new hardware. Recent work range from bringup, integration, and debugging of ARM systems with custom, Yocto/OpenEmbedded, and Android userlands. He is the author of Learning BeagleBone and has presented at venues including ESC, ELC, SCaLe, and MontaVista Vision on numerous topics from power management, system sizze reduction, bringup techniques and mobile related technologies.
Paul Yu is a Developer Advocate at Microsoft focusing on Cloud Native technologies and the Kubernetes landscape. Paul has over two decades of industry experience working as a Software Engineer and Solution Architect. He is passionate about promoting cloud native and sustainable solutions to help organizations optimize processes and workflows.
Maya is an IT Security Analyst at ServiceNow. Her interests focus on cybersecurity and digital technology harms.
Ming Zhao is an open source developer and Developer Advocate at IBM Research, where he helps IBM leverage open technologies while building impactful tools and growing vibrant open-source communities. He’s passionate about making open tech accessible to all and ensuring developers have the tools they need to succeed in the rapidly developing AI space. Ming now leads community efforts around Docling, IBM’s fastest-growing open source project, recently welcomed into the LF AI & Data Foundation.
