Event Summary

The event will be centralised around the skill areas of Red, Blue and Purple teaming, taking the program that has been so successful for BSides events across the globe. BSides Exeter will be focused on demonstrating what the South West of England has to offer in Cyber Security whilst inviting the rest of the community to join us. Over 300 attendees are expected based on the success of our last event. The event will take place within The Forum, which is the university’s main building with plenty of spaces for networking.

We will have two keynote speakers throughout the day representing critical areas of the cybersecurity and digital forensics professional spectrum. We encourage sponsors to send representatives who are not typically public-facing and who enjoy getting involved in the investigation, penetration tests, and threat intelligence to come and join the fun - even run a workshop (purely optional).

Outside of the tracks, we will host booths for sponsors, Capture the Flag events and many more to ensure the program is full and exciting for all attendees.

CFP Description

Who should submit
We welcome anyone within the industry to submit, being from or currently working in Devon or the surrounding area is a big bonus as we want to highlight what is going on in this region and what we have to offer. First-time speaker? No problem, we’d love to hear from you. The team is all about encouraging and creating a safe space for people to get into speaking.

This year we are proud to launch rookie sessions. One of the hardest leaps a newcomer to the industry can make is from watching talks to actually giving their own. With this in mind we have decided that this year we will run a track of talks specifically dedicated to those who have never spoken at a conference before..

The purpose of the rookie sessions is to give those who have not previously given a talk the opportunity to do so, whether you are a student still at university, someone who has recently made the conversion to security or someone who has been in the industry for years.

It can be quite daunting to give a talk and as such, a Mentor (someone who has given a talk before) will be available to speakers throughout the whole process. All past years Mentors said they had a great time so to all you potential mentors please join in and help bring new blood into the speaking community.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
BSides Exeter does welcome vendors to submit talks about cool things happening in the industry but we do not accept product or vendor selling as part of the talk. If your talk is a camouflaged advertisement for a new product or service your company is offering, please do not apply.

Conference Tracks
The event will be running three tracks for the event loosely adhering to the following:

• Blue Track - Defence
• Red Track - Attack
• Purple Track - Mixed
• Rookie Track - For first time speakers about any cybersecurity subject

The plan is to have the talks recorded and put online, if you don’t want your talk recorded that is not a problem just let us know so we can plan around it.

About Presentations

Talks should be around 35-40 minutes in length. This should leave time for questions or discussions, not to mention allowing a few minutes between talks.
*Note rookie sessions talks should be 20 minutes in length.

It’s important to talk about what you know, love and are passionate about. Never assume that just because you know something that everyone else does! This is why we share so that others can learn.

Security has so many areas, defensive, offensive, compliance, people-centric, lessons learned, war stories. Make it your own and it will be great!

Presenters are expected to bring their own devices, although it may be possible to work with those who only are able to bring slide decks. A limited range of adapters may be available, but better to plan to bring your own, just in case.

Attendees

Attendees will be full range of people in cyber security, from students to industry veterans

Selection process

After the submission deadline is over, each submission gets reviewed by a subset of the steering committee and rated according to criteria like technical depth, novelty, potential for creating interesting discussion, etc. When all ratings are in, the organizers and steering committee members meet and pick the talks that made it to the top in most areas.
Fully AI generated talks will be rejected

Note: If selected you will be given access to the event for free

You can enter proposals until 2025-03-03 00:00 (UTC), 1 month, 1 week from now.