Taking charge of your career via the World of Open Source

Abstract

Abstract: This talk will cover how the software development model has been impacted open source development and how people work together to develop software across the globe. It will discuss the role open source plays in fortune 500 corporations as well as software development companies. It will discuss how the hiring process for High Tech. companies and corporate IT departments has changed significantly as a result of of the rapid growth in Open Source development. It will cover strategies for how individuals can increase their marketability by participating in open source projects and how to pick the right project for your career. Finally, it will discuss open source developers have become extremely empowered in not only the software industry but in the global IT market. This talk will be illustrated with real world examples.

Speaker: Tom Kincaid is the Executive Director of Application Platforms at Sun Microsystems. He has 8 years of experience working on and manging Open Source projects. He runs a world wide software development organization of over 200 people and is responsible for Sun Application Server Products, Web Server and Messaging products, the Java EE standard and Web 2.0 offerings. He was part of the original Java EE architecture team. He has been working in the Massachusetts software industry for over 20 years. In addition to working for Sun, he had held Director positions at Red Hat Inc. and Unica Corporation. His technical passion is Object Oriented databases. He has taught courses at Harvard, Boston University and North Eastern.