Last week we launched GitHub Universe, a two-day conference where developers from all over the world convened at Pier 70 to discuss how to build, collaborate on, and deploy great software.

As we gathered in front of the main stage, the octocat appeared in full, living color in an animated short created especially for Universe by the GitHub creative team

To open Universe with a bang, our CEO and co-founder Chris Wanstrath made several announcements about new developments that will make the GitHub experience better than ever.

Partnership with Yubico:

To help users better secure their accounts, GitHub's authentication system now supports FIDO Universal 2nd Factor (U2F)—a rapidly growing open authentication standard. Yubico's U2F compliant keys are ready to protect GitHub’s millions of users and their volumes of sensitive data. Thousands of GitHub users redeemed a discount to purchase a new key. The 20% discount on YubiKeys is still available to any GitHub user while supplies last.

Integrations Directory:

It's now easier than ever to use your favorite tools with GitHub. Check out these powerful integrations, including Travis-CI and Slack, and build better software, together.

Git Large File Storage (LFS):

Git LFS replaces large files such as audio samples, videos, datasets, and graphics with text pointers inside Git, while storing the file contents on a remote server like GitHub.com or GitHub Enterprise. Check it out.

The general sessions from Universe are available to view on UStream. All of the talks from the Build, Collaborate and Deploy breakouts will be available to view soon, so keep your eye on Twitter.

GitHub Universe would not have been possible without the support of our 13 excellent sponsors, who provided delicious food and coffee and beautiful art installations for our enjoyment.

GitHub is how people build software. We will continue our voyage next year, so stay tuned for updates.

Are you at Pier 70 today for GitHub Universe? Want to earn some sweet patches to iron onto your newly acquired tote bag, and enter to win some prizes (generously provided by Twilio) while you're at it?

Complete the steps below before 3pm on Friday to earn merit badges. Each merit badge can be retrieved and ironed on to your tote at the iron-on station near the entrance upon proof of task completion.

To earn the Build badge: Introduce yourself to a stranger and tweet a photo of yourselves using #exploreuniverse.

To earn the Collaborate Badge: Head to the obliteration room – get someone to take a picture of you contributing a sticker to the chaos and share via twitter using #exploreuniverse.

To earn the Deploy badge: Tweet @twilio using #exploreuniverse: If you had unlimited time and resources to build anything with Twilio and GitHub, what would it be?

If you complete these steps, you're entered to win an iPad Mini 4, a Sphero and an Amazon gift card. Winners will be announced at 3:30pm on Day 2 of the conference on Twitter, so make sure to follow @githubuniverse.

We hope you'll join us in exploring!

Interested in polishing your GitHub skills this week? Many GitHub Universe speakers will be offering tips, tricks, and case studies on everything from pull requests to workflow strategy. Don’t miss these educational and entertaining sessions:

• GitHub's Brent Beer explores what makes a great pull request and how GitHub’s features unlock a strong workflow.
• GitHub’s Matt Colyer teaches GitHub Enterprise basics, from administration to maximizing new features.
• Look at a range of strategies for knowledge sharing, support, and practice with Peter Bell at Wheelhouse.io.
• Hear from Ben Balter and the GitHub Pages team about advanced techniques that can help improve your content publishing workflow.
• Maximize your GitHub Enterprise security system with tips about installation and collaboration from GitHub’s Matt Duff.
• Mozilla’s Myk Melez discusses how to integrate Offline Web Apps with GitHub Pages to host static assets.

Check out the full schedule of sessions here. See you tomorrow!

With the first ever GitHub Universe only a few short days away, we wanted to give you an overview of some of the cool stuff we have planned that you might have missed, and to make sure you’re prepared.

Transportation

• There will be no parking at Pier 70, so if you drive you will need to find parking in the Dogpatch nearby.
• If you choose to take Public transit, take the Muni T-line and exit at 3rd St & 20th St. Follow signs to the entrance.
• Bike valet will be available for cyclists as you approach the venue.
• Have your Uber driver enter the code UNIVERSE2015 in the “destination” field on your Uber app to take you directly to the front entrance of Pier 70 (420 22nd Street). New users of Uber will get $20 off transportation with this code!

