Salt Lake City is the birthplace of the Agile Manifesto. The Agile Roots conference mission is to refocus on the original Agile values, reflect on what’s happened in Agile in the last 8 years, and explore current directions. We believe the original values are sound and wish to promote them as a starting point for companies transitioning to Agile.

The Agile Roots conference is being organized by:

	Andrew Shafer Andrew Shafer is a partner at Reductive Labs where he works developing and evangelizing Puppet, the open source system automation framework. Since 2004, he has been a regular participant in the Salt Lake City Agile Roundtable and a team member or manager in an Agile setting. Andrew brings with him a background in computational science, embedded Linux, database administration, web frameworks, and operations. In addition to technical expertise, Andrew is focused on finding ways to balance prescriptive processes with the uniqueness of projects and teams. When he’s not playing with his sons, hacking in his basement or speaking at conferences, Andrew instigates events like Agile Roots and Ignite Salt Lake. You can find his ranting and self-deprecating humor about system automation, Agile methods, Open Source business models and cloud computing at twitter.com/littleidea. [ andrew@agileroots.com ]
	Kay Johansen Kay Johansen has experienced unforgettably rewarding team dynamics when applying the agile principles to software development, testing, and management. She has ten years of experience leading agile teams, consulting, and coaching, leads the XP Utah users group, has presented at XP/Agile conferences since 2001 and served on several Agile conference committees. Kay believes that work, freedom and fellowship are fundamental to the human purpose and appreciates the agile community’s contribution to her richness of life. [ kay@agileroots.com ]
	Nate Jones Nate Jones is a principal at Skybend, a Utah-based Agile product design and development consultancy. Nate has been an active member of the Salt Lake Agile Roundtable since its inception. He is always searching for new, and sometimes unorthodox, ways to apply Agile principles to his passions for business, visual design, and software development. He brings a dozen years of experience at all levels and in all facets of software development; developer in corporate America, hacker in the basement, project and product manager, and sponsor. Nate spends his time now as a serial entrepreneur, with his hands in multiple ventures at any given moment. He brings this business mindset to Agile; ensuring business value is not lost in the process. [ nate@agileroots.com ]