Pass the SALT 2020 conference report

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You will find below the final report of the Pass the SALT 20120209 conference, in which we will detail:

• the attendance,
• the content of the conference,
• the setup for this first fully virtual edition,
• and finally, the feedback from attendees.

• Attendance:
  • The conference had an improved registration rate (302 people ↗ , 2019: 240). We managed to get between 60 to 100 people online all along the conference.
  • A much more international attendance than previous editions .
    
    
• Format, Content and Sharing:
  • This first virtual edition adopted a three afternoons format.
  • Talks were done under a live webinar with a live Q/A session at the end of each talk. We used Zoom for webinar and Youtube Live for non registered users.
  • 15 talks dispatched under[a][b] 6 different sessions (Securing boxes, Redteaming on the Internets etc)
  • NEW: we have added a live concert by Clément Oudot, a free software developer who releases his songs under CC-BY-SA license.
  • Each evening we provided edited videos (with sponsors mentioned at the start) of the day and slides. Everything is available on our archives site.
    
    
• Experience: 100% of the attendees described (src: post event survey) their experience as wonderful (31%) or very good (69%)
  
  
• Sponsors: we really want to thank for the support which makes all of this possible! And, as previously said, due to severe decrease of our expenses, we decided that 2020 sponsors will stay sponsors for 2021 at no cost.

Let’s dig now in a more detailed view of the event and of your feedback.

Figures

• 302 people booked a seat.
• We finally got:
• Monday June 29 afternoon: 100 attendees (75 on Zoom, 25 on Youtube Live).
• Tuesday June 30 afternoon: 80 attendees (60 on Zoom, 20 on Youtube Live)
• Wednesday July 1 afternoon: 60 attendees (45 on Zoom, 15 on Youtube Live)

Some insights to try to explain even partially the global decrease of the number of live attendees all along the 3 days : we provided edited talks videos on a daily basis.

As we managed to provide at the end of each day the edited videos and the slides of ALL the talks that occurred during the afternoon on our archive site, people were able to choose to watch (possibly for a second time) the talks they want when they want. They were not required anymore to watch the conference live. At the time of writing (end of August 2020), archived videos of 2020 have been viewed 43 times on average, with a peak at 226.

Geographical distribution of the attendees:
source: registration site * France: 50.6% ↘(2019: 78%) * Europe: 29.2% ↗ (2019: 17%) * Rest of the world: 20.2% ↗ (2019: 5%)

Interesting information: in contrast with the 2019 edition, only half of the attendees are from France. Other 30% are from Europe. And last 20% from another part of the World. Despite the several drawbacks of a virtual event, it also presents some advantages: as shown above, it allows worldwide people to attend much more easily!

Occupation:
source : registration site

In comparison to 2019, we had an increase of the private sector representation (over public sector) and a little less students.

For the record, the 2019 figures were: private sector: 50%, public sector: 16%, students: 13%, academic: 5%, others: 6%.

The event has been done virtually from the 29 of June and the 1st of July 2020.

It has provided:

• 15 talks (35min or 20min long)
• Speakers distribution:
  • France : 55%
  • Europe: 40%
  • Rest of the world: 5%
• 2 talks among 15 have been given by a woman (alone on stage or with a co-speaker). We have to try harder to improve this figure and tend to parity.
• NEW: we have added a live concert by Clément Oudot, a free software developer who releases his songs under CC-BY-SA license.
• Video : talks have been streamed and edited videos have been made available each evening with slides also.

We are very happy about the global results of this fully virtual edition.

We managed:

• to do a complete edition with 15 quality talks about Security and Free Software.
• to provide a safe conference for the attendees, speakers and org team exposing them to no COVID19 risk.
• to put online slides and edited videos of each talk given during the day (ie in addition to Youtube Live raw recording) at the end of each day on our archives site (https://archives.pass-the-salt.org/Pass the SALT/2020/).

We are very happy with this 2020 virtual edition and we really want to thank all the speakers and the sponsors for giving us the capability to do it this way!