I am currently available to speak at conferences. You can contact me via email (dawn@fastwonder.com) for more information. If you want to see an example of one of my talks, I recommend watching my KubeCon EU keynote presentation about Building a Sustainable CNCF Project Contributor Base.

Information about my presentations at academic conferences can be found on the Academic page.

• Open Source in Data Science: A Data Scientist’s Guide to Open Source for Anita Ihuman’s #OpenSourceDiaries in July 2025.
• Panel: The Impact of Funding for Sustainable Open Source Projects with Georg Link, Andrew Nesbitt, and Alyssa Wright at the Open Source Summit NA in Denver in June 2025 (video).
• Panel: From First PR To Lifelong Impact: Helping People Thrive in Open Source with Ruth Ikegah, Shuah Khan, and Matt Denny at the Open Source Summit NA in Denver in June 2025 (video).
• Open Source: A Job and an Adventure at an All In online meetup in April 2025.
• From Data to Action: Building Sustainable Graduated Projects at the KubeCon Maintainer Summit in London in March 2025
• TOC Project Reviews: Let’s work on it together (Joint talk with Danielle Tal, Nic Jackson, & Marina Moore) at the KubeCon Maintainer Summit in London in March 2025
• Power Dynamics, Rug Pulls, and Other Corporate Impacts on OSS Sustainability at Monkigras in London in March 2025
• Panel Discussion: Funding: Positive and Negative impacts in OSS Projects at the Linux Foundation Member Summit in Napa in March 2025
• New Trajectories: Rug Pulls, Relicensing, and Hard Forks in OSS with Matt Germonprez at the Linux Foundation Member Summit in Napa in March 2025
• Unconference Session: Hard Forks in Open Source at the Linux Foundation Member Summit in Napa in March 2025
• Data to Action: Build Healthy and Sustainable OSS Communities with Peculiar C. Umeh at FOSS Backstage in Berlin in March 2025 (video)
• Toolkit for Measuring the Impacts of Public Funding for OSS at FOSS Backstage in Berlin in March 2025 (video)
• Making the most out of your open source contributions at CERN in Geneva in February 2025 (video)
• Panel Discussion: The State of Open Source in Numbers: Metrics, Trends, and Predictions at State of Open Con in London in February 2025 (video)
• Panel Discussion: Forked Communities: Project Re-licensing and Community Impact at State of Open Con in London in February 2025 (video)
• Keynote: Meet the Forkers at State of Open Con in London in February 2025 (video)
• Panel Discussion: Forked Communities: Project Re-licensing and Community Impact at FOSDEM in Brussels in February 2025
• Introducing The CHAOSS Education Project with Peculiar C. Umeh at CHAOSSCon EU in Brussels in January 2025.
• CHAOSS Practitioner Guides for Healthy & Sustainable OSS Projects on the OpenChain Webinar in December 2024 (video).
• Panel Discussion: OSS Viability: Reduce Risk with Metrics, Merges, and Money at The Linux Foundation Member Summit in Napa in November 2024.
• Forked Communities: Project Re-Licensing and Community Impact with Stephen Walli at The Linux Foundation Member Summit in Napa in November 2024.
• The New Dynamics of Open Source: Relicensing, Forks, & Community Impact at the OpenForum Academy (OFA) Symposium November 2024 (paper).
• License Changes and Forking Data at the OpenUK Research and Reporting Show and Tell online September 2024 (video).
• Panel: Measuring Success for Academic Open Source with Clare Dillon, Sean Goggins, and Sayeed Choudhury at Open Source Summit EU in Vienna in September 2024 (video).
• From Data Tsunami to Actionable Insights with Cali Dolfi at Open Source Summit EU in Vienna in September 2024 (video).
• Panel: How to Chart Your Own Career Path in Open Source with Ildiko Vancsa, Nithya Ruff, and Allison Randal at Open Source Summit EU in Vienna in September 2024 (video).
• Podcast: CHAOSS Practitioner Guides on the SustainOSS Podcast in August 2024.
• From Data to Action: Using Metrics to Improve FOSS Communities at FOSSY in Portland in August 2024 (video).
• License Changes, Forks, and Project Health at the OpenUK Online Meetup in July 2024.
• Improve Your Open Source Project Health with CHAOSS at London Data Week in July 2024.
• Panel: Open Source supporting the UK digital skills gap at OpenUK’s State of Open Report Launch in July 2024 (video).
