Founder Secrets - a BSides Melbourne exclusive |
Moderator: Kirstin McIntosh
Panelists: Sam Crowther, Laura Bell Main, Vaughan Shanks, Tracie Thompson Track: Locknote Time: Sunday 3:20pm Duration: 45 mins Panel Discussion
A no-holds-barred session with some of our very favourite Aussie cyber founders. You can find out what you REALLY want to know - and have been always too scared to ask. Why did they do it? How did they do it? What do they wish they knew beforehand? And what is the very best part of being a founder? They might answer, they might not. Either way, it will be fun. Bring your biggest, toughest questions for a light-hearted look at founder life. Speaker Bios: Moderator: Kirstin McIntosh, COO, CyRise Kirstin McIntosh is COO at CyRise, Australia’s cyber security venture accelerator, where she works with some of most technically adept and ambitious minds of the cybersecurity community. Kirstin worked in Europe and Asia in business development and corporate partnership roles for over 23 years before returning to Australia. Kirstin holds an MBA from IMD in Switzerland, and a B.Comm from University of Melbourne. As well as BSides Melbourne, she is on the board of Startup Victoria. Kirstin thinks acronyms are a barrier to real communication, and believes in the power of community. Panelist: Sam Crowther, CEO and founder of Kasada Sam Crowther is CEO and founder of Kasada, an Australian cyber security company. Its industry-leading platform, Polyform, stops malicious automation (bad bots) attacking websites and web applications. Sam started Kasada in 2015 at the age of 19. He now leads teams in Australia and the US, from his new base in New York. While still at school, Sam was the first student to be offered two work placements at the Australian Signals Directorate. On leaving school Macquarie Group recruited Sam to its global cyber threat management team. Besides inventing a range of security products, Sam has raised more than $10million from leading Australian VCs and the Australian Government's Accelerating Commercialisation program. He is a passionate promoter of Australia's cyber security ecosystem and foundation supporter of AustCyber. Leading enterprises, including companies in the ASX100, trust Kasada to protect and assure their online digital transactions. Panelist: Laura Bell Main, CEO SafeStack Academy Laura Bell Main is the Founder and CEO, SafeStack Academy. With over twenty years of experience in software development and information security, Laura Bell Main specialises in bringing security into organisations of every shape and size. She is the founder and CEO of SafeStack Academy, an online education platform offering flexible, high-quality, and people-focused secure development training for fast moving companies, with a focus on building security skills, practices, and culture across the entire engineering team. Laura is an experienced conference speaker, trainer, and regular panel member, and has spoken at a range of events such as BlackHat USA, Velocity, and OSCON on the subjects of privacy, covert communications, agile security, and security mindset. She is also the co-author of Agile Application Security and Security for Everyone Panelist: Vaughan Shanks, co-founder and CEO of Cydarm Technologies Vaughan is co-founder and CEO of Cydarm Technologies, a Melbourne-based startup that has built a secure case management platform for cybersecurity incident response. Vaughan first developed an appreciation for information security 20 years ago while working as a UNIX systems administrator. Before founding Cydarm, Vaughan worked at a Silicon Valley-based data analytics vendor, after almost 10 years at the Department of Defence, leading devops teams and driving analytic modernisation efforts. Panelist: Tracie Thompson, CEO HackHunter Tracie Thompson is the Co-founder and CEO of HackHunter, a Melbourne-based start-up securing WiFi. HackHunter detects, tracks and locates WiFi sources with precision in real-time. Tracie has led HackHunter from idea through three accelerator programs (Startmate, CyRise and SBE Australia) to product launch, and is responsible for the commercialisation of the HackHunter technology. Previously Tracie was co-owner and COO of a security consulting and software company with over 200 customers including Medibank, Centrelink, HostPlus and Victorian State Government departments. Tracie has over 20 years of experience in information security, cyber security and business management, including leading two successful business exits. |