RSA Conference’s Cecilia Marinier Previews RSAC 2024

This is Textron tv. Hi everyone. We're back here on Textron tv.

You know, it's getting near that time of year, and I am not talking about Christmas, talking about RSA conference. It's about a month away. We are pumped here at Textron.

We've got so many things going on for RSA. We've got our DevOps Connect DevSecOps seminar. Again, I've got got an amazing lineup of AI speakers headlined by the very famous sci-Fi author, David Bri, whose multiple Hugo Nebula Awards, PhD from nasa, jet Propulsion, JPL movies, books, everything.

And we kind of great speakers. In addition to that, we're gonna be live at Techstrong at, uh, broadcast Alley all week. Uh, we're putting, I have a panel I'm doing on what's next in DevSecOps.

This woman right here is the lady behind the Sandbox Innovation Sandbox, and everything else that's been grown was originally just a sandbox. Now they've got all kinds of programs around this. Um, I've had the pleasure of interviewing her for years, literally on our show.

And to me, r a's real when Cecilia is on. Let me introduce you to Cecilia Mar. I hope I do it right.

You did great. You know, after a certain amount of years, it kind of sets in Cecilia. Its off Your tongue.

It rolls off your Tongue. Well, I I'm just back from Paris too, so I, I had a little practice. Um, anyway, Cecilia, it's so great to have you on.

You look fantastic. How's everything? Things are great.

It's such an exciting year. I know this is crazy, but, and I say this every year, so I feel kind of like I gotta, you know, shake it up a little bit. But honestly, this is gonna be the goat.

We have so many great, amazing things coming this year, including you, Alan, you're gonna be there. We're excited. We have a crazy great lineup for our keynotes.

And we just announced the top 10 for Innovation Sandbox Contest. It's gonna be fun. I can't wait Either.

Can I? I I, you know, I just, I can't wait. Um, Cecilia, we, we've got people out here.

Some of our audience, a lot of our audience are cyber folks and they'll be at RSA. A lot of 'em are DevOps. They may be at RSA too Cloud Native Digital Transformation.

Right? Of course, AI folks, but not everyone is probably familiar with the Innovation Sandbox program that you've been running over at the RSA conference for, what is it now? It's gotta be 10 years more, 15 years, 18 years.

Alan, Alan, you're making me old Man. No, you weren't doing it all the time. I know.

I was saying that actually the contest itself is 19 years old and, um, and it has had just an incredible run of picking really important companies that are shifting and changing our industry. So it's, it's so amazing to be working on this program. I like it a lot.

So, you know, RSA conference is committed to supporting and amplifying innovation. We try really hard to help our community members hear from companies that are developing novel approaches to attack the complex problems facing our industry. And Innovation Sandbox is the, the leading platform where we just announced the top 10, as I just spoke about, uh, in, they will be on the stage on May 6th.

And so a super fun group of people, you know, this co this competition has actually had the luck, or not necessarily luck, just amazing track record of all of the companies that have come on here. There's been 80 acquisitions over 13 and a half billion in investments. We've had Phantom Win Big ID exons recently, TALEN Security, and last year was Hidden Layer.

So those are names, you know, they, they came to our stage in the beginning of their launch of their really big, uh, uh, announcement to their, to the whole audience. And then it really has shown us how important this contest is at in launching these these companies careers. Absolutely.

You know, and it is, it's, it's, it's, it's become the showcase for up and coming security companies and and what a feather in the cap it is. Even not even a win. Even to make the top 10 finalist list is the top 10 is, I mean, yeah.

Yeah. 13 and a half billion in investments. Those guys have done very well.

Extremely well. Absolutely. It's, it's crazy.

So let me ask you, how do you wanna do this? Should we, do you wanna run through the whole top 10 or do we say, if you want to see it go to the RSA site? The RSA conference site?

How so? Yeah, your, your call. I, I kind of wanna do two things.

One, I wanna talk a little bit about the trends. So yes, you know, when you're thinking about what is the most impactful technology that's just happened in the last 24 months, it's artificial intelligence. And so in the top 10, you're gonna see many of the companies either talk about, you know, large language models or they're gonna be using Gen AI in order to really, uh, increase the security team's productivity.

