South Sound Conference

I attended the South Sound Conference today, a conference on all things tech related to the industry. I went into this expecting not much at all, not knowing what exactly was going to be discussed. However, I enjoyed my time at the panel and found it pretty insightful to listen to. The main points I  got out of the conference was cyber security, networking, and woman in tech.

One of the more interesting panels I listened too during the conference was the cyber security talk. I was a little familiar with some of the people that were on the panel as one of them was the president of the grey hat group, which I have heard about. I don't know much about cyber security as a sport, so all the information I learned about it today was new to me. Like how the teams were made and the colors. I forget exactly why the America colors were picked, but I think it had to do with where one of the first cyber security event happened. Anyways, blue team were the defenders of the network, red team was the penetrators, white team was the judges, and the newer team added was the orange which pretended to be the customers struggling with the service. I never knew they had fake customers who called the blue team during the event. It would defiantly add a layer of communication to the sport. I also found it funny how the team members would curse out the customers because they're so stressed, but I guess thats what you have to do in a real work place scenario. I also learned about an important resource to learn about cyber security, HackMe.com. I am curious about cyber security and want to learn more about it, so having these resources to learn more about cyber security.

During the conference we were able to go and see the internship projects that students were doing this quarter and presenting what they worked on. I got to talking to Micheal at his internship booth. Micheal worked at T Mobile in the automation department where he would help create tools that would automate the process they due on a daily basis. I asked him questions about jsPDF and what it was. He explained that is was tool for creating html elements out of PDF documents or vice a versa, can't recall. Also talked about some of the other daily activities they do there with the other interns and coworkers. Overall it was a great experience to learn and hear about how other interns work and what they do.

Lastly was the woman in tech conference. I had a meeting with my counselor at that time so I missed about 30 mins of it, but was able to view the rest of it. I found it very interesting, as being a man you can't really experience what a woman goes through in a daily life, and you so it escapes your mind at times. Hearing about their experiences gives more insight on how the workforce can change for the better for both the woman and companies themselves. There was some disagreement I the crowd with they were saying. One woman thought they were claiming that woman in tech have gotten much better to the point that they don't have to worry about it. However, the panel stated it was just their experience and not a view of the industry on the whole, but that things were getting better for woman in tech. There also a couple other comments by the audience that I think were all right, I think the disagreement between was whether which idea was more effective at helping woman in the industry. I thought if the ideas were used together like 50-50 teams of men and woman, team projects of mixed genders, and further investment at younger girls, that it would have a sizable impact on the industry in the amount of woman in it.

Overall, I am glad I came and visited the conference. I got to meet some friends and listen about things in the tech space.