2025-08-04 –, Florentine F
The one thing I love about our community is the passion to give back. And if you're reading this and thinking "I would love to give back, but I don't know where to start" than this talk is for you. Almost every month it seems like there's a cybersecurity conference happening, and each of those conferences have what is called a Call for Papers (CFP). It sounds scary and daunting, but submitting a CFP isn't very hard once you know what you're doing. As someone who's given dozens of talks and has been on the review board for a few conferences, including BSidesLV, I know a thing or two about CFPs. The purpose of this talk is to walk you through what makes a good CFP, what's in it for you, how to properly fill out the various sections, what a CFP review board is and what they want to see. We'll use examples of the BSidesLV CFP as well as DEFCON and BlackHat (since they ask for extra special stuff). By the end of this talk you'll have the confidence to submit your first CFP and start giving talks!
Wow, we let people potentially put in 8,000 words here? That like 16 pages!
Anyway, this is a talk I've given locally here in San Diego a few times and its been well recieved, i walk through the various sections of a CFP and how to fill them out, in a fun, lighthearted talk. The intent of this talk is to help newbies and the elite alike submit better CFPs. Also I noticed that last time BsidesLV had a CFP talk it was a panel from 2016.
Philip Young, aka Soldier of FORTRAN, currently serves on the BSidesLV review board and is the Chair of the Proving Ground track. He's been attending BsidesLV since 2012 where he gave his first talk ever in the mentor track. Since then he's helped countless others submit talks and, as a mentor for BSidesLV and as a speaking coach for BlackHat, helps first time and seasoned speakers give the best talk they can give. In his professional life Philip is the director of mainframe penetration testing at NetSPI. With over 15 years of experience building mainframe penetration testing programs at Fortune 500 companies, Philip's expertise covers z/OS, z/TPF, RACF, TSO, VTAM, CICS, TopSecret, and IMS.