Citrix Converge 2021, our global technical conference, opens at 9 a.m. on Monday, October 25. Over the course of four days, you’ll have access to dozens of keynote and breakout sessions, panels, workshops, and labs featuring experts from Citrix, our partners, and customers, covering the breadth of Citrix technology. There’s a lot on the Converge agenda. Read on for a comprehensive guide to getting the most out of Converge.

Register for Converge

Most importantly, you must be registered for Converge to attend sessions, enter the hackathon, and network with the community. Register, right here, right now!

The Citrix Developer Event Platform

If you attended any of our Citrix Developer Focus events earlier this year, you used our new event platform, built on Swapcard, that will be hosting Citrix Converge 2021. The good people at Swapcard have created a short video that explains the various features. It’s well worth watching to orient yourself before you dive in!

Swapcard also has an FAQ that answers many common questions, and you can use the Help Desk and Info Hub within the event platform to get help during Converge.

Citrix Converge 2021 Schedule

The conference runs for four days, from Monday, October 25, to Thursday, October 28. Each day’s sessions begin at 9 a.m. EDT (UTC–04:00). Although the event platform will show you session times in your local time zone, all times in this article are in EDT.

“Day zero,” on Monday, October 25, has two components:

  • The Business of Development: Partner-focused sessions aimed at helping you build your business working with Citrix.
  • Workshops and Labs: You’ll learn new skills from subject matter experts in our hands-on workshops and have exclusive access to a selection of self-study labs from the Citrix Education catalog.

The main body of the conference, from Tuesday October 26, to Thursday, October 28, is organized around three technical tracks corresponding to key areas of Citrix technology:

Keynote Sessions

The Converge keynotes cover the broad themes and topics of the conference. These short, must-see sessions will give you the big picture on working with Citrix technology today and into the future.

Delivering the Workspace – Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere!
Tuesday, Oct. 26, 9 a.m.
Kicking off the first day of technical sessions, Citrites Christian Reilly, VP of Technology Strategy and Pat Patterson, Director of Evangelism, will be joined by Citrix Technical Professional (CTP) and independent consultant Leee Jeffries to review the year since Converge 2020 and announce a new community program. You will not want to miss this session — add it to your agenda in Swapcard!

Enhancing Productivity and the Future of Work at Citrix
Monday, Oct. 25, 9 a.m.
Citrix CIO Meerah Rajavel will explain how Citrix uses its own technology to gain competitive advantage. Whether you call it “eating our own dogfood”, or “drinking our own champagne”, you’ll gain a unique insight into how Citrix is enhancing productivity and implementing the future of work.

Simplify Access and Increase Workforce Agility with Citrix Work Solutions
Wednesday, Oct. 27, 9 a.m.
Jay Tomlin, product management leader for Citrix Workspace, will explain how Citrix Work Solutions is evolving as a platform to provide organizations with everything they need to simplify access to information, adapt quickly to change, and empower users to do their best work.

Virtual Apps and Desktops Keynote
Wednesday, Oct. 27, 9 a.m.
Calvin Hsu, VP of Product Management for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, will provide an update on Virtual Apps and Desktops products and strategy, and make an important announcement regarding the CVAD REST API.

App Delivery and Security Keynote
Wednesday Oct 27, 9am
Citrix VP of Product Management Abhilash Verma will explain how the recently launched Citrix App Delivery and Security Service simplifies app delivery for modern cloud-based workloads and provide insight into how AD&S targets use cases related to automation, Kubernetes, application and API security, and public clouds.

Note that the three track keynotes run concurrently at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, October 27. Pick your favorite to watch live and come back for the recordings of the others.

Flourishing in a time of unprecedented change
Thursday, Oct. 28, 2:20pm
Industry analyst firm Redmonk was founded in 2002 with a unique focus on technical professionals — the developers, designers, DBAs, sysadmins and operators who work hands-on with technology. Redmonk co-founder and analyst James Governor has spent the nearly 20 years since then helping companies understand and work with their communities of coders, scripters, and builders.

In a closing keynote with a difference, James literally walks a path from the industrial revolution to the COVID-19 pandemic via post-World War II reconstruction and the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Here’s a sneak peek at what to expect:

Hackathon and Challenges

Just as Converge has evolved from its original focus on microapps to cover the entire range of Citrix technology, this year our hackathon and challenges give everyone a chance to measure their skills against their peers to win some great prizes.