• A Strategic Approach to Assessing Viability of OSS Projects at the Open Source Finance Forum in London in June 2024 (video).
• Using Metrics to Improve Project Sustainability at PASC in Zurich in June 2024.
• CHAOSS Practitioner Guides at Bitergia’s Madrid Data and Tapas Day in May 2024.
• CHAOSS Project Research and Metrics at the OpenUK Research and Reporting Show and Tell in May 2024.
• Video Podcast: Open Source CHAOSS on the Cloud Therapist podcast in April 2024.
• Panel: OSS Viability and Project Selection with Gary White, Matt Germonprez, and Emma Irwin at OSSummit NA in Seattle in April 2024 (video).
• Panel: How to Chart Your Own Career Path in Open Source with Ildiko Vancsa, Nithya Ruff, and Allison Randal at OSSummit NA in Seattle in April 2024 (video).
• Podcast: Charting the CHAOSS: Insights into Open Source Health and Viability on the Open at Intel podcast in April 2024.
• Video Podcast: An Inspired Pursuit of Knowledge on the She Lights the Way podcast in April 2024.
• Build Your Contributor Base with the TAG Contributor Strategy team at KubeCon EU Paris in March 2024 (video).
• From Data Tsunami to Actionable Insights with Cali Dolfi at SCALE21x in March 2024 (video).
• A Strategic Approach to Assessing the Viability of OSS Projects at FOSS Backstage in March 2024 (video).
• Using CHAOSS Metrics Models for Contributing to and Consuming OSS at OSPOlogy Live Apeldoorn in February 2024.
• A Strategic Approach to Assessing the Viability of OSS Projects at State of Open Con in February 2024 (video).
• Strategies for Building Healthy Open Source Communities at FOSDEM in the Community Devroom in February 2024 (video)
• Panel: How to Chart your own Career Path in Open Source at FOSDEM in the Main Track in February 2024 (video)
• Contributor Growth Strategies for OSS Projects at the KubeHuddle Monthly Meetup in December 2023.
• Building a Sustainable CNCF Project Contributor Base at Cloud Native Rejekts in November 2023 (video).
• Getting More Value from your OSPO at the Linux Foundation Member Summit in October 2023.
• Panel Discussion: OSS Viability and Project Selection at the Linux Foundation Member Summit in October 2023.
• Structured Pathways from Portals Overlooking a Data Tsunami to Understanding Project Health with Matt Germonprez at the Linux Foundation Member Summit in October 2023.
• Podcast: OSS Summit Linux Foundation Europe and Open Source Metrics on the Chinchilla Squeaks Podcast in October 2023.
• Getting More Value from your OSPO at OSPOlogy Live in Frankfurt in October 2023.
• Contributor Growth Strategies for OSS Projects at OSSummit EU in Bilbao in September 2023 (video).
• Panel: Panel Discussion: Demonstrating OSPO Value at OSSummit EU in Bilbao in September 2023 (video).
• Podcast: Community Management in Open Source on DevOps Sauna in August 2023.
• Contributor Growth Strategies for OSS Projects at FOSSY in Portland in July 2023 (video).
• Podcast: Enhancing Your Contributor Growth Strategy on The Business of Open Source in June 2023.
• Podcast: Maintaining Maintainers on the Changelog Podcast in May 2023.
• Open Source in Companies for the GitHub Accelerator Cohort in May 2023.
• Engaging in Open Source Communities at the OpenUK London Meetup in May 2023.
• Panel Discussion: The Evolution of Open Source Software at the London Enterprise Tech Meetup in May 2023.
• Contributor Growth Strategies for OSS Projects at the Open Source Summit NA in Vancouver in May 2023 (video).
• Panel Discussion: What our OSPOs Have Learned About Measuring Project Health at the Open Source Summit NA in Vancouver in May 2023 (video).
• How to Be a Good Corporate Citizen in Open Source at the Open Source Meetup in London in April 2023.
• Keynote: Building a Sustainable CNCF Project Contributor Base at KubeCon EU in Amsterdam in April 2023 (video and blog post).
• Contributor Growth Strategies for OSS Projects at FOSS Backstage in Berlin in March 2023 (video).
• Podcast: Dawn Foster & Andrew Nesbitt at State of Open Con 2023 on Sustain in March 2023.
• Keynote: Leading in Open Source, A Strategic Approach at Kubernetes Community Days in Amsterdam in February 2023 (video)
• Leading in Open Source, A Strategic Approach at State of Open Con in London in February 2023 (video).
