Thursday, August 20, 2015

August 2015 Community News Flash



August 2015 Community News Flash

The AppSecUSA team is looking forward to our 2015 event in San Francisco, CA on September 22-25th. I will be hosting a series of Chapter Leader Workshops (details below) and encourage you to participate whether you are a chapter leader or interested in becoming more involved in your chapter. Project leaders may find the sessions on staff support and financing to be of interest, so please plan on attending.

I welcome feedback on this newsflash from the full spectrum of our community: chapters, projects, and initiatives. Many of the same issues that affect chapters, including funding, volunteer engagement and events, also affect projects and other activities. Be sure to read the news flash for tips and ideas for project teams.

Noreen Whysel
Community Manager
OWASP Foundation


In this Issue:
  • FEATURE: The Chapter Leaders Workshop at AppSecUSA
  • Back to School: Connect With Student Chapters!
  • Chapter Activity: New Chapters, Leader Transitions
  • New Tools: Trello
  • Resources
FEATURE: The Chapter Leaders Workshop at AppSecUSA

The Chapter Leader Workshops at AppSecUSA are designed for OWASP members currently leading or interested in starting a chapter in their local area. We are hosting four separate sessions plus afternoon Birds of a Feather flex sessions on Thursday AM and Friday all day in Room F on the Pacific Concourse level. We invite participation from all conference attendees whether they are a chapter leader, project leader or volunteers. If you are interested in how to plan and run OWASP activities at any level, you will enjoy these sessions

We'll be there to learn from each other how to run chapter activities, what types of events to host and how to promote them, outreach with education and other organizations, as well as where to access funding and how to spend it. The session descriptions are starting points for discussion, but the discussion is yours.

Click on the session title below for a full description of each workshop session:





For more information about the Chapter Leaders Workshop, or to suggest content to cover or issues of concern to you, please contact me.


BACK TO SCHOOL: CONNECT WITH STUDENT CHAPTERS!

It's the time of year again for many schools and universities to welcome students back to campus. This is a great time to connect with your local student chapters and educational institutions. To find out if there is a student chapter near you, visit the Student Chapter Program page on the wiki. If you don't have a student chapter in your area, you can help create one by reaching out to educational programs near you.

The Academic Supporter program also allows educators to participate in AppSec activities and offers a number of benefits including recognition of the institution on our website and at events, in exchange for providing space for chapter meetings and sharing OWASP educational materials and project opportunities with students. Leaders can work with faculty to help integrate Web Application Security into the curriculum, and can form teams to participate on university challenges at regional AppSec events and our seasonal project code sprints, as well as opportunities for mentoring and other interaction with professional chapters.

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Student_Chapters_Program
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Academic_Supporter


CHAPTER ACTIVITY

As a result of recent audit of chapter activity, several chapters have been marked inactive due to either nonresponse from the current leadership team or lack of any meetings in the past year. If you are interested in starting or helping to restart a chapter that has gone inactive, please review the listings at the Volunteer Opportunities page of the wiki. If you are a current chapter leader and are having difficulty finding space, volunteers or funding to host a meeting, let me know. I can direct you to resources and funding to help you.

Also keep in mind you can view your Chapter's budget and available funds at the Donation Scoreboard:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11acTOmtmBGq6-5CIGsjlEByU8POSGqda0r23VNnhEGQ/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&output=html

New Chapters
New/Transitioning Leaders
New Student Chapters
TOOLS: TRELLO

The OWASP Foundation has obtained a free premium Trello account for our community.

What is Trello?

Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.

Getting Started Guide

Here you could see how easy it is to get up and running with Trello https://trello.com/guide
https://trello.com/tour

What are the benefits of using Trello in my OWASP project/chapter?
  • You could create a board for your chapter to help you organise all the logistics of your next event.
  • You could create a GTD (Get Things Done) board for your project and allocate tasks to volunteers:http://justincone.com/4-tips-for-working-with-trello/
  • You can invite as many people to your board as you need, all for free. Drag and drop people to cards to divvy up tasks. Everyone sees the same board and the whole picture all at once.
  • You could integrate your Slack Channel with your OWASP Trello Board so any new task/card being created/actioned in Trello is shown in Slack.
OWASP Trello Main Board:
https://trello.com/owaspfoundation

We are creating boards for some projects and chapters already… if interested in having your own board, please ping Fabio Cerullo at fcerullo@owasp.org.

Need some inspiration to create your Board?

Here are a couple of Board templates:
https://trello.com/inspiringboards


EVENTS: The Women in AppSec Program at AppSecUSA

The Women in AppSec (WIA) program is for all OWASP members who believe that diversity is important to the success of an organization, as well as for women who want to make career connections with like-minded colleagues. We encourage you to attend our session on Thursday at 3:30pm in Room F, featuring the founders of InfoSec Girls, Apoorva Giri and Shruthi Kamath, moderated by Astha Singhal.

We also invite you to join us for our networking and "Birds of a Feather" sessions on Thursday in the WIA meeting room . Stop by anytime between 10:00am and 3:30pm to meet other members, learn more about the WIA program, and discuss relevant topics. Suggest a discussion topic on the sign-up board at the room entrance!

Other local and regional events brought to you by OWASP Chapters:
RESOURCES
Chapter Leaders Workshop at AppSec:
https://appsecusa2015.sched.org/overview/type/chapter+leaders+workshop

AppSecUSA:
http://2015.appsecusa.org/

Trello Main Board:
https://trello.com/owaspfoundation

Women in AppSec Panel at AppSecUSA:
https://appsecusa2015.sched.org/type/wia

Chapter Leader Handbook:
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Chapter_Leader_Handbook

Funding Resources:
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Funding

Donation Scoreboard - Current Chapter Funding Allocation:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/2/d/11acTOmtmBGq6-5CIGsjlEByU8POSGqda0r23VNnhEGQ/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&output=html


CONTACT ME

Feel free to contact me at any time if you have a question or suggestion. To create a trackable case, please use the contact us form at http://www.tfaforms.com/308703.

Noreen Whysel
Community Manager
OWASP Foundation

Community Manager Open Hours on Slack:
Join the #AsktheCM channel Tuesdays from 10am-Noon EDT.
https://owasp.slack.com/messages/askthecm/

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Monday, August 10, 2015

Your 2015 Global BoD Candidates Have Been Announced!

Committing to run for a seat on a Board of Directors is not always an easy decision. Dedication, leadership and time are just a few attributes of what it takes to have a successful board and organization. 

That being said, we would like to thank all the individuals who submitted their candidacy to run for one of the four available seats to sit on the OWASP Global BoD.

All of the candidates have been notified and below are your 2015 eligible candidates: 

Abbas Naderi Afooshteh

Tom Brennan

Jonathan Carter

Michael Coates

Bil Corry

Tobias Gondrom

Nigel Phair

Milton Smith

Josh Sokol

For more information on the election, please visit the 2015 Election page .