Converge Innovation Hackathon

Regardless of whether you’re a coder, scripter, builder, or none of the above, our hackathon will give you the opportunity to explore the many aspects of enabling a hybrid work environment and the experience of completing day-to-day tasks within it. You’ll form a team of up to four members to tackle a challenge from one of our four hackathon themes:

  • Reimagining Hybrid Work with Podio and Microapps
  • Securing the Unbounded Workspace
  • Providing Access to Anyone Anywhere
  • The Future of Work

Read the blog post, Reimagine work in a hybrid world at our Citrix Converge 2021 hackathon, for more details on the first theme; the Converge Hackathons and Challenges session (Tuesday, October 26, 9:30 a.m.) and the Hackathon and Challenges area of the event platform will give more details on all four themes.

MacBook Pro

We have an awesome prize for each member of the top three teams in the student, Citrite, and general classes:

There will also be a special prize for the best Podio/Microapps integration. We’re looking forward to see how you leverage Podio as your microapp’s system of record!

Many thanks to the Citrix Engineering organization for supplying their architects and engineers as mentors!

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Scripting Challenge

Whether you’re a PowerShell novice or a REST API expert, you’ll be able to compete as an individual against your peers in the community, tracking down resources and solving puzzles in a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Service environment. There will be ‘Apprentice’, ‘Artisan’, and ‘Virtuoso’ challenges to match your skill level, with prizes for first, second and third in each category (US Dollar values):

. Apprentice Artisan Virtuoso
First $300 $600 $1000
Second $150 $300 $500
Third $75 $150 $250

In addition, there is a special prize of $500 in the Virtuoso category for the script with the fewest characters that correctly solves the challenge. Winners will be able to select from a range of prizes at their prize level, including gift cards in their local currency.

You can find out more about the scripting challenge in the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Scripting Challenge session on Monday, October 26, 11 a.m.

Converge Pop Quiz

Pay close attention to the Converge sessions you attend — we’ll be testing your observation and memory in our Converge Pop Quiz. Three sessions a day on each track will be followed by a multiple-choice question. Each correct entry will give you an entry in that day’s draw. We’ll draw three winners each day to win prizes at the $100 level.

Come to the Converge Hackathons and Challenges session (Tuesday, October 27, 9:30 a.m.) and check out the Hackathon and Challenges area of the event platform for more details of the pop quiz and all the other competitive events. We wish you the best of luck!

Workshops

As well as a full schedule of business-focused sessions, day zero, Monday, October 25, features a range of workshops and labs.

Build the Future of Work with Podio and Microapps
Monday, Oct. 25, 9 a.m.
A must-attend workshop, whether or not you’re planning to compete in the “Reimagine Work in a Hybrid World” hackathon. You’ll get hands-on with Citrix Podio and Citrix Workspace microapps, and learn how best to integrate them, no code required!

Getting Started with Terraform
Mon, Oct. 25, 11:30 a.m.
Curious about automation and DevOps? Looking to leverage the Terraform provider for Citrix ADC? Get hands-on with Terraform and explore the world of infrastructure-as-code.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Service Recommendation Engine
Mon, Oct. 25, 2 p.m.
Calling Virtual Apps and Desktops experts! The CVAD team is building a Netflix-style recommendation engine for CVAD Service customers. They’ve created a dataset containing details of different customer environments and are crowdsourcing feature/settings recommendations from subject matter experts. This is a great opportunity to participate in the creation of a key product feature!

Exclusive Access to Citrix Education Labs

Citrix Converge attendees will have free access to a selection of Citrix Education labs covering Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Service and Citrix ADC for a limited period. You’ll also be able to claim a special discount for an All-Access Learning Subscription to access all of the labs, all year round.

Panels

Orthogonal to the three product-focused tracks, Converge covers several key themes. Our live and pre-recorded panels bring together industry experts to discuss four of these them.

Citrix Partners: What are Customers Asking?
Monday, Oct. 25, 2 p.m.
Citrix executives Nick Rintalan, Group Director of Solution Strategy and Architecture, Chris Fleck, VP of Technology, and Pat Patterson, Director of Developer Evangelism (and your humble author) will join Satya Mallya, Director of Partner Solutions and Monetization, to give their perspective on customers’ technology needs and how our developer ecosystem plays an essential role in meeting them.