• Contributor Growth Strategies for OSS Projects at FOSDEM in Brussels in February 2023 (video).
• Expert Panel: How to Use Metrics in Your Context at CHAOSScon Europe in Brussels in February 2023 (video).
• Be a Good Corporate Citizen in Kubernetes at Kubernetes Community Days UK in London in November 2022 (video).
• Does Your OSPO Help or Hinder Contributions at LF Member Summit in Lake Tahoe, CA in November 2022.
• Leading in Open Source, A Strategic Approach at LF Member Summit in Lake Tahoe, CA in November 2022.
• GitHub API 101 with Python and Jupyter Notebooks at All Things Open in Raleigh in November 2022 (GitHub repo).
• CHAOSS: Metrics models for OSPOs and Case Study of Using CHAOSS metrics at OSPOlogy.live Workshop in Stockholm in October 2022.
• Panel: OSPO’s and Governance of Open Source Software at the Open Source Software: Infrastructure, Curation and Security, Thought Leadership Event in London in October 2022 (video).
• Ways to Define a Metrics Strategy in your Open Source Program Office at OSPOlogy online in October 2022 (video).
• Podcast: How Can Open Source Sustain Itself without Creating Burnout? on The New Stack Makers in September 2022.
• Overcoming Imposter Syndrome to Become a Conference Speaker at OSSummit in Dublin in September 2022 (video).
• Podcast: Maintaining Open Source Projects on CHAOSScast jointly with the Sustain podcast in August 2022.
• Overcoming Imposter Syndrome to Become a Conference Speaker at SCALE19x in Los Angeles in July 2022.
• How to be a Good Corporate Citizen in Open Source at stackconf in Berlin in July 2022 (video).
• How to be a Good Corporate Citizen in Open Source at the LF Open Source in Finance Forum in London in July 2022 (video).
• Overcoming Imposter Syndrome to Become a Conference Speaker at OSSummit NA in Austin in June 2022 (video).
• Does Your OSPO Help or Hinder Contributions? at OSSummit NA in Austin in June 2022 (video).
• Podcast: The Future of Open Source Contributions from KubeCon Europe on The New Stack Makers in June 2022.
• Podcast: Open Source at VMware – Key Driver of Innovation on SAP’s The Open Source Way in June 2022.
• Good Governance Practices for CNCF Projects at KubeCon EU in Valencia in May 2022 (video).
• The Maintainer’s Toolkit: Must-Know CNCF Resources for Project Owners with Catherine Paganini at KubeCon EU in Valencia in May 2022 (video).
• Open Source Collaboration and Companies: Finding the Right Balance at DeveloperWeek Europe (Virtual) in April 2022.
• Webinar: Navigating Open Source Risk on The SAP Open Source Webinar in February 2022.
• Podcast: Navigating Risks and Building Open Source Communities on The Business of Open Source in January 2022.
• Podcast: CHAOSS Community Year 2021 in Review on CHAOSScast in December 2021.
• Open Source is not Fairy Dust – joint talk with Suzanne Ambiel at The Linux Foundation Member Summit in Napa, CA in November 2021.
• Panel Discussion: Metrics for Understanding Project Health at The Linux Foundation Member Summit in Napa, CA in November 2021.
• Navigating Open Source Project Risk at All Things Open in Raleigh in October 2021 (video).
• Measuring the Health of Your CNCF Project: Going Beyond Stars and Forks at KubeCon in Los Angeles in October 2021 (video).
• Good Governance Practices for Healthy Open Source Projects at OSPOCon Europe in London in October 2021 (video).
• Navigating Open Source Risk: A Strategic Approach at the Open Source Strategy Forum in London in October 2021 (video).
• Measuring Project Health at VMware at CHAOSScon in Seattle in September 2021 (video).
• Navigating Open Source Project Risk at OSPOCon NA in Seattle in September 2021 (video).
• Panel Discussion – A New Era: Emerging and Evolving OSPOs at OSSummit NA in Seattle in September 2021 (video).
• Getting Over Your Imposter Syndrome to Become a Conference Speaker at OSSummit NA in Seattle in September 2021 (video).
• Podcast: Episode 24 with Dawn Foster on Open Source for Business in August 2021.
• Navigating Open Source Risk at Open Source Lisbon in June 2021 (video).
• Evaluating Business Risk for Open Source Cloud Native Projects at KubeCon EU in May 2021 (video).
