We are pleased to announce that the SeaGL 2020 program is now live!
The schedule is filled with lots of great talks from very talented speakers and spans November 13-14.
Take some time to browse through the list of talks and start deciding which ones you will be attending.
As a reminder, SeaGL 2020 is completely virtual.
SeaGL is also completely free as in tea with no registration required, so everyone is welcome to attend.
All Speakers And Talks (in non-preferential order):
- 10 Vim Tricks - Bri Hatch
- A Beginner-Inclusive Approach to Open Source - Ruth Ikegah
- Alcohol & Inclusivity in Tech - Kara Sowles
- Building Alternative Networks for Fun and Resistance - Lisha Sterling
- Building Free CI/CD with GitHub Actions - Cameron Bielstein
- Contacts to Connections: CRM funneling for projects and people - Wm Salt Hale
- Crossing the Gender Divide: How I Learned to See My Own Bias - Aeva Black
- Data Liberation: Open Source Observability - Nočnica Fee
- Democratizing Documentation - Megan Guiney
- Demystifying Contributor Culture: IRC, Mailing Lists, and Netiquette for the 21st Century - Jill Rouleau
- Environments - Christopher Neugebauer
- Features of a Modern Terminal Emulator - Mike Hamrick
- First Steps with Swift for TensorFlow - Paris Buttfield-Addison
- FLOSS and You - der.hans
- Gaming for Good: Using Passions and Technology for Social Change - Josh Boykin
- How to Build a Zombie Detector: Identifying Software Quality Problems - Kaylea Champion
- Introducing FOSS Culture at Universities - Suraj Kumar Mahto
- Let’s Make Games with Rust - Elijah C. Voigt
- Move Slow and Try Not to Break Each Other - Deb Nicholson
- Oops! I Became an Open Source Maintainer - Mariatta Wijaya
- Open Source on the Mainframe in 1960, 1999, and Today - Elizabeth K. Joseph
- Overclocking for your Mind and Body - Rowin Andruscavage
- Patently Obvious - Neal McGovern
- Porting GW-BASIC back to Z80 - Leandro Pereira
- Rise Up for Free Software in Schools - Mariah Villarreal
- Scheduling your Open Source Project - Ben Cotton
- Self-Hosting with Traefik and Docker - Matt McGraw
- Software Freedom through Collective Action - Aaron Wolf
- Stand-Up Comedy about FLOSS - Sumana Harihareswara
- The Open Digital Photography Workflow - Stephen Wilson
- The United States’ History with Free Software and What We Can Do to Improve the Future - Amanda Sopkin
- Time for Action: How to build D&I in your project - Justin W. Flory and Bhagyashree (Bee)
- When does a service take away your software freedom? - Ian Kelling
- Keynote - VM Brasseur
- Keynote - Kathy Giori
- Keynote - Daniel Pono
- Keynote - Máirín Duffy
SeaGL is right around the corner (November 13-14). We’ve previously announced that VM (Vicky) Brasseur and Máirín Duffy will be keynoting. We are now happy to announce Kathy Giori will be part of our keynote lineup this year! We’ve asked Kathy a few questions to allow SeaGL attendees to get to know her ahead of her talk.
What does equity of access mean to you, and what challenges and strengths have you experienced in making FOSS projects accessible to newcomers?
The MicroBlocks project goal behind “equity of access” means that we want to create a learning tool for physical computing, and a community of support around it, that has a chance of eventually reaching EVERY child. That means MicroBlocks must be free and open source software, translatable to any language. It has to support affordable and readily available hardware. We want all students to have a chance to explore physical computing, not just wealthier school districts, or extracurricular clubs, or only english-speaking youth.
What inspired you to get into hardware hacking? What was your favorite early project in that vein?
I got really lucky and while being presented with a high school scholarship from a local company, was offered a summer job in “test engineering”. I accepted and got to test digital control panels, learning how to read schematics so I could debug problems. When I found a problem, I was able to fix it by soldering, or wire-wrapping, or whatever. Eventually I was programming EEPROMS using assembly language to created automated test programs. That first summer job, before even starting college, led me to major in EE. I think my first “hobby” hack was trying to debug my alarm-clock-radio when it had stopped working correctly. One of its transistors had burned/worn out. Back then, the schematics for the hardware came with the product. That openly available schematic and my knowledge of being able to test voltages here and there and across the transistor allowed me to fix my own radio.
