Joel Cohen of The Simpsons
and John Halamka of Harvard Medical School to discuss the use of open source solutions in the entertainment and healthcare industries
Raleigh NC – March 11, 2008 – Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Joel Cohen, writer and co-executive producer for The Simpsons, and John Halamka, MD, MS, CIO of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, will keynote at the fourth-annual Red Hat Summit, taking place June 18-20, 2008 in Boston, Mass. In addition, keynote speeches will be delivered by Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst and Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens.
The Red Hat Summit is an annual conference featuring hands-on workshops, demonstrations, technical and business sessions, solutions expos and opportunities to speak and network with the developers, engineers and partners behind Red Hat’s leading open source software solutions. Bringing together customers, partners and members of the community in a global open source knowledge exchange, the Red Hat Summit also highlights keynote speeches presented by visionary industry leaders like Cohen and Halamka.
Joel Cohen is a renowned writer who has contributed not only to the award-winning writing behind The Simpsons, but also to the Brooke Shields sitcom Suddenly Susan and to a number of feature films, including Cat in the Hat and Curious George. He has been nominated for and/or won major awards including an Emmy, Golden Globe and Writer’s Guild Award. Cohen has earned both a bachelor’s degree and an MBA and has prior experience in the film distribution industry.
These days, it isn’t uncommon to see open source solutions powering some of the greatest animations being produced by leading entertainment companies,
said Cohen. As open source becomes more pervasive in the industry, the creators behind these shows and movies are being equipped with new ways to innovate and deliver cutting-edge entertainment. These changes to the industry are thrilling and I’m excited to be attending the Summit in Boston to discuss my experiences with animation and the revolution that the animated films industry is experiencing with the help of open source.
John Halamka is a luminary in the healthcare industry, serving as Chief Information Officer of CareGroup Health System, Chief Information Officer of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Chairman of the New England Health Electronic Data Interchange Network, Chair of the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel and Emergency Physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. A strong advocate of open source and Red Hat solutions, Halamka is responsible for all clinical, financial, administrative and academic information technology serving 3,000 doctors, 12,000 employees and one million patients. He oversees the HIPAA transactions exchanged among the payers and providers in New England and also oversees the harmonization of healthcare data standards nationwide.
I’m a huge supporter of Red Hat’s open source solutions and use Red Hat Enterprise Linux widely throughout Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to support the hospital’s mission-critical applications that affect patient care,
said Halamka. Open source is increasingly becoming the chosen platform for reliability and security in the healthcare industry, and I look forward to detailing my positive experiences with these solutions during my keynote and session presentation at the Summit in June.