You have companies that are creating solutions to help you find these fake deep fakes and applications to ensure that you're, you're going against the adversaries that are using these technologies as well. I think some of the other pieces that are really important is just the judges that are here, not only are veterans onto the ISB panel, but they're also representative of leaders in the industry from different voices and different perspectives. So when they were choosing these companies, you know, you had a venture capitalist with Hasheem Chandra from Greylock, uh mm-Hmm.

You had large security company strategists with Dory do from Checkpoint, uh, who's the chief technology officer over there. You have Nilu Howe, who is, um, who is on the pulse of national security. You have have a successful entrepreneur, Paul Kocher, who has demonstrated how to take a company out from, uh, from the nascent stages all the way to Exit.

And then you also have, uh, Nazarene Reza, who is the CISO at Verizon. So all those perspectives came together and they helped choose the top 10. And I'm not gonna highlight any specific company and it gets too long if we actually talk through the names, but go check 'em out.

It's gonna be a really incredible lineup. I love the companies that are gonna be there. Where can we go check 'em out?

So you go to, um, you go to the RSA conference website, you go to the events page, and you get the innovation. And not only can you find Innovation Sandbox with the top 10, you'll see their logos. Uh, you can also check out a little bit more detail if you read the press release.

'cause we did put a small snippet of each of the company's names, but off of our website, you can actually click through to find those companies. Um, but when you're there, you can also be checking out all of the other innovation off offerings, because this year we have some really cool things coming with Launchpad. I'm just gonna briefly touch on that because I am really excited about the judges there.

It's Enrique Salem from Bain Capital. Sure. We have Sarah Gao from Conviction.

She started her own firm, but she's a Greylock Venture, uh, veteran. And then you have also Bar Mfta who used to run, uh, alien Vault and now has started Ballistic Ventures. So, I mean, again, like just Stellar And before Alien Vault, he had another good company before.

So I would, full disclosure, I was on the board of advisors of Alien book. Okay. And, but, um, good job, Alan.

Yeah, no, you did great sell. But the company they did before was pretty good too. Oh.

Um, they had a good exit anyway. Yeah. I mean, these are, these are giants in the community.

Yes. Cecilia, for people who, again, who may not be familiar, the difference between Sandbox and Launchpad. Okay.

You know what, I'm gonna do three there because Alan, I have to tell you, we did something about naming that has been, uh, a little bit of a challenge for us about Sandbox. So the Innovation Sandbox Contest is our 19-year-old contest. It's taking companies that are in their, they're ready to go to market.

They have the product that is going, that is, has been launched, and they have the team in place in order to actually make an impact in the cybersecurity market over the next 12 months. Launchpad is aimed at an earlier stage company. It's a company that probably doesn't have their product out, or if they do, it was, it's coming out right before or at conference.

And the goal here was kind of building out something where we could demonstrate where trends were happening earlier on. With Launchpad, it's a shorter contest. There's only three companies that are gonna be there.

And basically it's a little bit more like Shark Tank, where at the end of the, at the end of the pitch, he will ask the different, uh, VCs, are you in? Would you wanna see this company again? And I have seen those companies and it's really cool to see some of the solutions that they're coming out with.

So I don't know who's gonna be picked, because that's happening on Friday. You have to wait till next week. Mm-Hmm.

But, uh, that's gonna be, that's what launchpad is. And ISB has just, um, has just announced their top 10, so they're ready to go. You can check those guys out.

Great. You and The last one, I forgot. So Sandbox.

Oh, you the third one. Last One. Because these are your friends, Alan.

This is the, um, where we have created this like kind of hands-on zone. It's, it's in the actual location close to Innovation Sandbox, but it's in the zone where what we've asked is to have different, like basically def com villages come in and do some hands-on activities. And so you have the ICS village and the IOT village and the AI village, and they all give you like a little mini sampling.

And it also has talks on a stage that are, are more aligned with some of the, you know, cutting edge research. And then you have, oh, and Cloud Security Village, there's eight villages. Wow.

Oh. And including, uh, the Idaho National Labs and cisa are bringing an escape room. So you find the escape room.