The Main Event

• Pier 70 is a raw, industrial space. We recommend wearing closed toed shoes and bringing layers, as it might be cool in the morning and evening. It’s part of the adventure.
• To make GitHub Universe as accessible as possible, we will be providing ASL interpretation and a nursing room on site. If you are interested in ASL interpretation for a specific session, please email socialimpact@github.com and we will insure that interpretation services are available to you.
• Universe attendees will have the opportunity to sign up for a complimentary, 30 minute consultation conducted by our very own GitHub Services team, to discuss workflows, use cases, migrations, or any other Git topics you had in mind. If you're interested in joining us, please send an email to services@github.com. Since we have a limited number of sessions, attendees will be scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis.
• We have updated the Code of Conduct. Please review it here.
• Check out Gitter's Unofficial Hitchhiker's Guide to GitHub Universe, an app designed to help you connect with other Universe attendees! Meet likeminded people and form a dinner group.

After-party

• The after-party will take place on Thursday, October 1 at the Village (969 Market Street), beginning at 8pm and continuing until Midnight. Mike Relm and a special guest headliner will provide musical entertainment, while CODAME Art + Tech will treat us to some trippy interactive installations. Know someone who can't attend the conference but wants to join you at the afterparty? We are opening up a few tickets to the public for this event; you can grab those here.

Follow @githubuniverse for updates and live video during the show, and use the hashtag #githubuniverse to share photos and thoughts from the conference floor.

If you haven't got your ticket yet, you'd better get it quickly. We're almost sold out!

We can’t wait to see you there

If you’re inspired by collaborative software design, be sure to check out these GitHub Universe sessions, which will explore how open source continues to change the way developers build great software.

Building Communities Around Open Source Security Software

For the past year, Facebook has been building community trust and fostering empathy through the use of an open source security tool. Christine Abernathy and Teddy Reed will be sharing their experiences around osquery and their open source communities.

Christine Abernathy is a Developer Advocate on the Open Source team at Facebook, with previous Developer Advocacy roles with Parse and Facebook Platform. Teddy Reed is a Security Engineer at Facebook developing production security tools. He is passionate about open source and collaborative engineering when scale, resiliency, and performance enable defensive and protective software design.

Open Source Principles for Internal Engineering Teams

The open source process has proven adept at producing high quality software that can be built, maintained, and adapted at scale. Join Brandon Keepers, GitHub’s Open Source Evangelist, as he examines how “inner-sourcing”—adopting open source philosophies and workflows—can improve internal engineering teams.

An engineer by trade, Brandon Keepers believes open source is a fundamental to building great products, and great products sustain healthy open source projects.

The Importance of Positive Feedback

In the tech community, positive and constructive feedback is the foundation upon which we build a safe environment to learn, teach, and improve code skills. One Medical Group’s Enrique Mogollan explores why these environments have made the Ruby community attractive for many people.

Enrique Mogollan's experience as software engineer ranges from backend and web applications to integrations and open source projects. He believes that collaborative environments are the key to promote quality code and improve software design.

Check out the full schedule of sessions here. We hope to see you next week!

We wanted to involve sponsoring companies in memorable ways at or our inaugural GitHub Universe conference. On October 1-2, you can expect to enjoy art installations, delicious coffee and juice, comfortable lounges and entertainment contributed by these organizations. Check them out!

The official conference after-party at the Village, featuring interactive installations by CODAME, music by Mike Relm and surprise guests, is brought to you by Huawei.

Lounges are sponsored by Heroku, Microsoft, and AWS. Make sure to thank them when you’re kicking back and enjoying some quiet time on a comfy couch.

Our installation sponsors, Travis-CI, Waffle.io, Target, GitKraken, and Digital Ocean will integrate visual art into your GitHub Universe experience. Look for their logos in eye-catching designs around Pier 70. As our scavenger hunt sponsor, Twilio will engage you in an interactive search for clues that unlock one-of-a-kind prizes.

