PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - September 12, 2017) - Symphony Software Foundation (the Foundation), the nonprofit organization fostering innovation in financial services through open source software, will be hosting its inaugural Open Source Strategy Forum at the BNY Mellon Conference Center in New York on November 8, 2017. Registration is open today.

The one-day conference is aimed at executives, senior technologists, compliance officers and IP counsels from financial services firms seeking to drive innovation through open source. Leaders in open source and financial services will provide success stories around why and how they are leveraging open source to accelerate their business success. They will share industry best practices for open source collaboration and integration in the enterprise software supply chain, and provide solutions for overcoming the technical and compliance hurdles unique to financial services.

"Learning how to do open source is only a part of the picture. Like in any change management process, business value ultimately drives decisions at any level. It's only when executives realize the why, i.e. the true potential of leveraging open source in furthering their business strategy, that successful open source engagement can and will happen," said Gabriele Columbro, Executive Director, Symphony Software Foundation. "The Open Source Strategy Forum is our first step toward bringing together Wall Street and open source leaders to build a shared vision for open collaboration."

Jim Jagielski, Sr. Distinguished Engineer, Capital One Financial Corporation and Vice Chairman, Apache Software Foundation, said, "As a long-time participant in open source communities working in financial services, I know that an event like the Open Source Strategy Forum is sorely needed. At Capital One, I've worked to integrate open source methodology with corporate culture, and I'm excited to bring the lessons from that experience to the financial services community."

The Open Source Strategy Forum will host talks from bank executives, open source and enterprise thought leaders, and experienced attorneys. Sessions will range from short TED-style talks to longer, in-depth sessions related to both business and technology strategy challenges.

Highlights include two panel discussions featuring bank executives, industry veterans, and thought leaders. The first panel, Open Source in Financial Services: Best Practices, will be moderated by Spencer Mindlin, Capital Markets Industry Analyst, Aite Group, and will include participants from several financial services firms, including Capital One Financial Corporation, IHS Markit and Morgan Stanley. The second panel, Protecting the Financial Services Community from Patent Trolls, will be moderated by Ken Seddon, CEO LOTNetwork, and will include technology leaders from enterprise firms such as Dropbox and Red Hat.

Spencer Mindlin, Capital Markets Industry Analyst, Aite Group, said, "Open source has long since graduated from only occasional use within skunkworks projects. Lead developers at financial services firms now must actually defend a decision to use a closed source solution when open source is readily available. Financial services firms large and small are realizing that by working together, within the context of open source frameworks, they will accomplish more and do so at lower cost."

Speakers with unparalleled industry experience will lead a dynamic conversation about leveraging open source as a key part of a corporate technology strategy:

• Jono Bacon, Principle, Jono Bacon Consulting on community and culture: the vital ingredients for open source success;
• whurley (William Hurley), Managing Director, Goldman Sachs on financial services and the open source imperative;
• Jim Jagielski, Sr. Distinguished Engineer, Capital One Financial Corporation and Vice Chairman, Apache Software Foundation on innersource best practices for financial services;
• Heather Meeker, Partner, O'Melveny & Myers on contributing to open source projects: standards in financial services.

More industry thought leaders are being added to the agenda, which will be announced soon. Sign up for updates on the Open Source Strategy Forum or register here. Email us for more info.

The Open Source Strategy Forum is made possible by platinum sponsors Black Duck Software, GitHub, NodeSource, and Red Hat, and gold sponsor WhiteSource.

About Symphony Software Foundation
The Symphony Software Foundation is an independent non­profit organization building an open source community and development ecosystem to foster innovation in financial services. Its community leverages Symphony, other open source platforms and open standards to drive efficient inter-firm collaboration in this industry. The Foundation offers an Open Developer Platform (ODP) to all its open source contributors, providing open API access to Symphony and a compliant open source development process.

Foundation OSS Projects are Apache 2.0 licensed and available on GitHub
To access the ODP, visit our documentation
To learn more, visit http://symphony.foundation
To become a member http://symphony.foundation/#become-a-member

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