RSA Conference has announced a new London event to be held in the same week as the annual Infosecurity Europe.
Named “RSAC Unplugged”, the free day-long event will take place on 4th June at the Kensington Roof Gardens and is described as “informal, up close and personal, intimate”. The event clashes with the annual Infosecurity Europe conference and exhibition, which this year has relocated to Olympia and takes place between 2nd and 4th June.
Britta Glade, RSA Conference content manager told IT Security Guru via
Twitter that the “location is walkable for attendees” and they thought that “some more content options would be of interest to security peeps in the area”.
In an email to IT Security Guru, Michelle Adams-Dixon, experiential marketing team director for RSA Conference said that RSAC Unplugged is a different sort of event that is purely driven by content.
She said: “It’s a small, one day event that hosts 150 people and it’s free to attend. We have secured a handful of information security experts to speak and there won’t be any sponsors or exhibitors. We have developed RSAC Unplugged based on feedback from our past RSA Conference Europe attendees – what they are looking for is great content that’s regionally focused.”
Asked about the clash with Infosecurity Europe, Adams-Dixon said that the organisers are aware that RSAC Unplugged overlaps with InfoSec, however given its event cycle; June was the best month to host this program.
“We don’t have any sponsors or exhibitors and we hope to be a complement, not a competitor, to the expo focus at Infosec,” she said. “As with all successful cyber security events, we support the efforts of the community to further the education and understanding on a topic that’s so critical to commerce, Government and national security.”
In an email to IT Security Guru, Kerry Prince, project director of the Infosecurity Group, said: “As the continent’s largest convergence of information security professionals we look forward to welcoming new delegates from the industry and encourage them to visit our event while they are in town. The needs of the infosecurity industry are very important to us and we appreciate any efforts that add value to the community.”
Speaking to IT Security Guru, Quentyn Taylor, director of information security for EMEA at Canon, said that he understood the intention of the organisers as there is a collective of security professionals in London at that time, but the issue for him is the time required to attend so many events.
He said: “The issue is do I do half a day at each one? I can probably justify two days out of the office and I’ve got a real job to do and this is part of my objective, but I cannot justify three days out. If you are based in central London you can go in for the morning and come back for meetings in the afternoon.”
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http://go.pardot.com/l/67042/2015-03-25/bj8c