Category: What I’m Up To

Anitra and I attended last night’s CyberX Tampa event, an conference about the cybersecurity industry here in Tampa Bay. It was an extraordinarily well-attended event, with over 170 people gathered together to talk about technology, security, and the local tech scene.

The event took place at TheIncLab’s offices, located in one of the old warehouses in Tampa’s historic Ybor City neighborhood, which is largely made of repurposed cigar factories from the late 1800s. They have a beautiful courtyard which I’m familiar with — before it was TheIncLab’s place, it was home to The Undercroft, whose UC Baseline cybersecurity course I took in 2020.

CyberX Tampa opened with drinks, snacks, and networking, followed by two simultaneous panels.

The courtyard had the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion panel, featuring:

• Suzanne Ricci, Chief Success Officer, Computer Coach, as moderator
• Courtney H. Jackson, Founder & CEO, Paragon Cyber Solutions
• Samantha Ramos, Information Security Risk Manager, Nextech Systems
• Hugh Percy , Mgr, Cyber Security Threat Analysis & Operations, Moffitt

And inside, there was the panel titled Blackhat Tactics You Should Know, with:

• Charlton Trezevant, Senior Application Security Consultant, GuidePoint Security
• Robert Lubin, Security Operations Center Director, Abacode

The final panel of the evening was the big one — a discussion of the state of cybersecurity in Florida.

The panelists were:

• Moderator: Larry Whiteside, CISO, RegScale
• Jason Allen, CTO, Digital Hands
• Kari Schori, CIO, Office of the Public Defender 6th Judicial Circuit
• Rolando Torres, Co-Founder & COO, Abacode

It was a great evening all around, and I hope it’s a good sign for future events in Tampa Bay, and a sign that our tech community is active!

Of course, the events wouldn’t have happened without the sponsors. Click on their logos to find out more about them!