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Challenges of Setting Up a Security Conference
Orome1 writes "The founder of the SecurityByte conference talks about his motivations for organizing such an event in his native country and what he hopes it will achieve. He shares knowledge regarding the differences between the organization processes involved when setting up this type of event in India as opposed to North America, which he says have a lot to do with the fact that there is lack of awareness about security in India, and that the majority of such events held there are mostly vendor-driven and free for visitors."
My speakers are non functional.
TL;DL version will be equally good
In the third world country where I live in, vendor-driven and free events usually have their marketing guys do all the talking. This means biased information. On the other hand, paid events are the ones that have real knowledgeable guys in it. Unfotunately we rarely have such events since the price to have a very knowledgeable speaker in it is very high and only few people will certainly attend. The price is usually higher than an average sysadmins or developers salary (not employed in the top 100 companies in the country or converted 650USD a month). Affordable events do happen but in my experience there is always this one guy in the crowd that is more knowledgeable than the speaker (asks more indepth questions, disagreeing with the facts of the speaker with much more citations, etc.). The best option over here is just to find free webinars of past notable events. Of course you don't get to ask questions but the knowledge that is gained is priceless.
Makes sense to me. Huge software industry in India, some of them not so good, but definitely there will be some trying to improve their practice. More companies will send employees if it's a local conference rather than an international one: cheaper, more accessible. India's a big enough place to have the demand.
Did anyone recognize that the guy on the picture looks completely nuts? Is this perhaps the reason why setting up a security conference is a challenge for him? Just speculating, since I don't have speakers....
I find this statement dubious given that it is in this US of A where a hospital was forcced to turn away patients because of a [simple] virus.
Lets remember that out beloved Google has also stored "sensitive" data in plain text. In fact there was a submission here at Slashdot....and... this site lists a litany of security breaches all of which happened in (you guessed it)..the USA.
Just bacause things are messed up in one place does not mean they are not more messed up in another place.
Have you ever been to India? I have, despite what Indians like to tell people it's very much a third world country with open sewers, piles of rubbish, and rats all over the place. It's hard to believe that they would have any great interest in computer security given the other problems they have.
Why is organizing a security conference in India newsworthy?
I have been to Philadelphia and Detroit so trust me on this:
If I had just fallen to earth (into these two cities) from some planet, after having heard that the the USA is #1, I would be very disappointed. Here's why:
These two cities were just as rotten as any 3rd world city. Save for one thing, the rats. Sadly they are still rotten.
USA isn't #1 in almost anything... (Wikipedia links for speed)
You'll find them usually in the top 25 or so as a 1st world country, but I've rarely if ever seen them as #1 in any statistics...
Human Development Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
Education Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index
Per capita GDP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
The OP never claimed that the USA is #1.
I've been to Detroit, and while it's not nearly as nice as Berlin or Seattle, it's still much better than the overcrowded and disorganized Indian cities.
I Didn't really read the article (if it was readable text at all, or was it audio)? But I assume that the challenge of setting up a security conference, must be making the wifi and other stuff secure, with all those hackers attending who want to prove something.
>> the majority of such events held there are mostly vendor-driven and free for visitors.
What? Nearly all security conferences in the US are free for visitors. Even if there's a posted charge, you can almost always get free admission by promising to talk to a sponsoring vendor there. (Most sponsoring vendors either get a set number of free tickets to the event or consider a few hundred bucks to meet a real live prospect the price of doing business.)
Also, most security conferences in the US (e.g., RSA) are driven by vendors. The big vendors set the agenda, are encouraged to weave (non-overt) product pitches into the educational side of the conference and get priority access to attendee lists and attendee behavior so they can sell more effectively to those groups after the event.
Don't believe me? Make some friends in your company's marketing department and ask for yourself...
I don't know much about setting up a security conference... ...but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
I have been to India. I have lived there and worked there. I even ran my own business there doing digital graphic design and image processing when it was just getting started.
As regards to India, along side the "open sewers, piles of rubbish, and rats all over the place," you will also find computer training centers all over the place. Practically every nook and corner and hole in the wall in all but the remotest villages has some sort of computer training center. And then the Indian public education system produces legions of top-notch graduates in the maths and sciences, including computer science. This despite all the "open sewers, piles of garbage and rats."
One thing to remember is that societies are always changing, and so is Indian society. One thing Indians have that America (for example) is losing, is a reverence for education. In India it is regarded as a privilege, not a right (despite the government's best effort to make it one), and because it's regarded as a privilege (that is, you aren't entitled to it if you don't deserve it), the Indian education system produces a lot of very, very smart and talented people in the science, engineering, health care, and business sectors. America, on the other hand, is floundering in its educational initiatives and is moving in the direction of producing more lawyers and massage therapists.
There will come a day when America will feature plenty of its own "open sewers, piles of garbage, and rats," because it is losing the very values that made it a great world power. India, on the other hand, is rediscovering those values.
The real motivation for all conferences is to make $$. Anyone who organizes a conference with any other purpose in mind is misleading himself. The goal is to get all the 'experts' and other loudmouths to show up so that everyone else thinks it's important to be there. It's just like a rave, sans MDMA.
There will come a day when America will feature plenty of its own "open sewers, piles of garbage, and rats," ...
New Orleans?...