If you think all the way back to primary and secondary school, you may remember hearing something like, “open your ears while your teacher is talking to you.” It’s true that someone tuned in to listening learns more than someone who doesn’t, but opening your ears is a lot more important than that. Open ears have the ability to open minds. And with the tech industry constantly changing it’s more important than ever to keep your ears—and your mind—open to change.

With Cloud-Native Days with Kubernetes approaching, attendees have the perfect chance to open their ears and listen to the best of the best in the tech industry. Cloud-Native Days with Kubernetes is a two day virtual summit boasting over 50 speakers and sessions led by industry thought leaders and doers in the cloud-native space. Attendees will walk away with a better understanding of cloud native, its impact on the IT landscape and a lot more after listening to the key practices and methodologies of these tech titans.

While there are a myriad of talented speakers at Cloud-Native Days with Kubernetes, there are two very special keynote speakers you’ll want to pay extra attention and listen extra closely to. Hosting keynote sessions Aug. 4 and 5, Tara Hernandez and Caroline Wong are prepared to talk about technology shifting and the future of cloud-native security. With loads of experience and sage advice, Tara and Caroline are without a doubt the top two tech experts you won’t want to miss.

If you’re unfamiliar with Tara Hernandez, she’s a senior engineering manager at Google Cloud Platform, Associate Board member of Women Who Code and the host of the 12 episode podcast series, ‘Women Who Code’. A specialist in software engineering infrastructure and early backer of the Continuous Integration revolution, Tara has done everything from developing developer tools such as Tinderbox and Bugzilla, working at Pixar Animation studios to reinvent development infrastructure to handle the challenges of writing software in a film production environment, and helping create cloud developer platforms at Google. Beyond being a wizard in her field, Tara is equally impressive in her drive to share useful things about engineering management. 

No-one’s journey goes without its challenges. But for Tara, “One issue [she] has faced in her rise to success is a case of imposter syndrome. While she has always had the skills to overcome any challenges that came her way, it took a lot of work for her to develop mental self defenses, and tame the anxiety that came when she was presented with a project […] Getting involved with [Women Who Code] has made her aware of the need for advocacy at a grassroots level, and she’s become more confident brainstorming with peers and management teams about increasing diversity in her own work place. At the same time it’s helped her find the confidence to attend more conferences, and even start giving talks.” A supporter, advocate, mentor, and “shining example of someone who has overcome doubt to achieve success,” Tara is the ultimate speaker to inspire change and innovation, especially in creators. 

Check out Tara’s podcast ‘Women Who Code’ and listen to her talk about the current state of DevOps here to learn more before her talk, ‘Those Little Tectonic Shifts,’ Wednesday Aug. 4 at 12:45 p.m. EDT. 

Cloud-Native Days with Kubernetes is also incredibly proud to host Caroline Wong, Chief Strategy Officer of COBALT. Caroline is also an author, teaches cybersecurity courses on LinkedIn Learning, and similar to her fellow keynote speaker, hosts the ‘Humans of InfoSec’ podcast. With a background in communications and cybersecurity, Caroline holds deep-rooted expertise every attendee will want access to. 

As Caroline says, “Cloud native is here; it is scaling, and it is not going anywhere. The more we can see the reality and necessity of what security must become, the better we will all be in the long run.” In her talk, ‘The Future of Cloud Native Security,’ Thursday Aug. 5 at 11 a.m. EDT, Caroline will share her observations on how companies must change the way they build security into their cloud-native projects, forecast what’s next for cloud-native security, and how organizations must double down on people and process innovation to overcome the misconceptions, education gaps and common mistakes we see when it comes to the cloud.

Be sure to check out Caroline’s podcast ‘Humans of InfoSec’ here before joining her keynote session next week.

It’s always important to listen. But when listening means driving ideas forward, opening your ears can be the most beneficial tool to be better than we were yesterday.

So open your ears, get ready to listen and join us Aug. 4 and 5 at 9 a.m. ET for a much needed active listening experience! Register today.