Summit 2011 Attendee Funding

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Background

During the previous Summit, OWASP was fortunate enough to be able to fund all OWASP leaders to attend the Summit. Unfortunately, the budget for the 2011 Summit is not as large as the previous budget. As a result, we are making the following compromise with our attendees: OWASP will provide the venue meeting rooms, the A/V equipment, and the venue supporting staff in order to enable attendees to work effectively; attendees just have to pay for travel and accommodations for themselves.

We have aggressively negotiated with multiple venues in order to find the best possible pricing for attendee accommodations. As you know, the Summit is not a conference - it is an opportunity to bring together the community to "get stuff done". OWASP is not making any revenue from the Summit - we are charging essentially at cost prices for the accommodations and food. There is only a small deviation simply due to villa room configuration, as we expect to have some villas that are not filled to capacity.

Funding Request Application Process

The following diagram represents the workflow for obtaining funds to attend the Summit.

Please remember that funding for attendees is extremely limited this year. If you are able to obtain funding through your employer, please do so. We have prepared a number of letters that you can give your employer - we can even mail signed copies of the letter directly to your employer on request!

Application for OWASP Chapter/Project Funding

Current Funding Model

The venue costs account for 40% of the Summit budget. The remainder of the budget is being used to fund as many attendees as possible. As one of the primary goals of the Summit is for OWASP leadership to meet to set the agenda for 2011, we are prioritizing funding for the following parties:

1. OWASP Staff
2. Board Members
3. Summit Organizing Team
4. Active Global Committee Members
5. Additional OWASP Leaders

Additional OWASP leaders who follow the funding request application process will be considered for funding as funding is made available. Unfortunately, we will not be able to fund everyone that wants to attend. We are trying to be as objective and fair as possible in determining who is funded. To that end, we have created a ranking system to identify which applicants to fund first. The ranking system takes into consideration the following characteristics (in no particular order):

• Date of Application
• Past Committee Member
• New Committee Member
• New Project Leader
• Active Project Leader
• Participated in AppSec Conference in 2009/2010
• Organized an AppSec Conference in 2009/2010
• Active Chapter leaders
• Past OWASP leaders
• VIP Invitation