Meet the Speakers: Ryan, Jeff, and Ross!
Ryan Etten
Agile for Every Brain
Ryan Etten (he/him)
Ryan Etten is a Senior Architect and Team Lead at Red Hat, guiding the West North America Sales & Adoption Launch team. A Red Hat Certified OpenShift Architect, he helps enterprises adopt Kubernetes, GitOps, and Zero-Trust architectures that accelerate secure, agile transformation. Before joining Red Hat, Ryan led award-winning cybersecurity programs that safeguarded community-owned utilities, work recognized by the American Public Power Association for advancing prudent energy policy and critical-infrastructure protection.
Ryan shapes industry best practices through active roles with OpenGitOps, CNCF TAG Security, and the Cloud Security Alliance, and is the Founder & Chair of the Red Hat Cloud Native Security Community of Practice. He has shared his insights on stages worldwide, including Red Hat Summit and GitOpsCon Europe, and authored content for the Linux Foundation’s Certified GitOps Associate exam. Closer to home, he revitalized the CNCF community in Madison, Wisconsin, helping to foster the next generation of secure cloud-native adopters.
Here’s what he has to say about his talk:
“The session tackles one of the most overlooked dimensions of inclusivity, neurodiversity, by exposing how everyday agile rituals can unintentionally exclude developers who process information differently. I aim to show how to redesign stand-ups, notifications, and code-review habits so all brains can contribute without burnout. By centering on practical, team-level changes that benefit both neurodivergent and neurotypical colleagues, the talk directly aligns with DevFest’s mission to create development environments and products that welcome everyone.”
Jeff Kritzman
Inclusive Design for Analytics
Jeff Kritzman (he/him/his)
Jeff Kritzman is a Senior Consultant at Keyrus. Prior to consulting, Jeff working in Healthcare Analytics. Jeff has deep knowledge across the analytics discipline, including data visualization, data engineering, and data science. He has a background in process improvement and applied math, and is currently having fun exploring what AI can bring to the analytics world!
Here’s what he has to say about his talk:
“Inclusive design is essential for any analytics project! Whether you're building a data warehouse, a dashboard, a machine learning model, or a website, if you don't meaningfully engage with diverse end users, your product is more likely to have issues. This talk will discuss practical and actionable techniques to make sure your analytics product gives your users the experience they deserve!”
Ross Larson
Mindfulness and the Wellness Wheel. Let's get rolling!
Ross Larson (he/him)
Ross Larson became a software developer through the nontraditional path of obtaining a double major in Psychology and French from Luther College. He later obtained a software development degree from Fox Valley Technical College. He works as a Software Developer for Paradigm in Middleton, WI. He currently serves on the board of the Forward Festival. Ross enjoys indie and retro video games, board games, the NFL Draft, creating obscure fantasy leagues, and making charts.
Here’s what he has to say about his talk:
“The wellness wheel is complicated and can be overwhelming. Let's tackle it together to demystify them. This presentation covers several topics:
Mindfulness
The origin of the Wellness Wheel and an overview of the dimensions of wellness
A realistic approach to balance
A self assessment
Working together to make a personal plan to improve your wellness.
You should attend because I will give you an opportunity to do a self-assessment and make a plan to improve your future wellness.”