Compose.io will keep you caffeinated with delicious Ritual coffee. Stack Overflow will provide a gorgeous custom-branded notebook so you can jot down all the pearls of wisdom delivered to you by our great roster of speakers.

Appnovation and Cisco are also supporting Universe as community sponsors.

Interested in grabbing a last minute sponsorship? Take a look at the prospectus and shoot us an email to discuss how we can partner with you to make GitHub Universe even better.

You still have a chance to grab a ticket! Get yours now before we sell out.

You've been asking for it, and we're ready to share the complete GitHub Universe schedule. Each day will start off at 8:30AM with registration and breakfast. You'll want to be in your seat by 10AM for the opening keynotes from GitHub:

• Chris Wanstrath, Co-founder and CEO
• Nicole Sanchez, VP of Social Impact

Then you can hear from some of the industry's best thinkers in our featured sessions:

• Dr. Yvonne Pendleton, Director of SSERVI, NASA
• Kellan Elliot-McCrea, former CTO, Etsy
• Dr. Michael B. Johnson, Pre-production Software Architect, Pixar
• Anil Dash, Co-founder, Makerba.se
• Tiffani Ashley Bell, Co-founder & Executive Director, Detroit Water Project
• Marianna Tessel, SVP of Engineering, Docker
• Marco Annunziata, Chief Economist, GE

Packed into both days are 24 breakouts featuring people from across the tech community. Whether you want to learn best practices on collaboration directly from GitHub or hear how some of the best companies are building great software, Universe will keep you busy. Here are a handful of sessions you can look forward to:

• Democratic Deploys at Airbnb from Igor Serebryany, who will discuss Airbnb's process for shipping code efficiently and safely
• Building Communities Around Open Source Security Software from Christine Abernathy and Teddy Reed at Facebook.
• Pull requests, code review, and the GitHub flow from GitHub's own Brent Beer
• Metrics-driven Development from Spotify engineer and Python Foundation Board member, Lynn Root
• Keep your code secure with GitHub Security Best Practices from GitHub Services Engineer, Matt Duff

That's a sample of the full schedule. Also hear from speakers from Autodesk, GE, Target, Bloomberg, and Mozilla. Developer tool fans won't want to miss Josh Kalderimis, CEO of Travis CI, or James Smith, CEO of Bugsnag. You can even learn how to build desktop apps using web technologies with Electron.

And, of course, you are invited to an afterparty on Thursday, October 1st, with three floors of music, food, beverages, and plenty of space for socializing.

We have a couple other tricks up our sleeves that you'll just have to come to Universe to see. We hope you'll join us on October 1st and 2nd for our first conference to celebrate the GitHub community. If you need help getting to Universe, don't forget about our scholarship program.

Tickets are still available, we'll see you in a couple weeks.

As VP of GitHub's Social Impact team, I am thrilled to share some news about our upcoming conference.

Conferences like GitHub Universe represent an opportunity for people from all over the tech community to come together to explore the challenges faced by software developers worldwide. When a wide range of points of view are represented, the value of the conversation increases.

However, the average cost of a conference ticket can create a barrier to entry for some, and the Social Impact team believes it is critical to break down those barriers for groups that have been excluded from tech and the open source community.

We couldn’t be prouder to have partnered with the following organizations to distribute GitHub Universe tickets:

• Avión Ventures
• Black Star Media
• Brioxy
• ChickTech Bay Area
• CODE2040
• Hackbright Academy
• Lesbians Who Tech
• Maven
• RailsBridge SF
• Year Up Bay Area

We’ve also instituted a scholarship program to make tickets available on an individual basis to those who might otherwise have difficulty attending the conference. If you’d like to apply for a scholarship ticket, please send an email to socialimpact@github.com, detailing how you will benefit from going to GitHub Universe.

Want to help out? Head over to the registration page and buy a scholarship ticket that will then be donated to a worthy applicant.

