14 DAY TRIAL // The organizers of the world-renowned Hack in the Box (HITB) security conference have announced that next year’s Amsterdam edition, scheduled to take place between May 27-30, will feature an all-women keynote lineup.
The position of women in the tech industry is a controversial and sensitive topic these days. However, HITB has always welcomed women and this latest decision once again demonstrates it.
“2014 marks our 5th year in the EU and we want to commemorate this with a large celebration. A chance for us to do something different that we think has not been done before - and we like doing things like that,” noted Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, founder and chief executive officer of HITB.
“We've never had an all-women keynote line-up and with 2014 being our 5th year anniversary in the EU, we thought it was a perfect time to do so,” Dhillon added.
“Though there are still an insufficient number of women leaders in the IT sector, we want to use this occasion to highlight a handful we feel have made tremendous contributions. Most importantly, they all offer a different point of view in an industry dominated by men.”
The list of keynote speakers includes Katie Moussouris of Microsoft’s Security Response Center; Kristin Lovejoy of IBM Security Services Division; Pamela Fusco, CISO at The Apollo Group; Jennifer Steffens, CEO at IOActive; Mischel Kwon, former director of the US Computer Emergency Response Team; and Jaya Baloo, CISO at KPN Telecom.
In addition, HITB 2014 Amsterdam will also host a 3-day, completely free, Hacker Expo (Haxpo). Builders and hacker spaces are encouraged to apply for exhibition space – free for non-commercial entities.
The Haxpo will be held alongside the usual conference activities, which include a capture the flag contest, the HackWEEKDAY developer hackathon, and a lock-picking village.