• Podcast: Anniversary Episode on CHAOSScast in May 2021.
• Collaborative Leadership: Governance Beyond Company Affiliation at FOSS Backstage in February 2021 (video).
• Podcast: Human-Centric Operations and Metrics with Sophia Vargas on CHAOSScast in February 2021.
• Collaborative Leadership: Governance Beyond Company Affiliation at KubeCon North America in November 2020 (video).
• CNCF Project Paperwork Working Session with Josh Berkus and Carolyn Van Slyck at KubeCon North America in November 2020 (video).
• Collaborative Leadership: Governance Beyond Company Affiliation at Open Source Lisbon in November 2020.
• Collaborative Leadership: Governance Beyond Company Affiliation at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit EU Virtual in October 2020.
• Is this Open Source Project Healthy or Lifeless? at All Things Open in October 2020 (video).
• Collaboration in Linux Kernel Mailing Lists at the British Computing Society (BCS) Women in Open Source event in September 2020 (video).
• Podcast: Is Your Open Source Project Healthy? on Community Signal in September 2020.
• Be a Good Corporate Citizen in Kubernetes at KubeCon EU Virtual in August 2020 (video).
• Podcast: Internews OSS Lightweight Needs Assessment Toolkit with Gina Helfrich on CHAOSScast in August 2020.
• Being a Good Corporate Citizen in Open Source as part of the OpenUK Future Leaders series in July 2020 (video).
• Panel Discussion: Succession Planning for the Open Source Movement at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit NA Virtual in June 2020 (video).
• Growing Participation in your Company’s OSS Projects at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit NA Virtual in June 2020 (video).
• Podcast: Defining “Open Source Community Health” on CHAOSScast in June 2020.
• Podcast: Augur on CHAOSScast in June 2020.
• Podcast: Social Currency Metric System (SCMS) on CHAOSScast in May 2020.
• Podcast: Hello World! on CHAOSScast in May 2020.
• Building Community for your Company’s OSS Projects at the Spring Live 24 Hour Virtual Conference in March 2020 (video).
• Building Community for your Company’s OSS Projects at the FOSDEM Community Devroom in February 2020 (video).
• A Week in the Life of Kubernetes at KubeCon NA in San Diego in November 2019 as a joint talk with Jorge Castro (video)
• Open Source Collaboration and Companies: Finding the right balance at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit NA in San Diego in August 2019 and Open Source Summit EU in Lyon in October 2019
• Metrics that Matter: Forging a Path to More Diverse, Inclusive Communities with Nicole Huesman at Open Source Summit EU in Lyon in October 2019
• How to be a Terrible Hiring Manager at OSCON Ignite in July 2019
• Strategies to Balance the Needs of the Company and the Community at the Community Manager Gathering before OSCON in July 2019
• Being a Good Corporate Citizen in Open Source at the UK Open Source Awards in Edinburgh in June 2019
• Open Source Collaboration and Companies: Finding the right balance at the Linux Foundation Open Source Leadership Summit in Half Moon Bay in March 2019
• Building a Community Metrics Strategy in the Community devroom at FOSDEM in Brussels in February 2019 (video)
• Open Source Collaboration: Finding the right balance at the Open Source Strategy Forum in London in November 2018 (video)
• Collaboration in Linux Kernel Mailing Lists at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit Europe in Edinburgh in October 2018
• Collaboration in Linux Kernel Mailing Lists at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit North America in Vancouver in August 2018
• Collaboration in Linux Kernel Mailing Lists at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit Prague in October 2017
• Collaboration in Linux Kernel Mailing Lists at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit Los Angeles in September 2017
• Visualize Your Code Repos and More with Gource at the FOSDEM Community devroom in February 2017 (GitHub repo)
• Config Management Community: Awesome, Awful or Apathetic? at the FOSDEM Configuration Management devroom in February 2017
• Keynote: Config Management Community: Awesome, Awful or Apathetic? at Config Management Camp Berlin in November 2016
• Using Gource to visualize Linux kernel data at Linuxing in London Meetup in October 2016 (GitHub repo)
• Keynote: Lessons about Community from Science Fiction at CLSx London in October 2016
• Visualize Your Code Repos and More with Gource at LinuxCon in Toronto August 2016 and Berlin October 2016(GitHub repo)
• Keynote: Open source: A Job and an Adventure at OSDC in Berlin April 2016 (related blog post and video)
• Open source: A Job and an Adventure at FLOSS UK March 2016 (related blog post)
