The Cyber Revolution Has Begun: Recap of the Cyber Starters Conference 2023
The #CyberStarters23 conference started and ended on the 6th of May, 2023 at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. The conference aimed to give different categories of people — from newbies to professionals — insights on how to navigate #cybersecurity as a field. With the amazing speakers and enlightening sessions held, that aim was achieved in ten folds.
Here’s a Recap
During the conference, numerous speakers took the time to enlighten the attendees at different sessions. Starting from the keynote speech, where we had Favour Femi-Oyewole.
The lightning talks were delivered by excellent professionals like Confidence Staveley, Chikodili Udeh, Ronnie “BEC” Tokazowski , and Ikechukwu. Ugoji, Jonathan Ayodele.
The other part of the conference was aimed at letting the attendees know that technology was evolving and they had to level up with the evolution. This part was handled in one of the panel sessions (which was in two sessions) with top industry experts like Gbolabo Awelewa, Bolu Oluwagbesan, and Obiora Awogu.
The second-panel session was with young professionals; Aisha Gbemi Matti, Fortress Abioye, Fatma Omar Salim, and Toluwanimi Emmanuel Banji-Idowu where they discussed everything pertaining to Entry level experience.
Putting the attendees on the verge of excitement was the live Hacking demo with Olufela Osideko where she demonstrated a Business Logic Vulnerability.
The attendees were given a glimpse of some Career options and paths in the breakout session with Oluwatosin (Tosin) Fatokun (GRC), Oluwaseyi Ajadi (Devsecops), Adamu Usman (Ethical Hacking), and Sulaiman Gbadamosi (Blue Team).
There was a capture-the-flag hacking competition during the conference where winners were awarded cash and other prizes. Other sessions like the games and presentation of awards to our CTF players and social media flex, added more fun to the mix.
During the event, we launched our umbrella organization Cybersecurity Education Initiative which is a youth-led non-profit organization on a mission to combat cybercrime in sustainable and more innovative ways.
The #CyberStarters23 in its entirety was a huge success with all fun and seriousness. Special thanks to our sponsors and partners; Trend Micro, ISACA Abuja, Hack The Box, PentesterLab, @MaxHedRum, Digital Security Village, techbuild.africa, University of Lagos Engineering Society and others.
Thank you to all speakers, participants, and all volunteers, it wouldn’t have been possible without you all.