I hope to see you in the audience at my GitHub Universe session! Don't forget, if you want to book a hotel room at the discounted rate, today is the last day to do it, so grab your ticket and your room now.

GitHub Universe will feature over 30 speakers from a wide range of industries. These technical leaders will share how their teams collaborate and build great software. We've got a preview of some of the amazing speakers that will be joining us on October 1st and 2nd in San Francisco. You can find the complete list of announced speakers at githubuniverse.com.

Keynotes and featured speakers

We'll start each day at Universe with keynotes from GitHub and featured speakers from world renowned software organizations. From making movies to discovering objects in space, you'll hear how these teams collaborate:

• Chris Wanstrath, Co-founder and CEO, GitHub
• Dr. Yvonne Pendleton, Director of SSERVI, NASA
• Dr. Michael B. Johnson, Pre-production Software Architect, Pixar
• Nicole Sanchez, VP of Social Impact, GitHub

Speakers from the whole community

Not only will both days be packed with sessions from GitHub, but you'll also get to see the full spectrum of the GitHub community. Open source teams, enterprise customers, and partners are all coming together to share their experiences.

• Hima Mukkamala, Executive Director of Software Engineering, GE Software
• Josh Kalderimis, Co-founder and CEO, Travis CI
• Bill Walker, Senior Manager, Mozilla
• Christine Abernathy, Open Source Developer Advocate, Facebook
• Dan Cundiff, Lead Software Consultant, Target

And that's just the start. Stay tuned to githubuniverse.com and @githubuniverse for the complete list of speakers and full scheduling coming soon.

If you haven't grabbed a ticket to Universe, it's not too late. Get your ticket before they sell out.

GitHub Universe is bringing the GitHub community together on October 1st & 2nd at Pier 70 in San Francisco. Universe is two full days on how to build, collaborate, and deploy great software presented by GitHub.

Tickets

The first batch of tickets is now on sale for $399! Grab yours before this limited release is gone, and prices increase by $200 on September 1st. While you're at it, you can purchase a scholarship ticket, which will then be granted to someone from an underrepresented community who would be unable to attend otherwise.

Sessions

Universe will take place over two days, packed with content:

• 2 Keynotes, including GitHub Co-founder & CEO, Chris Wanstrath
• 6 Featured sessions from industry leaders
• 24 Breakout sessions from customers, partners, and members of the GitHub community

In addition to sessions from GitHub engineers and trainers about Enterprise, security and the GitHub flow, you'll hear from organizations like NASA, Mozilla, Target, and Travis CI on technical deep-dives, best practices, case studies, and more.

Hotel

If you're coming from out of town, book a discounted room at the W San Francisco while they last. Quantity is limited and the discount period ends September 11th.

Great software is about more than just code. GitHub Universe is a celebration comprised of two full days of sessions, activities, and collaboration with the most vibrant software community. Part festival, part conference, GitHub Universe is not to be missed. Will you be there?

We're hosting Hackcon III at our San Francisco office on July 18th and 19th.

Hackcon is the place to be for student hackathon organizers. The event is run by our friends at Major League Hacking and will bring together 150 student leaders for two days of talks and workshops. Participants will share experience and best practices in everything from starting a campus group to producing large scale campus events.

If you lead a student hacker community at your university, we'd love to see you at Hackcon. You can find more information about the event and pre-register at hackcon.io. You can also check out the videos from Hackcon I and Hackcon II on YouTube.

CodeConf is next week, and I couldn't be more excited to bring the open source community together to exchange ideas and have some fun in Nashville. There are a few updates I'd like to share:

• On June 24, the day before the conference, we'll be hosting a meet & greet for attendees who would like to register early. This event is free and open to the public, so if you aren't attending CodeConf but live in the Nashville area and would like to stop by, grab a ticket here. We'll be congregating on the second floor of Acme Feed & Seed downtown beginning at 5:30pm

• The workshop schedule has been updated, and I have opened up more space in each session for those interested. If you'd like to snag one of the newly available tickets, go for it!