Security: Security Solutions for Today and the Future
Tuesday, Oct. 26, 1:30 p.m.
Another all-Citrix panel: security specialists Alexa Reubens, Abhilash Verma, Christian Reilly, and Kurt Roemer join moderator Mahesh Damojipurapu to discuss the security needs they’ve seen at customers, how Citrix and its partners are tackling those requirements, and how the world of security might evolve in the future.

CloudOps & DevOps: DevOps for the Citrix Admin
Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2 p.m.
Our panelists Mandi Walls, DevOps Advocate at PagerDuty, Brandan O’Leary, Staff Developer Evangelist at GitLab, Matty Stratton, Staff Developer Advocate at Pulumi, and Matthew Malecki, Director of Pipeline and Engineering Experience in the Engineering Productivity Organization at Citrix, have collectively worked in the fields of automation and DevOps for decades, across enterprises, partners, and vendors. Pat Patterson will challenge them to demystify DevOps and illuminate automation.

Women in Technology: Women in the Citrix Ecosystem
Thursday, Oct. 28, 10:30 a.m.
Esther Barthel, CTP and independent consultant, will join Citrix executives Liz Fuller, VP, Alliance Marketing and Strategic Programs, Alysia Eve, Director of Product Marketing for Citrix Workspace, and Tricia Atchison, Managing Director, Worldwide Partner Enablement & Marketing, to discuss how women in the Citrix Ecosystem navigate and succeed in their leadership roles in tech while encouraging and amplifying each other’s voices as mentors and business leaders.

Ask the Architects

You’ll have a rare opportunity to pose your trickiest technical questions to the architects responsible for Citrix technologies. Do not miss these live sessions!

A Big Thank You to our Sponsors!

Finally, we would like to thank this year’s wonderful sponsors, without whom Citrix Converge would not be possible.

Platinum Sponsor: Venafi

Venafi logo

Venafi is the cybersecurity market leader in and the inventor of machine identity management, securing machine-to-machine connections and communications. Venafi protects machine identity types by orchestrating cryptographic keys and digital certificates for SSL/TLS, SSH, code signing, mobile and IoT. Venafi provides global visibility of machine identities and the risks associated with them for the extended enterprise — on premises, mobile, virtual, cloud and IoT — at machine speed and scale. Venafi puts this intelligence into action with automated remediation that reduces the security and availability risks connected with weak or compromised machine identities while safeguarding the flow of information to trusted machines and preventing communication with machines that are not trusted.

Learn how Venafi integrates with the Citrix ADM service to streamline SSL/TLS certificate management across ADC instances in Eliminating Outages with Venafi & Citrix ADM Cloud on Tuesday, October 26, 11 a.m., and join their roundtable discussion, Prevent outages before they impact your business, on Tuesday, October 26. You’ll be able to ask your questions and get answers on machine identity management from existing Venafi and Citrix users. Venafi will also be giving away two Star Wars LEGO kits, so you won’t want to miss this session!

Gold Sponsor: RawWorks

RawWorks logo

RawWorks is dedicated to making the users’ lives easier. Using the “Mission One” strategy, RawWorks focuses on delivering a digital cloud-based workspace where users can work from just one place – named #OneApp – with workflows available under just one click, named #OneClick. At RawWorks we believe in this new world, where user-centricity is key and business processes are boosted by workspace and cloud technology. RawWorks thoroughly inspects everything that we do and try to avoid the traditional approach. You could call it a bit contrary.

Perennial Converge speakers and hackathon competitors, the RawWorks team are presenting four sessions this year:

Gold Sponsor: Brick Bridge Consulting

Brick Bridge Logo

Brick Bridge Consulting is a Citrix Solutions Advisor working primarily within the Citrix Work Solutions portfolio. Born in 2016 and located in Louisville, Kentucky, Brick Bridge partners with innovative organizations to create world-class enterprise solutions and industry leading software products that influence the future of work. Brick Bridge designs, developments & implements Citrix Workspace, Citrix Podio, Wrike, ShareFile, & RightSignature (Citrix Content Collaboration). Brick Bridge also produces the Citrix Developer Solutions Podcast as well as Citrix Workspace YouTube content. The podcast can be found on all major services and covers a range of Citrix Work Solutions topics for developers interested in Podio, Workspace, Wrike, Content Collaboration, DaaS, and more.

Gil Roberts, Director of Operations at Brick Bridge, will be explaining how developers using Citrix Work Solutions products can build human-centered solutions in Human Centered Workflow Design on Tuesday, October 26, 3:30 p.m.

See You at Converge

It’s going to be a packed four days. Register now to ensure you don’t miss out!