AppSecUSA 2014 Projects Summit Rescue

Save The 2014 USA Project Summit

This is part of OWASP Projects Task Force.

We believe that

• Project summits are actually important for all projects by helping the motivation and inspiration of leaders.
• A summit is one of the strength that OWASP has to offer.
• Having a rescued summit to propose is better than having nothing.
• If people meet, OWASP magic will happen.

Goal

• Have a project summit of AppSecUSA 2014
  • Facilities (room, internet, food, etc.) will be provided to project leaders
    • Leaders will have to do their own promotion and invitation planning
    • Leaders will have to manage their own expense reimbursement, either from their own project budget or the project summit budget from Community Engagement Funding
  • This will be a "rescued" summit and not a full summit
    • Efforts for the next "real" Summit will be done during that Summit and leaded by the Projects Task Force
    • Food and coffee might be sparse but attendees will be advised what will be offered before the event. For example, food could be provided just on Wednesday, coffee could be bring your own or shared with the training sessions.

Steps to success

1. Gather basic budget need from AppSecUSA 2014 organization and try to reach 0 cost except for food
2. Gather money around for food and travel/lodging for projects with low budgets
   1. Main source (and actual budget bucket) is Project Module Payments from Community Engagement
   2. Secondary source is from Chapters and Projects themselves with a pledge of money for the event
   3. Third source will be direct sponsors but this is rather unlikely
      1. Give chapters a table in the room and food if they are participating to funding
   4. Last resort is to ask the board from money, especially from the Community Engagement Payments that currently has 15k over
3. Mix people at the event and organize ad-hoc workshops for Projects and Chapters meta-subject
   1. Invite OWASP staff to take a spot in the planning
   2. Team up Project Leaders with Chapter Leaders (if presents)
   3. Have leaders from different projects and chapters talk to each other and exchange

Counter arguments

No budget

It is really untrue we don't have any money for a 2014 USA summit.

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Community_Engagement_-_Payments

2014 Community Engagement Payments
2014 Budget = $60,000 (Fund availability by quarter is $15,000).
2014 Balance Remaining = $44,246.75
^-- this one is a mix of the SWAG budget and OWASP on the move, we have one quarter of money that is lose (but this would require board approval)

2014 Project Module Payments
2014 Budget = $18,000 (Fund availability by quarter is $4,500).
2014 Balance Remaining = $6,958.33
^-- this one is directly for projects travel and lodging, so we have 7k$ for the activities in the rest of year since it's the last global conference of the year 

2014 Project Funding Payments
2014 Budget = $18,000 (Fund availability by quarter is $4,500).
2014 Balance Remaining = $11,000
^-- this one is OWASP Project Spending Policy

If anybody dare to challenge on the "please do not try to reroute funds for the summit", take a look at this entry from the Project Summit budget in Cambridge:

June 11, 2014	 Matt Tesauro	 Travel and Hotel for Project Summit at AppSec Europe 2014: Cambridge, UK	 ~$2,259.66 USD

Matt gave two great talks at AppSecEU and yet he was still paid off the summit budget because he was participating in some sessions. At best, this amount should have been the hotel fees for the day before the conferences that covers the days of the summit.

How and where the funds are spent is just a matter of perception and everybody agrees with them as long it is serving the OWASP mission and fits under a rule.

No motivation

At the project task force we always says that there's not much happening in the project summit. Most of the people outside the summit don't care, therefore there's not much stuff going on.

The truth is, even if the summit itself it not as successful as we would want to, we should keep in mind that the main goal is to *gather* people to work on projects. In that regards, every summit has been very successful as project leaders were always discussing and working on their project.

No time

This is really just saying "we don't have any resources to manage the Summit". It is comprehensible since OWASP Global Staff will be extremely low on staff and the conference people will be dedicated to much larger priorities.

The solution is simple: use the Projects Task Force in order to provide resources.

As for now, the following people are participating:

• Jonathan Marcil, Primary Planner, TODO: deal room (incl. wired internet, power, tables & chairs), find cash, build agenda, get food & drinks, find projector, setup dedicated wireless
• YOU! If you want to participate, contact [email protected] from a @owasp.org email address.