Recent events: ITPalooza and SecureMiami

This past week I attended a couple of events here in South Florida.

First up was the 5th ITPalooza.  A bigger event then last year, the South Florida Technology Alliance organized the event and moved it to Signature Grand, a large banquet/conference center here in the area.  The event took over the whole place, which I've never seen.  Usually I'll be there and there will be 3 or 5 other events going on.

They had a large exhibit hall with various vendors, organizations, schools, and recruiters.  Unlike past years, they didn't have the recruiters relegated to another room.  I was there helping man the South Florida ISSA booth, promoting our org.  Had several people drop by, so hope we will get more members.  We also talked with some vendors and local universities.

In addition, there where several tracks of speakers.  The CIO track was exclusive to the iCoast CIO Council, others were open to all.  Here good things about those, but missed out.

For a first time event with new people in charge, I saw good and bad.  There is always room for improvement.  They have already set the date for next year's event as December 7th, 2017.  Look forward to it.

A new event held this year was SecureMiami.  This was held in conjunction with the existing BrewMiami event at FIU.  SecureMiami was organized mainly by DigitalEra and was located at the Graham Center from 2-5pm.  There was a keynote speaker, Jack Daniels, with speakers from 3 other vendors followed by a panel discussion with several VP Infosec/CISOs.  All the speakers were good.  It seemed the bad weather in the area discouraged some from coming, but they missed out.

Afterwards most went over the BrewMiami, where we had a VIP section just for the SecureMiami folks.  Here one could sample various beers and food from local brewers and vendors.

Not sure if they will do this event again, but if so, they will have a lot of work to top this one.

South Florida ISSA Security Conference 2017

Well the South Florida ISSA Chapter has announced our 2017 Security Conference.

Our conference website is setup HERE with full info, including call for sponsors and call for presenters.  Registration is already open.

Check it out.  We have some new ideas for this next conference.