Proving Ground

This Track focuses on helping new speakers in the information security and hacker communities acclimate to public speaking.

There are no limits to the topics that will be considered for Proving Ground talks as long as there is some tie-in to the hacker or information security community in general. We pair speakers who have never spoken at a national conference (e.g. DEF CON, Derbycon, RSA, etc.) with an experienced mentor. Together, they will work to take the speaker’s abstract and turn it into a 25 minute presentation to be given at BSidesLV.

Speakers accepted to Proving Ground and assigned a mentor are eligible for a Proving Ground Scholarship of up to $500 to help them off-set the costs of traveling to Vegas to speak. This scholarship – if requested – will be paid out in Las Vegas, after successful completion of your presentation.