Happy New Year! a peek at the year ahead

Last year was an eventful one —we were acquired by Snyk, hosted four global conferences, and merged with The Secure Developer to create a consistently engaging community – MyDevSecOps.

The year ahead promises to be even more exciting with community growth as our main focus.

We’re happy to share some of the things we have in store for 2020. Be sure to keep an eye on our blog, as we share more details on each of the changes below.

TL;DR

• We’re growing!
• My DevSecOps
• Conference format changes
  • Community Corner
  • More community speakers
  • Sponsor Stage
  • Welcome reception & farewell hour
• Green Initiative
• We’re going swagless
• Help us support Australia relief efforts
• Diversity & Inclusion program
  • Travel & accommodations now included
  • Buddy program

We’re growing! Last year, we held four conferences: Singapore, Seattle, Tel Aviv, and London. This year, we’re returning to Singapore, Boston, Seattle, Tel Aviv, and London, with the addition of Sydney, as well as, a virtual conference. With these new additions, we’ll have seven annual conferences, two of them taking place in the US!

Our community is expanding. Last year, we made a big announcement at DevSecCon London. DevSecCon has merged with The Secure Developer, a global community connecting developers, security, and operators, to create MyDevSecOps. This is a place for all of you to engage and share your knowledge and best practices in an open and collaborative way, year round. We also have a Slack channel, dedicated to your conference-specific questions. So, If you’re a security enthusiast and you want to learn more on how to become a secure developer, then this community is for you! Join our Slack channel, introduce yourself, and stay updated on all things DevSecCon and DevSecOps.

Community Corner. If you attended DevSecCon London, you probably saw our new Community Corner. This serves as a place for our community to meet, learn and engage over and above the main sessions of the conference.  We’ll be running a number of different sessions, such as the “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) with industry experts, open source maintainer round table discussions and hacks. We’ll continue building on this foundation in 2020 to provide opportunities for learning and community engagement. Stay tuned on our Slack channel for announcements as the agenda for each Community Corner is released.

More community speakers. At the end of each conference, we always ask for your feedback to help us create the best conference experience for you, and your comments have been truly invaluable! You’ve asked for more community speakers on the main stage as well as fresh, new content. We heard you loud and clear and we’re happy to announce that’s exactly what we are doing in 2020! The main stage agenda is now dedicated exclusively to community speakers, with the addition of a new Sponsor Stage in the Expo Hall, where all sponsored talks take place.

Welcome reception & farewell hour. To kick off each conference, we invite you to join us the night before for a Welcome Reception where you reunite with old friends, make new ones and welcome new attendees. We also want to close things out with a final networking hour to say our goodbyes (but it’s never really goodbye!). We hope to see you at both events!

Green Initiative. In 2019, we did our best to be environmentally responsible. In 2020, we‘re renewing our dedication, time and resources to do better. When you attend DevSecCon this year, you’ll see some changes. We’re eliminating single-use signage and going digital when possible or creating signs that are possible to use year-round. We also eliminated plastic from our catering services and are partnering with local green organizations. It’s just the beginning!

We’re going (nearly) swagless. In past conferences, you’ve grown to expect a certain number of swag items. This year, in celebration of our Green Initiative, we’re replacing swag with the opportunity to help us support local causes. During registration, you have the option to choose a t-shirt or a donation to a local organization in lieu of swag.

In support of Australia. For our Sydney conference, we recently announced that for every ticket registered, we are donating a portion of the ticket fee to support two organizations that are doing wonderful things to support the relief efforts of the Australia wildfires: WIRES wildlife emergency relief fund & One Tree Planted. While WIRES is helping the wildlife during these tragic times, One Tree Planted will join the efforts to replace much-needed trees lost as a result of the fires.

In addition, you further have the opportunity during registration to support these two organizations in lieu of swag.

Diversity & Inclusion program. In the past, we’ve proudly offered diversity tickets for each of our conferences. However, we realize that this is not enough. This year, our program is expanding to include travel and accommodations, as well as our new buddy initiative that aims to give diversity attendees an additional level of inclusion.

We have a wonderful new year ahead of us with some great changes, lots of growth, and lots of new opportunities! We invite you to join us at one of our conferences  (or even sponsor one!) to help continue growing and nurturing the DevSecOps global community.

See you somewhere in this big —yet so small— world in 2020!

Team DevSecCon