Advisory Board - All Things Open AI Conference
Sahdev P. Zala is a Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM and an open source developer for over a decade. He has served as a maintainer or significant contributor to various open source projects with his current focus on PyTorch and Kubernetes. Previously, Sahdev was a core contributor to the OpenStack project and a Technical Committee Member of the OASIS TOSCA. Sahdev’s work has been published in the Journal of Grid Computing, International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technologies, cncf.io, Container Journal, and IBM Developer. He also owns multiple patents issued by the USPTO. Sahdev has served as a Track Chair and Program Committee Member for various KubeCon conferences. He has been a speaker at conferences such as All Things Open, KubeCon, Open Source Summit, OpenStack Summit, Open Source in Finance Forum, EGI, IBM Think, IBM TechXchange, and local open-source Meetups. Follow Sahdev on LinkedIn and Twitter (X).
Nithya A. Ruff is the Head of the Amazon Open Source Program Office. She drives open source culture and coordination inside of Amazon and engagement with external communities. Open Source has proven to be one of the world’s most prolific enablers of innovation and collaboration, and Amazon’s customers increasingly value open source innovation and the cloud’s role in helping them adopt and run important open source services. In the age of AI, the value of open and transparent AI is becoming critical to building trust. Nithya takes her decades-long knowledge of open source principles and brings them to the world of AI. Prior to Amazon, she started and grew Comcast and Western Digital’s Open Source Program Offices. Open Source Program Offices are a critical part of a company’s digital transformation and innovation journey and enable the intentional and systematic engagement with open source for companies. Nithya has been director-at-large on the Linux Foundation Board for the last 5 years and in 2019 was elected to be Chair of the influential Linux Foundation Board. She works actively to advance the mission of the Linux Foundation around building sustainable ecosystems that are built on open collaboration. She is a passionate advocate and a speaker for opening doors to new and diverse people in technology and can often be seen speaking and writing on this topic. Nithya graduated with an M.S. in Computer Science from NDSU and an MBA from the University of Rochester, Simon Business School and is an aspiring corporate board director and governance enthusiast. You can follow her on Twitter @nithyaruff and you can find her on LinkedIn.
Sachin Solkhan is an Executive Technology Leader focused on building & leading AI product engineering teams. He is passionate about Application of Artificial Intelligence technologies, Software Engineering and Agile practices. Follow Sachin on LinkedIn and Twitter (x).
Jon Reifschneider is the Founding Director of the Artificial Intelligence Master of Engineering program in Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering where he teaches graduate level courses in Machine Learning and Large Language Models. He is also the Co-founder and CEO of Inquisite AI, the AI platform for science teams that accelerates their knowledge-intensive workflows. Prior to joining the Duke faculty, Jon spent 15 years building advanced analytics products in industry, most recently serving as Senior Vice President at the tech company DTN where he led the Weather Analytics division and developed predictive analytics systems in use by most major transportation, aviation and energy utility organizations across the US. Jon holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia, a Master of Engineering Management from Duke University, a M.S. in Analytics from Georgia Tech, and a Global MBA from EBS (Germany). Follow Jon at jonreifschneider.com and on LinkedIn.
Ben Heller is a GenAI Transformation Manager for Google Cloud AI Services. He leads the design, scope, and transformation of AI and Generative AI solutions for Google Cloud customers. Ben has partnered with Raleigh Founded to be a startup GenAI Advisor and has been a guest lecturer for the US State Department, North Carolina State University, Duke and the University of Central Florida. Ben received his Masters in Applied Analytics from Columbia University in New York and is triple certified in Google Cloud and double certified in Microsoft Azure. He graduated with a Bachelors in Marketing and a Specialization in Sales from University of Central Florida. Previously, Ben served as a Senior Advisor for Google Cloud Startups and before that, worked at SAS Institute managing the relationships for Citibank and the United Nations. Follow Ben on LinkedIn.
A Deep Dive into Open Source Program Offices: Structure, Roles ...
Generative AI Revolutionizing Product Engineering