There's still time to grab a CodeConf ticket. Take a look at the website for the full schedule of sessions, workshops, and sponsors. I hope to see you in Nashville.

CodeConf is coming June 25 & 26 to Nashville and will feature the best that the open source community has to offer.

We're excited to share that there will be several talks about the Atom ecosystem presented for your enjoyment and edification, kicked off by GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath. Speakers will include:

• @bolinfest talking about Nuclide
• @lee-dohm talking about the Atom community
• @paulcbetts talking about Slack and Electron

We will also be hosting an Atom workshop led by Nathan Sobo, and a lounge where you will be able to meet with the core team and hack on Atom together.

Grab your CodeConf and workshop tickets now and we'll see you there in Nashville!

When a diverse set of presenters and participants comes together for a conference, everyone benefits from the variety of experiences, perspectives and voices in the room. We realize, however, that ticket costs can sometimes be prohibitive for individuals from underrepresented groups. That's why we've partnered with six fantastic organizations to distribute CodeConf tickets to their members. Each one has a mission to connect, support and/or educate people from backgrounds underrepresented in tech. This will help us build a diverse audience and a great experience for everyone.

Our partner groups have shared a little more about their work and upcoming projects, as well as details of how they're distributing their CodeConf tickets. Read on to get inspired, involved, and potentially grab a ticket for yourself, and remember too that you can help on a personal level by choosing to purchase the "scholarship" ticket option on the registration page.

Black Girls CODE

Black Girls CODE is an international non-profit that empowers young women of color to enter the tech space as builders and creators by introducing them to coding and technology. www.blackgirlscode.org

Upcoming events:

• June 19th - 21st: All Girls Hackathon, Oakland
• June 20th: Oracle Academy's Greenfoot brought to you by Black Girls CODE, Memphis
• June 20th: Introduction to Javascript Workshop, New York
• July 24th-26th: All Girls Hackathon, New York
• July: 1 week summer camps, Raleigh, NC and Washington D.C.
• August: 1 week summer camps, Bay Area and New York

Ticket Details: We will be distributing our tickets directly to the Black Girls CODE network.

Coding While Black

Coding While Black is headquartered in Chicago; our focus is code education, professional development, and entrepreneurship. We welcome blacks in technology from around the globe to become active members of a growing community that supports, encourages, and connects black technology professionals. Members can post articles, share events, find other black technology professionals to connect with, and enjoy community features. www.codingwhileblack.com

Ticket details: Coding While Black is excited to partner in promoting CodeConf to a diverse audience. We will be distributing the tickets by sharing them with members who have volunteered with us and/or have been active participants in our community.

Girl Geek Dinner Nashville

The Nashville chapter of Girl Geek Dinner was founded with the goal to encourage and inspire Nashville’s young women and girls to pursue technology careers. Girl Geek Dinners have grown into an international movement. The ask is simple to sponsors — buy dinner and drinks for girl geeks, invite speakers and encourage networking amongst the girl geeks. www.ggdnashville.com

Upcoming events:

• June 5th: Eventbrite is hosting our next Girl Geek Dinner where they are flying in 3 Software Engineers and a Product Manager to Nashville to give lighting tech talks.

• Third Thursday of every month: Code & Pinot night is a great opportunity for beginner programmers to come out and get a taste of what programming is like. Bring your favorite wine and learn to code! Food provided.

Ticket details: We plan to distribute the tickets to our Girl Geeks through a coding contest and drawing. Coding contest: the first to give the correct answer will get a ticket. Drawing: we will randomly select a winner from contest entries.

