Despite having very long days and trying to absorb hours upon hours of information, I continue to be amazed by the energy and excitement our attendees bring to Moscone each day. You have treated each day as if we were kicking off a brand new conference – and we appreciate it! The expo floors have been electric and the topics I keep hearing from our attendees involve the value and importance of training and the need for building out security operations.
Today’s keynotes featured author Peter Sims, Cisco’s Christopher Young and Padmasree Warrior, Qualys’ Philippe Courtot, FireEye’s Kevin Mandia and Scott Harrison of charity: water. For those that attended, Scott explained how seven years ago he founded charity: water with a mission to bring clean drinking water to every person on the planet living without it.
Learn from Scott's personal journey from New York City nightlife to building an organization that’s funded over 9,000 water projects in 20 countries. As many of you now know, this week we offered the charity: water challenge in the Sandbox and I am proud to announce that today we hit our target! During this challenge we had 300 attendees walk with a jerry can of water, simulating the conditions for those who have to struggle for clean water each day. Thanks to you, RSA Conference will fund two water projects in Nepal, each of which will serve 400 students! Additionally, Scott presented another way for the RSA Conference community to contribute. No act of kindness is too small and now you can reach out, provide ideas, donate on behalf of someone’s birthday or anniversary, or perform a valiant act of kindness on behalf of charity: water. If you are interested in participating please contact charity: water via rsa@charitywater.org so that they can track the cyber security industry’s contributions.
Yesterday I announced that RSA Conference has joined the STEM Education Coalition (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) with the goal of helping to drive innovation in cyber security with the next generation of students. At this year’s conference we are challenging our community of public and private cyber-security companies to join this mission with us by becoming a STEM Education Coalition member. With a goal of uniting 20 of our exhibitors to the cause, the cost of membership goes directly to funds that lobby Congress on education policy and deliver curriculum to teachers. TripWire stepped forward immediately to join the cause and today we welcome ThreatTrack to the cause. Thank you ThreatTrack!
I hope that many of you will take some time to relax and join us at Flash Talks Powered by PechaKucha and at the CodeBreaker’s Bash!