Lynn Root

Lynn is an insomniac software engineer for Spotify, founder of San Francisco PyLadies, board member of the Python Software Foundation, and member of the Django Software Foundation.

Lynn will be presenting her talk "Diversity: We're not done yet":

The past few years, we have made large strides to welcome more diverse people into our community. You see better gender ratios in attendance numbers at Python conferences, the billed speakers, the amount of women-centric programs. We can see the benefits of outreach. But we’re not done yet.

This talk will recount the diversity efforts of the past few years and quantify the effects on the Python community, address the not-so-low-hanging fruit; the deeper-rooted problems that still plague the community from inside where we work, and finish with actionable items to improve one’s work place that welcomes more diversity.

Rikki Endsley

Rikki Endsley is the community manager for Opensource.com. Previously she worked as a community evangelist on the Open Source and Standards team at Red Hat. Other hats she has worn include: freelance tech journalist; community manager for the USENIX Association; associate publisher of Linux Pro Magazine, ADMIN, and Ubuntu User; and managing editor of Sys Admin magazine and UnixReview.com. See her portfolio on rikkiendsley.com, and follow her on G+ and on Twitter: @rikkiends.

Rikki will be presenting her talk "Mammas don’t let your babies grow up to be rock star developers":

Why would anyone intentionally hire a rock star developer? Rock stars are known for being high maintenance, unreliable, over-paid, and difficult to work with. Instead of rock star developers, open source needs a lot more Willie Nelsons.

Jackie Kazil

Jackie is award-winning catalyst of innovation at 18F - "Building the 21st century digital government". Previously, she served a tour of duty as a Presidential Innovation Fellow, a White House initiative that pairs talented, diverse technologists and innovators with top civil-servants and change-makers within the federal government to tackle some our nation’s biggest challenges. She has a passion for human behavior, computational social science, and public service.

Jackie will be presenting her talk "The Changing Tech of Government ":

Remember the last time that you visited a government website and got frustrated with your experience? Or the time you heard a news story about a failure in process or technology, and you said to yourself, “Why didn’t they do X?” Well, things are changing. This talk will go over what is happening in civic tech not only on the national level, but also the local and international realms. There are transformations happening that are saving lives, saving money, and creating fundamentally important changes in how you interact with your government.

We couldn't be more thrilled to welcome Lynn, Rikki, and Jackie, and look forward to seeing all of you in Austin next month!