Questions Answered

1) Why no corporate sponsorship?

The short answer is GEOGRAPHY. Aberystwyth, while a great place to live, study and visit, is in the “Outer Spiral Arm of the Galaxy” and so raising meaningful amounts of money from companies while in theory possible, experience suggests this is not a good use of the organiser’s time. Large employers in the area are typically in the education or local government which have less money than church mice to sponsor Cybersecurity events. We also don’t fancy jumping through hoops required to apply for grants, where a cool reception would be given to the money being used for food, drinks and goodies for those attending.

We do very much value our community sponsors, For example, Aberystwyth University provides practical help with advertising and small local firms like Custom Cymru provide goods at cost.

We may have a local branch of a membership organisation who will kindly pay for tea and coffee at breaks.

2) What difference does having no corporate sponsorship make?

In short you find and pay for your own lunch and don’t get a goody bag or T-shirt. You will have to forage in Aberystwyth for your meals and there is no free bar after the event. Those things are a valuable part of community building but funding them is out of scope at the moment at least.

Past experience of running similar but different events suggests we can run a great event inside the budget covered by ticket price alone.

3) Would you accept money from a corporate sponsor?

Try us. It won’t effect the direction or format of the event itself. At a blind guess, we would needin the ball park of £3000 for food and goodies.

4) What happens to the spare money?

No on pockets it. It will either be used to prime future BSides events and make them better or when BSidesAberystwyth runs out of steam, any surplus will be given to a local charity.

We are publishing the accounts on the website so you can see what your money is spent on.

5) Who are you trying to attract to BSidesAberystwyth?

Anyone interested in Cybersecurity and how things work. Our vision is a mix of experienced professionals, interested locals, those early in career and students in roughly equal proportions.

6) I have not seen any advertising yet?

We are not going to start advertising till October. Tickets seem to be selling OK without it. We will be promoting the call for papers from August.

7) How big is the BSidesAberystwyth team and do you need help?

At the moment the team is 2 and the rest of our lives are quite full, so we do want to spread the load.

If you are interested, lets have a chat.

8) Is it just a TEDx event on Cybersecurity?

HELL NO. One of the organisers ran/co-ran TEDxAberystwyth for 7 years. While they got a lot of experience in running public events in Aberystwyth, they became bored of the format. They are looking forward to an event based on the more anarchic and community focused format of BSides which is well aligned with their interest in CyberSecurity, how people and computers work (or don’t). We know how to run a great event within budget, without anyone else defining the format in detail.

9) Do you offer speaker coaching?

In short, yes. A side effect of running a TEDx event for 7 years is we know how to coach good talks out of people. Coaching is offered, but contributors are not required to use it. We understand that for some this is their 1st public talk or workshop they have run.

For those who find the call for papers a bit daunting we are happy to offer help on what might work and what might not. We will not write the abstract for you and the core idea must be yours. We are keen to remove as many of the barriers to participation as possible for those who have something interesting to share, but are part way through the journey of finding their confidence.

All submissions will be judged only on the criteria set out in the Call for Papers.

10) Who makes up any shortfall?

Like any other BSides event, its falls on the organiser.

11) Will you pay speaker expenses?

No.

We will pay rail travel costs and put up invited keynote speakers only.

12) Wht are your criteria for success of the event?

– 90% of people think its was a good use of their day and 10 pounds
– The content (papers, workshops, tutorials, etc) were of high quality
– A few people came away inspired in some way
– Balanced budget

13) What is the weather like in Aberystwyth in mid November?

Tropical 🙂