GOSCON News

The November 5, 2009 GOSCON DC  is now a successful footnote in conference history.  Many thanks to those who attended, to our speakers, and to our sponsors for making it so.

The conference is part of an ongoing series produced by the Open Souce Lab at Oregon State University in collaboration with government IT leadership and  private industry.  We're hearing good things about the first DC event and encourage feedback to help us keep the conference highly relevant to public service IT professional GOSCON serves.

Vicki E. Allums, Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) will join GOSCON this week  to discuss  a new document released today by CENDI, a cooperative of the major Federal science, technology and information centers.  The document entitled “Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright and Computer Software: Issues Affecting the U.S.

We're pleased to announce our GOSCON DC 2009 Keynotes!

  • Breakfast Keynote: Mr. David M. Wennergren, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Information Management and Technology / Deputy Chief Information Officer US Department of Defense
  • Luncheon Keynote: Dr. David G. Boyd, Ph.D., Director, Command, Control and Interoperability Division Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Other Speaker Highlights include:

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2009 "Excellence Awards for Open Source Business Use in Government". The awards will recognize government employees who have made significant accomplishments in the application of Open Source Technology to meet government business or mission requirements.

Inspired in part by the goals of the US Federal 2009 IT Strategy "Five Pillars", awards willl be made to employees or teams of employees from Federal, State, and Local Government.

GOSCON DC is proud to announce the addition of a new track: The Open Technology Forum. An early sponsor of GOSCON DC, Red Hat has expanded its former Red Hat Users and Developers Conference (RHGUDC) and joined with other industry-leading partners to create the Open Technology Forum. This technology-focused forum will showcase innovations, best practices and trends discovered from government's adoption of open source technologies.

Date set for Nov 5, exciting new conference features include:

 

* A second management track highlighting agency successes and use cases.
* A first ever companion technology event - the Open Technology Forum and a hands-on computer lab will take a deeper technical dive and expand the audience to agency IT staff.
* Lowered Registration Fees: $49 for Government and $149 for Industry – even less for early bird registration.
* Conference theme is updated to support the 2009 Federal IT Strategy - Five Pillars. Attendees will learn how Open Technology Solutions play a role in:

Based on conversations with the new Administration and IT leaders, GOSCON organizers have decided to move the organization’s first D.C.-based conference to Fall 2009.

The Obama Administration is adopting a transformational approach to IT, which is expected to move forward rapidly in the coming months. GOSCON is focused on working with the new Federal IT leadership to ensure that this prestigious open technology forum reflects the changing public sector IT landscape and addresses compelling as well as emerging trends and issues.

We're pleased to announce that we're relocating the conference to the outstanding facilities at the Reagan Building and International Trade Center.  The change of venue will host a larger attendance as well as support  live web-streaming for the event.  It provides the state-of-the-art technology important to GOSCON as well as a convenient location with easy access to public transportation.

Aneesh Chopra, Federal CTO
We were happy to hear that Aneesh Chopra, Virginia's Secretary of Technology, has been appointed to the position of Federal Chief Technology Officer. This key role decision was announced by the President on March 18th, 2009. Aneesh delivered a high-energy closing keynote at our conference in Portland, Oregon last fall on "Building a Culture of Innovation and Productivity through Collaboration".