Thank you for your interest in presenting at the 7th Annual GFIRST National Conference! At this time, US-CERT is seeking speaker proposals. We anticipate more than 1,500 attendees at this year’s conference and we are committed to offering the best possible sessions. Please review the Call for Speakers procedure with that goal in mind. We look forward to receiving your submission!

Online submission form: https://forms.us-cert.gov/gfirst-callforspeakers/

Submission Form Guidelines

Before you complete your Call for Speakers Submission form, please consider the following suggestions designed to increase your chances of being selected as a presenter for the conference.

Session Information

Based on feedback from GFIRST6, attendees are looking for the following in presentations:
Deeper and more technical content
More technical demonstrations
Solutions to real-world issues and access to innovative technologies/methodologies
Peer-to-peer discussion and opportunities to network

Know your target audience. The conference is open to IT professionals from the public sector, including federal, State, and local governments, as well as academia and international partners.
Choose your presentation topic. GFIRST is a resource for practitioners in incident response and information sharing. The conference brings together a dedicated group of government incident responders with the larger incident response community to protect the nation’s key information technology infrastructures. Your presentation topic should help participants find new areas of collaboration. Presentations should promote learning objectives that help to convey awareness of cybersecurity issues. They should not include marketing or business development points.

Tactfully choose your session title. Your session title should clearly indicate the topic of your presentation. You may want to look through prior GFIRST Conference presentation titles to note titles that appeal to you. Please balance the informative and creative aspects of your title. It is counterproductive to select a catchy title that fails to define the topic of your presentation.

Write your own session abstract in less than 400 characters. The session abstract is a brief summary of your presentation. It will be used in the registration and conference materials and tells attendees as much about you as your bio. Clearly state what attendees can expect to learn from you.

Establish up to five concise learning objectives. Your learning objectives tell the selection committee and the attendees what your presentation will teach. Use specific verbs such as list, identify, state, and describe; avoid vague words such as know or understand. NOTE: These objectives should also be listed on the second slide of your final presentation.

Choose the appropriate session format.
You can submit an individual presentation, one that has two speakers (Co-Speakers), or a Panel Discussion.
If you choose the Co-Speakers session format, you will need to designate a primary speaker and a secondary speaker. The Conference Manager will contact the primary speaker with any questions or decisions about your session.

If you are conducting a Panel Discussion, your session will have a Moderator and up to four Panelists. The Moderator is responsible for facilitating the panel discussion, but is not a designated speaker. The panelists can make very short (2-3 minute) presentations to identify their individual position on the topic, but the majority of the time should be spent on Q&A. Panelists may use slides at their discretion.

NOTE: The positions of the individual panelists should be clarified and communicated to all the other panelists before the Conference begins. Also, please confirm the availability, expertise, and commitment of any co-speakers and panelists before submitting their names.

New to the Submission Form:
This year, based on feedback from GFIRST6, speakers will select session tags to better define their presentations. This process will replace the “tracks” used in past conferences and enable attendees to quickly identify the format, level, audience, and content of each session. When submitting your proposal, you will have the option to select tags from the following categories:

Format:
Analyst-to-Analyst sessions facilitate peer-to-peer technical exchange. Targeted at a select group, presenters’ perspectives align with students’.
Demonstration revolves around live, projected manipulations of tools and hacking techniques.
Interactive Training refers to hands-on sessions; students are equipped with laptops to manage simulated cyber activity.
NOTE: For Interactive Training sessions, please list any technical requirements (e.g. laptop computer with local administrator/root privileges or Java Runtime Environment), as attendees may be required to bring their own laptops to participate.

Level:
Overview sessions are stand-alone outlines of a concept or technique that require no previous knowledge.
Intermediate sessions recommend familiarity with the content to benefit from the session.
Advanced sessions require an understanding of the topic to benefit from the session.
Audience:
Government-only verifies the audience should be government-only due to sensitivities related to the topic.

Content Keywords:
Cloud Computing Security assesses technology, policies, and techniques that enable data and infrastructure protection in “the cloud”.
Digital Forensics involves the identification and analysis of digital media.
Exploits utilize vulnerabilities and glitches to manipulate computer behavior and/or gain unauthorized system access.
Intrusion Prevention describes systems that monitor malicious activity via diverse detection methods.
Policy refers to the course of action intended to promote computer security.
Strategic Management enables the achievement of security objectives by developing organizational mission, policies, and plans.
Vulnerabilities are weaknesses that compromise information assurance.

Duration:
One Hour confirms the session is one hour long, including Q&A.
Two Hours confirms the session is two hours long, including Q&A.
Half Day confirms the session is four hours long and interactive in nature.
Full Day confirms the session is six to eight hours long and interactive in nature.
Multiple Days confirms the session will be held over two or more days and is interactive in nature.

Process of Selection
The selection process follows a rigorous, double-blind peer review of every proposal submitted, by NCSD and external partners. The Review Team scores submissions based on the quality and relevance of the presentation’s content, format, and presenter experience. To alleviate discrepancies and identify the final presentations, the Review Team leverages in-person meetings and conference calls, holding all submissions in confidence until the agenda is published.

Selection Criteria

Content – the proposed topic is current, relevant, and forward thinking as it relates to cybersecurity
Format – the session is unique, the audience level and duration are appropriate, and the program is engaging/interactive
Presenter experience – the presenter is knowledgeable in the subject matter area
Consideration is also given to the following criteria:
Title is appropriate, interesting, and matches the presentation abstract
Proposal creates a clear picture of how the presentation will flow
Session abstract is clear, concise, and accurately reflects the proposed content
Session tags correlate with the proposed description
Content and skills discussed are relevant to the intended audience
Concept/solution presented has practical, real-world application
Proposal demonstrates measurable business impact and results
Objectives are achievable in the time and format selected
Addresses global issues of interest to the international community and multi-national organizations
Fulfills objectives resulting from previous conferences’ needs assessments and evaluation data
Proposals of a commercial nature which promote or market particular products and/or services, will not be considered. If you are representing a commercial interest, your presentation must be educational in nature
Proposals for keynote presentations will not be considered. Submit information for keynote presentations to gfirst@us-cert.gov

Proposals are selected based on the information submitted – those that do not follow the instructions will be ineligible for consideration.

NOTE: Acceptance/rejection notifications will be sent via email to the proposal submitter in the spring. It is their responsibility to relay that information to the presenter(s). Scheduling information will be sent to all participants in early summer, with the possibility of being asked to repeat sessions that are considered especially relevant or popular.

Time Slots

After your proposal is accepted and the agenda is finalized, a member of the committee will notify you with your assigned time slot.

Please Note: Submissions must reflect original work and must adequately document any overlap with previously published or simultaneously submitted papers from any of the authors. If authors have any doubts regarding whether such overlap exists, they should contact the program chairs prior to submission.
Submissions received after the March 25, 2011 deadline (see “Important Dates” below) may not be considered unless the program chair has granted an extension. When employer, client, or government authorization is needed, it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain such authorization prior to submitting the final materials.

Accepted papers will be presented by their author(s) and will be published in the Conference proceedings with associated speaker biographies and photographs (unless other arrangements are requested in advance). After the Conference, presentations may also be published within the GFIRST compartment of the US-CERT secure portal and/or US-CERT public-facing website with the author’s permission.

Copyright

GFIRST requires a nonexclusive copyright license for all the papers presented at the Conference and for the presentation materials. This requirement accommodates distribution on the US-CERT secure portal and US-CERT public-facing website.

Important Dates:
Call for Papers Open: January 31, 2011
Deadline for submissions: 5:00 p.m. EDT on March 25, 2011
Speakers Notified: April 2011