RSA Conference, the world’s leading information security conferences and expositions, today announces its full line-up of keynote speakers for the 2018 Conference, which begins Monday, April 16th and runs through Friday, April 20th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA.
Keynote speakers at this year’s Conference will bring forward-thinking, actionable and inspirational stories to the keynote stage on a wide variety of industry-relevant topics including artificial intelligence, cyber bullying, gamification, the history of technology and innovation, among others.
“Our keynote program will leave a lasting impression on our attendees and inspire them to think differently about security and the world around them,” said Sandra Toms, Vice President and Curator, RSA Conference. “Our speakers are a mix of executives and leaders at the top of their field, technologists, scientists, best-selling authors, activists, futurists and policy makers.”
Guest speakers and sessions on the main stage include:
The Hugh Thompson Show: Artificial Intelligence
RSA Conference is proud to welcome to the stage, security guru and RSA Conference Program Committee Chair, Dr. Hugh Thompson. Hugh will bring together experts Dr. Dawn Song, Dr. Kate Darling and Dr. Sebastian Thrun to explore the many layers of artificial intelligence, and its application and potential to help—or hurt—humanity.
The Five Most Dangerous New Attack Techniques, and What’s Coming Next
Panelists from The SANS Institute, Ed Skoudis (top hacker exploits expert/teacher in the U.S.), Johannes Ullrich (head of the Internet Storm Center), James Lyne (top expert on cyberattacks in the U.K.) and moderator Alan Paller will provide an update on the most dangerous new attack techniques, how they work, how they can be stopped and how to prepare for what’s coming next.
The Honorable Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary, United States Department of Homeland Security will sit down for a Q&A session with CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa. Nielsen is an attorney and national security expert serving as the sixth and current U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. She is a former Principal Deputy White House Chief of Staff to President Donald Trump, as well as chief of staff to John F. Kelly during his term as Secretary of Homeland Security. Nielsen served during the George W. Bush administration as special assistant to the president and as senior director for prevention, preparedness and response at the White House Homeland Security Council.
Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, a national non-profit organization working to close the gender gap in technology. Her organization which started in 2012 has grown to reach 40,000 girls, running 80 Summer Immersion Programs and 1,500 Clubs across the US. Saujani is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Yale Law School. She has been named one of Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, and a WSJ Magazine Innovator of the Year.
Jane McGonigal, PhD is a world-renowned designer of alternate reality games — or, games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems. She is a New York Times bestselling author and is the inventor and co-founder of SuperBetter, a game that has helped nearly half a million players tackle real-life health challenges such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury. She is the Director of Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future and she has a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. She has consulted and developed internal game workshops for more than a dozen Fortune 500 and Global 500 Companies.
Margot Lee Shetterly, writer, researcher, and entrepreneur authored Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. The true story became a top book of 2016 for both TIME and Publisher’s Weekly, a USA Today bestseller, and a #1 (instant) New York Times bestseller. Shetterly is also the founder of the Human Computer Project, a digital archive of the stories of NASA’s African-American “Human Computers” whose work tipped the balance in favor of the United States in WWII, the Cold War, and the Space Race. She graduated from The University of Virginia, is a 2014 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, and recently joined the Terra Alpha Investments advisory board.
Monica Lewinsky, public speaker, writer, contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine, a founding board member of the Childhood Resilience Foundation and social activist in the battle against online harassment—advocating for a safer social media environment.
The Cryptographers’ Panel: The Past, Present and Future of the Industry
Panelists Adi Shamir (Borman Professor of Computer Science and The Weizmann Institute, Israel), Ronald Rivest (MIT Institute Professor), Moxie Marlinspike (Founder of Signal), Paul Kocher (Security Researcher and Consultant) and Whitfield Diffie (Cryptographer and Security Expert, Cryptomathic) talk with Zulfikar Ramzan, CTO of RSA, on the past, present and future of information security.
Tim Urban, Creator of Wait But Why, will share his own story of coming to understand how his own mind works with head-spinning thinking, quirky graphics and his signature stick figures representing the major “players” in his head that battled over the steering wheel, and how it relates to us all.
Additional keynotes include the following executives from our sponsor organizations:
Andy Ellis, Chief Security Officer, and Josh Shaul, Vice President, Web Security, Akamai
Rohit Ghai, President, RSA
Samir Kapuria, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cyber Security Services, Symantec
Rami Rahim, Chief Executive Officer, Juniper
Brad Smith, President, Microsoft
John N. Stewart, Senior Vice President, Chief Security and Trust Officer, Cisco
Christopher D. Young, Chief Executive Officer, McAfee
Marc van Zadelhoff, General Manager, IBM Security