Volunteers

fwd:cloudsec is an independent, non-profit-backed cloud security conference for and by cloud security practitioners. Growing out of the Cloud Security Forum Slack, and building on the success of our first conference in 2020, which, despite COVID, was virtually attended by over 900 people, we’re looking to expand in 2021. This year, we plan to run a hybrid in-person and virtual event that includes even more of the cloud security community, showcasing research applicable to multiple public clouds, sharing practical technical work and ways to work more effectively with developers, users, business partners, and auditors.

To make the experience great for speakers, community leaders, and attendees, we’re looking to add volunteers and organizing committee members. We won’t sugarcoat it: running a nonprofit, practitioner-led conference is hard work – but it’s also rewarding, connecting you to some of the leading researchers, practitioners, companies, and individual leaders in the field. Several papers presented in 2020’s conference wouldn’t have happened without the engagement in our volunteer community.

We’d love to hear from you if you’re interested! In particular, we’re looking for individuals who:

  • Are aligned with the goals of the conference: to be practitioner-focused, not wedded to an individual vendor or theoretical axe to grind; if you work for a well-known company, we’d like you to be up-front about conflicts of interest.
  • Can work with the current Board in US timezones
  • Are active in cloud security already, ideally with a track record of community-building in the Cloud Security Forum slack or other places (Discord, BSides, etc.)
  • Are willing to run volunteer projects independently, taking 5-10 hours a month without monetary compensation. While we try to offer gifts or a stipend to speakers, as a 501(c)3 nonprofit we have to be good stewards of sponsor and attendees’ money and cannot pay organizers and volunteers.
  • Are interested in helping us expand the community – there’s plenty of room to improve by bringing in practitioners at all levels, junior or senior, from diverse technical and personal backgrounds
  • Bring new ideas to the table! While our conference last year was primarily presentations on issues targeting major AWS services, we know there’s more to cloud security than that – if you have a project you’d like to run to provide training, contests, or other community-building activities, we welcome it.

Remote participation is very much encouraged - our current organizers are spread across the American continent, and our planning activities are typically a mix of private Slack channels, Zoom, Google Docs, and Github.

Specific departments where we know we need help this year:

  • Sponsorships – Building relationships with our sponsors while ensuring we keep the nonprofit, practitioner-led vibe alive.
  • Speaker engagement – advising and communicating with speakers throughout the CFP and conference prep process.
  • Community tools – building out the ways participants communicate ahead of, and during, the conference (Slack, Discord, or other platforms as appropriate).
  • Contests and Training – incorporating new types of presentations.
  • Site support – working with vendors at the physical location.

If this sounds like something you’re interested in and willing to put in the work, please apply by filling out the survey here.