Open Web Application Security Project: September 2015 Community News Flash

September 2015 Community News Flash

AppSecUSA 2015 is just over a week away in San Francisco, CA on September 22-25th. Please join me for the Chapter Leader Workshops. If you would like to present a brief show-and-tell at any of these sessions, let me know. I am looking for examples of successful meeting formats, communication and collaboration tool demos and examples of outreach and mentoring. What have you done to grow your membership, increase engagement and promote application security in your area? I 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 your team.

Noreen Whysel
Community Manager
OWASP Foundation

In this Issue:

FEATURE: Mentoring
Announcing WASPY Award Winners
Get Ready to Vote for the Global Board of Directors!
The Chapter Leaders Workshop at AppSecUSA
Chapter Activity: New Chapters, Leader Transitions
First Meeting of the Projects Self-Help Group
Resources

FEATURE: Mentoring

As the OWASP Summer Code Sprint wraps up, I wanted to highlight some of our project and chapter led mentoring activity around the world. The Summer Code Sprint supported eight students working on projects for OWASP Hackademic, OWTF, ZAP, AppSensor and Seraphimdroid. All eight teams completed their requirements by the September 4 deadline and will each receive the second half of their $1500 grant. One student plans to continue as a contributor to Hackademic Challenges. Project Coordinator Claudia Aviles-Casanovas reported, "Amazing performance and dedication from the students." The OWASP Summer Code Sprint 2015 is a wonderful way to provide incentives to students to contribute to OWASP projects.

The OWASP Northern New Jersey chapter is gearing up for another year of mentoring with the NJIT Capstone program. Project activities, mentoring and grading are carried out by members of the Northern NJ chapter. Tom Brennan, NY/NJ chapter president and candidate for the 2016 international board of directors, said, "We started a mentor program, and for the last several years we have been investing in academia directly. We have students actively work on OWASP projects improving the quality of them and starting new ones." I attended last year's showcase and it was a blast learning what the students had been working on. I am looking forward to this year's results.

OWASP Women in AppSec is also exploring developing a mentoring program for women interested in starting or transitioning to a career in Application Security. "I'm fond of the idea of a mentor program and how OWASP can promote projects more," OWASP Foundation board member Jim Manico recently said on the owasp-leaders mailing list. "These seem pretty high on the 'critical things for projects' list."

By participating in projects like the OWASP Summer Code Sprint, capstone project mentoring or other University and Hackademic Challenges, a student can get real life experience seasoned guidance of an AppSec professional, while contributing to an open source project. If you have an idea for a mentoring project that you would like to propose for your chapter or project or a completed activity we should highlight, let us know.

Announcing WASPY Award Winners

The results of the OWASP WASPY Awards have been announced and posted to our website. Thanks to all who made a nomination and congratulations to the winners.

Open/Leading Category
European Region: Eoin Keary
United States Region: Jeremiah Grossman
Latin American Region: Mateo Martinez
Caribbean Region: Johanna Curiel

Integrity/Learning Category
European Region: Antonis Manaras & Mateo Martinez (OWASP Student Chapters Program Leaders)
United States Region: Pedro Peralta
Asia/Pacific/Middle East Region: John Patrick Lita
Caribbean Region: Johanna Curiel

Innovation/Sharing Category
African Region: Munir Njiru
European Region: Fiona Collins
Latin American Region: Diego Ademir
United States Region: Jeremy Long

Global/Growing
African Region: Munir Njiru
Asia/Pacific/Middle East Region: John Patrick Lita
European Region: Jason Alexander
Latin American Region: John Vargas
United States Region: Jerry Hoff

View the complete results and vote counts at https://www.owasp.org/index.php/WASPY_Awards_2015#Results

Get Ready to Vote for the Global Board of Directors!

To be eligible to cast a vote in this years Global BoD election, all individuals must be a current member in good standing with a membership on file with the foundation as of Sept 30, 2015.
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/2015_Global_Board_of_Directors_Election#Who_Can_Vote.3F.

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. Do you have an interesting format for chapter meetings? Would you like to demonstrate a tool? Do you have any challenges you are trying to overcome? Contact me if you would like to present an idea or a problem for discussion. 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, these sessions are for you!

