How to Yolocon

This doc serves as a skeleton template on how to put on an awesome conference

What is Yolocon?

• YoloCon stand for: Ypsilanti Online Learning Opportunities Conference
• YoloCon is a 100% student led security-focused conference and fundraiser for the Eastern Michigan University Information Assurance Student Association.

There are four primary goals of this conference:

1. Public Speaking! 📢

   • We get students an opportunity to talk about projects and topics they are passionate about in front of peers, leaders, and industry professionals

2. Learning! 🎓

   • Security is a wildly broad field. The only limits on topics are:
     • NO SALES PITCHES* (see below)
     • The subject needs to be related to the cyber security / IT space!

3. Networking! 🌐

   • The security world is a lot smaller than we give it credit for. Meeting people and getting the chance to talk to industry professionals is extremely valuable, especially for entry level students

4. JOBS!

   • Before Yolocon - the IASA collects resumes of ALL interested students and puts them in a resume database, given to all organizations who decide to help sponsor the club! (Helping get food into the conference IS also sponsoring 😄)

*Vendors and sponsors - Please no sales pitches. Your audience is students and individuals trying to learn about concepts, not products. Talking about the concepts, technology, theories, and issues behind a product you/your org sells is totally fine, but this isn't the place to try and get customers 😄 Thank you!!

** Example: Your org sells email spam prevention appliances. Talk about what DMARC security looks like, how you can create logic to detect / prevent spam, why spam + phishing is an issue. Not how awesome your product specifically is 😄)

What a good conference needs

1. Rooms. Nice Rooms 🏫

   • Fortunately, EMU has a brand new facility for security! Book rooms well in advance (4-5 months, AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE)

2. Killer schedule ⏰

   • We have 3 different talks going on at once, each in their own 'Track'
   • Scheduling is key. Try to make sure tracks don't overlap too aggressively
   • Try to have talks in different tracks end at the same time so that everyone has someone listening in on the talk, and some time to catch a break and socialize in-between talks

3. Food 🍴

   • Not much to explain here. Nobody hates on a coffee + bagels breakfast and a catered lunch 👌 (We love you Dominos!! 🍕)

4. SWAG 😎

   • Free t-shirt / stickers goes a long way.

5. SUPPORT 💪

   • You're not gonna do this alone. Get a group of individuals to help with setup and teardown.