The first Keynote speaker for GitKon 2021, a virtual conference for all Git users, has been announced: Matt Biilmann, CEO and co-founder, Netlify.  

GitKon is about bringing people of all backgrounds together to learn from each other and expand our knowledge of Git usage. This includes the world of GitOps and DevOps, which both are very dependent on proper versioning and change management.

What is Netlify?

Matt saw a rise in Git-based workflows for web applications and services. Recognizing the way developers wanted to work led to the creation of a platform to meet growing demand.

Today his company Netlify is helping anyone with a Git repository easily build and deploy their code to a very stable platform, learning many best practices as they go. Netlify has an amazing free tier that lets anyone dive in and test out their ideas, which in turn is helping empower a whole generation of developers by lowering the barrier of entry to their platform. This, in turn, helps propel code, services, and ideas forward in ways that would seem a far distant future only a few short years ago.

Mathias (Matt) Biilmann is CEO of Netlify, a company he co-founded in 2014, and today is one of the fastest-growing web development platforms. He has been building developer tools, content management systems, and web infrastructure for more than 30 years and is recognized for coining the term “Jamstack.” An active participant in open source, Matt has contributed to well-known projects in more than a dozen languages at all layers of the stack. Matt grew up in Denmark, where he trained as a musician and music journalist. 

What is Jamstack?

For those new to the term, Jamstack refers to a web application architecture that leverages pre-built pages served from a CDN. The main objectives of this approach are better performance, higher security, easier scaling, and an overall better developer experience. The name was originally derived from the predominant technology stack of JavaScript, APIs and Markdown developers were adopting.

Jamstack architecture has many benefits including better performance and a higher level of security. Since the sites are pre-built and served from cached images, they load at lightning speeds, so you don’t need to wait for the page to be built.  Because there is typically no underlying database or server code that can be hacked, Jamstack sites scale much more cheaply and easily, as CDNs are already distributed and can serve thousands or hundreds of thousands of requests without the need to provision additional server and database resources. Many popular sites like Netflix, Nike, and Smashing Magazine leverage this architecture today. 

Better Collaboration for a Better World

Empowering people is the real driving force behind GitKon.  Not just to learn some cool tips and tricks, though there will be plenty of those, but to enlighten every participant’s perception of what collaboration can mean. Central to all of this is the idea that together, groups and teams can do many wonderful things; that by leveraging better tools, processes, workflows, and ideas, we can get them done faster, with better results, while doing it as transparently as possible. 

No matter what your background or experience, GitKon can help you learn from one another and discover new approaches and philosophies that can help everyone work smarter and be more productive. 

Register for the Global Git Conference Today

Matt will be bringing his unique perspective on what his journey looks like and where he sees the world of GitOps and DevOps heading. This is one event you do not want to miss. GitKon attendee registration is open now, so save your free ticket to ensure you get the most out of this unique virtual event, happening September 22 – 23, 2021.