• Extracting Data from your Open Source Communities at FOSDEM (HPC, Big Data and Data Science devroom) January 2016 (slides)
• Visualize your repos: Navigate the myriad of Gource configuration options at FLOSS Community Metrics in Brussels January 2016 (GitHub repo)
• Lessons about Community from Science Fiction at CLSx Madrid in December 2015
• Network analysis: People and open source communities at LinuxCon Europe in Dublin 2015 (code)
• Lessons about Community from Science Fiction at DevRelCon in London 2015
• Network analysis: People and Communities at Technical Evangelism Meetup in London September 2015 (code)
• Network analysis: People and open source communities at LinuxCon North America in Seattle 2015 (code)
• Network analysis: People and open source communities at OSCON in Portland July 2015 (code and video)
• Gource Custom Log Format at FLOSS Community Metrics in Portland July 2015 (code)
• Your Metrics Strategy at FLOSS Community Metrics in Brussels January 2015
• Keynote: Lessons about DevOps from Science Fiction at DevOpsDays Berlin October 2014 (Video)
• Open Source: A job and an adventure at LinuxCon Europe (Düsseldorf) October 2014 (detailed blog post recap)
• State of the Puppet Community at PuppetConf 2014 in San Francisco (Video)
• Lessons about Community from Science Fiction at LinuxCon North America (Chicago), August 2014
• Lessons about Community from Science Fiction, the Texas Linux Fest edition from June 2014
• Lessons about Community from Studio Ghibli at LinuxCon Tokyo, May 2014
• Lessons about community from science fiction, the Monki Gras edition, January 2014
• Lessons about community from science fiction, the SCALE12x edition from February 2014
• What we can learn about community from Science Fiction – October 2013
• What we can learn about DevOps from Science Fiction – October and November 2013
• Building a Successful Technology Career – June 2013
• Open Source Community Metrics – November 2012
• Hacking RSS: Filtering & Processing Obscene Amounts of Data – March 2011
• Companies and Communities: Participating without being sleazy.
• Demystifying Social Media Tools and Techniques
• Online Communities: short and basic introduction to online communities
• Online Communities and Marketing: comprehensive 40+ slides on how people in marketing can engage with online communities.
• Open Source Communities: overview of how open source communities function
• What Would Dr. Seuss Say about Online Communities: fun with online communities presented in Ignite style (slides with audio included in this link).
• Online Community Manager: Yes, it’s really a job: careers in community management.
• Online Community Training: presentation from a training session for people getting ready to build online communities.

Video and Audio Recordings of Presentations

• Open Source Collaboration: Finding the right balance at the Open Source Strategy Forum in London in November 2018
• Open source: A Job and an Adventure at OSDC in Berlin April 2016 (slides and related blog post)
• Network analysis: People and open source communities at OSCON in Portland July 2015 (code)
• Impromptu Ask Me Anything Panel about Community Metrics at FOSDEM, January 31, 2015 – it was an unscheduled replacement for a jetlagged speaker who didn’t make it to his session
• Lessons about DevOps from Science Fiction at DevOpsDays Berlin October 2014
• Lessons about Community from Science Fiction 5 minute Ignite talk from OSCON – Portland, July 2014
• Lessons about Community from Science Fiction from Monki Gras – London, February 2014
• Portland and London versions of my “What we can learn about DevOps from science fiction” Ignite talks – October and November 2013
• What we can learn about Community from science fiction Ignite talk – November 2013
• USENIX Women in Advanced Computing (WiAC) Summit: Building a Successful Technology Career – June 2013
• PuppetConf September 2013
• SXSW: Hacking RSS: Filtering & Processing Obscene Amounts of Information – March 15, 2011. Audio available.
• Open Source Bridge: Online Community Metrics: Tips and Techniques for Measuring Participation – June 2011.

Past speaking engagements have included:

• SXSW 2007, 2009, 2011
• FOSDEM
• OSCON 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2015
• LinuxCon and other Linux Foundation events
• Monkigras 2014
• Project Conferences: MeeGo Conference, Tizen Conference, LibreOffice Conference, PuppetConf
• Web 2.0 Expo
• Innotech 2008, 2009
• WebVisions
• Community 2.0 2008, 2009
• Defrag
• Love@First Website
• BlogHer
• Ignite Portland
• Foo 2006
• Open Source Business Conference (OSBC)
• Women in Technology International (WITI)
• Various BarCamps, unconferences, smaller speaking engagements and more