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.

What kind of summit we envision

• Two days before the conference's talks
• Open to Chapter Leaders
• Project Leaders can work on their project or exchange with other leaders
• During the conference, the Summit will be open to all (leaders and enthusiasts)

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 denied by OWASP staff see message from Sarah
   2. Secondary source is from Chapters and Projects themselves with a pledge of money for the event ONGOING
      1. Give chapters visibility like a sponsor during the Summit (OWASP Project Summit would like to thank ____ Chapter for making this happen!)
      2. Give chapters a table in the room and food if they are participating to funding with that in mind (we have plenty of space, so it's ok)
   3. Third source will be direct sponsors but this is rather unlikely. A sponsor must donate to the project or chapter and then the leader of it will just pledge and divert the amount to our bucket. This will avoid messing up with AppSecUSA sponsors agreement already in place. This will be done for OWASP Montreal
   4. Last resort is to ask the board from money, especially from the Community Engagement Payments that currently has 15k over (don't need it we have a little money now)
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
4. Open the Summit during the conference to involve people external to projects

What we got

As of August 6th

1. 1,500$ in chapters pledge, 500$ in sponsors pledge
2. 1 room for 4 days (16-19)
3. Basic food and drinks for the first 2 days (16-17)
4. Internet for the Summit (without the need to wait on the conference to be ready with whole wifi)

Counter arguments

Click Expand on right to see.

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 Project Module Payments
2014 Budget = $46,000 (Fund availability by quarter is $11,500).
2014 Balance Remaining = $13,149.24
^-- this one is directly for projects travel and lodging, so we have 7k$ for the activities in the rest of year since it's the last global conference of the year

This will be only usable for travel and lodging, but we plan that this will be the most part of the budget.

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.

We simply asked Chapters for Money: http://lists.owasp.org/pipermail/owasp-leaders/2014-July/012507.html

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.

Involvement

As for now, the following people are participating:

• Jonathan Marcil, Primary Planner, (gather money, build agenda, get leaders involvement)
• Matt Shufeldt from AppSecUSA, On-site Planner (infrastructure, food/drinks)
• Hugo Costa AppSecUSA website updates (email: hugo dot costa at owasporg)
• Kate from the foundation with before the conference organizing and logistical support
• Maybe one helper from OWASP Montreal Chapter
• YOU! If you want to participate, contact [email protected] from a @owasp.org email address.