Lesbians Who Tech

Lesbians Who Tech is a global community of 9,000 queer women in tech. It exists to provide value to queer women in tech, a demographic that is rarely represented in both the tech community and the LGBTQ community. We've hosted events in 22 cities worldwide and focus on connecting our community, increasing visibility and increasing women in tech and leadership positions. www.lesbianswhotech.org

Upcoming events:

• August 27th-30th: Lesbians Who Tech (and allies) European Summit, Berlin
• October 1st-4th: Tech & Innovation Summit, NYC

Ticket details: We'll be offering the tickets through Lesbians Who Tech chapters in the Midwest

Rails Girls Atlanta

Rails Girls Atlanta is an encouraging place for women to take the plunge into learning to code. We host monthly meetups and socials where dev-minded ladies can ask questions, learn from others, and get the support they need to be successful. www.meetup.com/Rails-Girls-Atlanta

Upcoming events:

• June 1st: All the Nerdy Ladies Social at Joystick. No agenda, just a time to visit and catch up with other nerdy lady types.

Ticket details: We’re planning to raffle off the tickets at our May meetup.

Trans*H4CK

Trans*H4CK is a hackathon and speaker series that tackles social problems by developing new and useful open source tech products that benefit the trans and gender non-conforming communities, while bringing visibility to transgender tech innovators and entrepreneurs.

We are planning to launch an online hackathon space this year--stay tuned! http://www.transhack.org

Ticket details: We will be distributing our CodeConf tickets through the Trans*H4CK network.

CodeConf 2015 will take place in Nashville on June 25 and 26. Ariel Waldman is one of many incredible speakers that will take the stage at the Bell Tower to share her expertise. We asked her some questions about her experiences at NASA, her vision for the future, and more. Check out her answers below!

Q: Why is collaboration important to you, and how do you think it can further scientific exploration and discovery?

A: To me, multidisciplinary collaboration is at the heart of furthering scientific exploration and discovery. In my work, I especially focus on unusual collaborations between people from different backgrounds. By having a fresh set of eyes from those who solve problems across a wide range of industries, new concepts emerge and go on to influence scientific processes, communication and discoveries in unexpected ways. Science doesn't require serendipity, but I'd argue it's significantly disadvantaged without it.

Q: You spoke at the very first CodeConf in 2011, and we’re excited to have you back since you’ve been doing so much exciting stuff in the meantime. What was your experience of CodeConf 2011, and what are you looking forward to seeing at CodeConf 2015?

A: CodeConf was fantastic. The community was so excited to have a wide range of topics at a "code" conference and I think it really helped open everyone up to new opportunities and aspirations. I think what made CodeConf 2011, and what will make CodeConf 2015, so special was the unexpected connections people end up drawing and a broadening of how big the universe to play in is.

Q: GitHub had the pleasure of hosting Science Hack Day in 2014, and we’ll do so again this year. What is the purpose of Science Hack Day, and what were some of the most exciting projects to come out of that event?

A: The mission of Science Hack Day is to get excited and make things with science! Science Hack Day is a 2-day-all-night event where anyone excited about making weird, silly or serious things with science comes together in the same physical space to see what they can prototype within 24 consecutive hours. Designers, developers, scientists and anyone who is excited about making things with science are welcome to attend – no experience in science or hacking is necessary, just an insatiable curiosity.

One of the projects I loved that came out of the Science Hack Day SF at GitHub last year was an interactive planetarium where you could explore the distance between stars, planets and constellations using your hands via a Kinect. I loved the idea of making a planetarium more physical. Because the code was made open source on GitHub, the project was then hacked on further and installed as a temporary exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, where school kids, families and even an astronaut got to try it out!

Q: Tell us about NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC). How can we participate in and contribute to the vision of this project?

A: NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is arguably the coolest program at NASA - they fund and nurture all the radical, sci-fi-esque ideas that could one day transform future space missions. Submarines on Titan, human hibernation to Mars, comet hitchhiking space probes, you name it. Some utilize computer science and computer vision techniques – one project analyzes light versus dark areas on the Moon so that a lunar rover could navigate staying in continuous sunlight, thus able to be more efficient by having continuous solar power. The cool thing about NIAC is that they accept proposals from anyone every year around October, so if you have a credible idea you'd like to do further research and prototyping on that could transform a future space mission, you can apply!

Follow Ariel on Twitter for more updates on all of her projects, and grab your CodeConf ticket now! We can't wait to see you in Nashville next month.