I know. That's, it's super, super fun. That's, it's super fun.

So I, I'm excited for this year's, uh, innovation area. It really is gonna be packed and fun and come, come play with us. Absolutely.

You know, last year at RSAI, um, I felt like wow, COVID ISS in the rear view mirror. I think we were back up to like 40 something thousand people. Uh, it felt like RSA again, this year though, I'm expecting a record breaking.

RSA How are, can you comment on, on that? How, How are our numbers? Our numbers are good.

Our numbers are good. I heard, I will, I'm not a betting person because I don't like to do that. But what I can tell you is we are trending very well against our own expectations.

And so I feel good about, um, do I, about the numbers that you, I'm so looking forward, what'll say? I, I hear you. You know, we'll be there all week, as I said on broadcast all, uh, and I'm, look RS a's a highlight for my ha has been for many years.

Um, Cecile, you know what I realize not everyone at it, we tell 'em, go to the RSA conference website. us Now? I forget.

com and then if, if you go up, you can see the events and in there in one of the tags we Conference Slash usa, you know, events. Yep. But Now that we've, now that we're back, Yes.

Can we start doing RSA again in, in other places, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, we've done in the past London, what are, what are our plan? And I realize you're not the be all and end all for all things RSA conference, but, But what do I know? What Do you think?

What do I know? What do you know? What do you know what, just between us, I'll give you the inside scoop.

You know, we do have a vision to really start spreading our wings again. Uh, it's gonna take, you know, a year or two to kind of get ourselves back to where we, back to finding the locations and, and being strategic about it. Like finding how to really increase, you know, the community's value out for this.

Our goal is not to do conferences. Our goal is to build a community. And we can do that.

And we need to get to those locations in order to do that. So our objectives in the next 12 months is to really kind of fig flesh out where we should be going. And that's where I'll leave it, because it's, uh, All right.

Well, look, We've discovered, Hey, hey, you've got a lot of ideas here, though. We're open to getting, uh, feedback. Oh, I have ideas.

We'll give them to you. But, you know, it's a dangling metaphor. As I said, there's nothing matter with Amsterdam, Paris, London, Prague, any, any of the cities in Spain are nice.

Yes. Um, but we'll talk, we'll talk more, um, Cecilia, all kidding. You said, we gotta wrap up.

But first of all, congratulations on what you're doing with the sandbox and, and launchpad and everything. Thank you. It it, it serves a very important purpose because innovation in cyber doesn't necessarily, doesn't usually come from the companies up here who maybe are supplying judges.

Innovation in cyber starts at the grassroots level with startups and with new companies, with new ways of looking at things and new ideas. Right. And so it's, it's so important to give these companies a glide path to take off.

And, and this is the best one there is. Yeah. Thank you.

I, I mean, we've done a lot of effort on this and we're still building it out. We really do want to amplify innovation as we, it's one of our missions. And I really believe that the creativity from the good guys is absolutely essential to go against the bad guys.

'cause they are creative. Yeah. But the, They are created and well funded startup.

Yeah, absolutely. And then our startups are nimble and the people have great mission, great vision, and they, it, it's just been really fun to spend 10 years in this and see just how far we've come and what we're doing next. And I, I, I really am proud of this cybersecurity community.

It's always amazing to me how they step up and they, they pivot quickly. They adapt new technologies, they build new solutions. And if our whole idea is to help that community and to pro provide them this platform, then I hope we're doing the right thing and we're doing a good job.

And, and, uh, again, we'll take feedback. Absolutely. Great, Cecilia, best of luck.

Can't wait to find out more and see, and maybe we'll be interviewing some of these finalists as well before RI hope you do RAI hope you do well. Uh, I'm gonna talk to someone I know who can help me there. Um, Cecilia Mar r yay, senior Director Innovation and scholars of RSA conference, talking about the innovation early stage startups at RSA conference coming up in about a month.

It all starts on May 6th. Monday. May 6th through Thursday.

I, I guess that's the ninth. Cecilia. Great seeing you.

Great seeing you, Alan. I'm looking forward to seeing you in person. Me too.

We're gonna take a break here on Techstrong. We'll be back in a minute.