Similarly, how and when did you get involved in FOSS? What attracted you?
I had been using computers and programming since an early age and never thought about or learned the value/meaning of FOSS, until I ran a startup with friends in 1999. We were focused on using and producing FOSS solutions. I learned to install and run Linux on a Sony laptop. We ran Linux servers, wrote cgi perl scripts to build web pages, and used VNC to let our users gain access to a “Linux desktop on the net” (through a browser or VNC client or Palm VII). Since then I’ve been at companies big and small, but always pushed for open source approaches. When open source is embraced by and used in industry, along with the community, it becomes a win-win for innovation.
What FOSS thing are you currently involved with that you think is great, but that people might not be aware of?
MicroBlocks
and
WebThings – it’s a project that I worked on while at Mozilla. Unfortunately they no longer have the resources to fund it, so it is being spun out so it can continue in the community. I’m investigating some mission-aligned fiscal sponsorship. I will provide the latest updates during my talk.
What is something interesting about you that most people might not be aware of?
Getting struck by lightning. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt because I was inside a hardened Learjet (it got struck, and conducted the energy from wing to tail). The Learjet was instrumented with many sensors including electric field mills, the data from which I was in charge of analyzing. We were intentionally flying in and around storms in the vicinity of Cape Canaveral, to study the electrification of cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) clouds to determine if we could come up with criteria related to cloud height or radar parameters or anything else that could help determine go/nogo criteria for rocket launches.
Is there anything else you want to share?
Just words of thanks for this opportunity. :)
A fun and important part of buiding Free Software communities is working with other groups.
This is especially true for Free Software conferences, which are gathering places for many FOSS projects, communities and advocates.
Conferences play an important role in sharing ideas, building friendships and sharing enthusiasm.
SeaGL wishes to work with other organizations to foster broad, welcoming, and diverse communities.
That’s why SeaGL created an Ambassador initiative to invest in those connections among free and open groups.
Would you like to help?
Volunteers are needed to serve as SeaGL Ambassadors.
Ambassadors will provide communication between SeaGL and other organizations.
Ambassadors will also be able to connect with each other.
Our goal is to build a strong network of partners in free and open communities.
SeaGL is an annual grass-roots, community-built Free Software conference.
As such, our primary mission is to build a diverse community through collaboration, mentoring and openness.
By partnering with other communities, SeaGL and partner communities can collaborate in ways that allow us all to do more together.
This is the spirit of collaborative development.
SeaGL uses a mailing list as its main form of communication with Ambassadors.
To volunteer your organization as a partner or to join as an Ambassador, self-subscribe by emailing ambassadors+subscribe (at) SeaGL.org or contact us at participate (at) SeaGL.org.
SeaGL is approaching fast, and we need your help! SeaGL is a completely volunteer run conference,
and with our new ✨technical landscape ✨we’re going to need some extra hands. Please email
participate@seagl.org if you’re interested in volunteering and we will send you the sign up sheet!
Here’s what we need help with:
Help Desk
Be in our Help Desk IRC channel to answer common questions about registration, recording, talk
tracks, etc. We will provide FAQ fact sheet that will hopefully answer most questions, and give you
direct contact info for SeaGL staff in case a question comes up you can’t answer.
Talk Emcee
Host the talk!
- Be in a dedicated video call with the speaker
- Be in the talk 10 minutes before it starts to chat with the speaker, get name pronunciation + preferences, etc.
- Introduce the speaker if they’d like
- Give speaker time cues if they’d like
- Questions will be asked in the track IRC channel. Ask questions aloud to speaker on video call
during Q&A.
- Enforce Code of Conduct in IRC channel
- Escalate to SeaGL staff if needed
All volunteers will be trained on the Code of Conduct and on their roles 2 weeks before the
conference - if you’d like to volunteer, we will do everything we can to ensure you feel prepared
before the conference!
Please email participate@seagl.org if you’re interested in volunteering or have questions, and we will send you the sign-up sheet. We’re happy to have you help whenever works for your schedule. SeaGL could not happen without our volunteers, and we would love to have you be a part of our community!