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

Thursday, September 24

10:30am

People & Capital - The Fire & Fuel for Chapter Activities

11:30am

I'm a Leader. Now What? - Basic Information for Jump Starting a Chapter

Friday, September 25

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

CHAPTER ACTIVITY

New Chapters

Trinidad and Tobago: Laura Bigram leader, laura.bigram@owasp.org
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Trinidad_and_Tobago
Panay, Philippines: Francis AI Victoriano leader, francis.victoriano@owasp.org
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Panay
Gwalior, India: Sumit Ojha leader, sumit.ojha@owasp.org https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Gwalior
Stamford, CT, USA: Maria Sette leader, maria.sette@owasp.org https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Stamford

Chapter Restart

Suncoast, FL, USA: Colette Chamberland colette.chamberland@owasp.org and Michel Chamberland michel.chamberland@owasp.org
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/New_Zealand

New/Transitioning Leaders

Charlotte, NC, USA: New leader Rob Taylor rob.taylor@owasp.org
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Charlotte
Khartoum: New leaders added, Ahmed Abbas ahmed.abbas@owasp.org, Asim Jaweesh asim.jaweesh@owasp.org, and Obay Albadri obay.albadri@owasp.org,
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/New_Zealand
New Zealand: New leader added in Wellington, Kirk Jackson kirk.jackson@owasp.org
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/New_Zealand

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

EVENTS: First Meeting of the Projects Self-Help Group

In response to requests for Project Leader mentorship, Simon Bennetts will be hosting the first of hopefully many Projects Self-Help Group meetings. The meeting is for OWASP Project Leaders, although others are welcome to attend. While Simon will be chairing the discussions, he doesn't claim to have all of the answers, hence the 'self help' spin ;)

The intention is to cover the sort of things that project leaders struggle with, eg:

Publicizing projects
Recruiting and keeping volunteers
Building a community

What we won't cover:

Technical/coding questions

Exactly what will be discussed depends on who comes along and what questions are asked - it's a discussion group. Future meetings will be planned if there is enough interest. Please join us September 15th on GotoMeeting:

OWASP Project Leaders Self Help Group

Tue, Sep 15, 2015 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM BST
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/393946949

You can also dial in using your phone:

Australia (Long distance): +61 2 9091 7603
Austria (Long distance): +43 (0) 7 2088 0716
Belgium (Long distance): +32 (0) 28 08 4372
Canada (Long distance): +1 (647) 497-9380
Denmark (Long distance): +45 (0) 69 91 84 58
Finland (Long distance): +358 (0) 931 58 1773
France (Long distance): +33 (0) 170 950 590
Germany (Long distance): +49 (0) 692 5736 7300
Ireland (Long distance): +353 (0) 15 360 756
Italy (Long distance): +39 0 699 26 68 65
Netherlands (Long distance): +31 (0) 208 080 759
New Zealand (Long distance): +64 9 974 9579
Norway (Long distance): +47 21 04 30 59
Spain (Long distance): +34 931 76 1534
Sweden (Long distance): +46 (0) 852 500 691
Switzerland (Long distance): +41 (0) 435 0026 89
United Kingdom (Long distance): +44 (0) 20 3713 5011
United States +1 (669) 224-3319
United States (Toll-free): 1 877 309 2070
Access Code: 393-946-949

Upcoming Local and Regional Events

AppSecUSA Conference and Trainings, Sept. 22-25 San Francisco, CA, USA
OWASP EEE, Oct. 4-10, 2015, Bucharest, Romania (Participating chapters: Austria, Armenia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia)
AppSec IL 2015, Oct. 13, 2015, Israel
New York Metro Joint Cyber-Security Conference 2015, Oct. 14, 2015, New York, NY, USA
LASCON 2015, Oct. 19-22, 2015, Austin, TX, USA
AppSec Rio de la Plata 2015, NEW DATE: Dec. 2-3, 2015, Montevideo, Uruguay
Devoxx Morocco Nov. 16-18, 2015, Casablanca, Morocco (OWASP Morocco is curating the "Arch. & Security" track)
AppSec Cali 2016, Jan. 25-27, 2016 Santa Monica, CA, USA
AppSecEU 2016, Jun. 27 - Jul. 1, 2016, Rome, Italy