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The EFF is looking for a Technical Projects Director

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date March 4, 2020

The EFF — Electronic Frontier Foundation — are always on the front lines in the battle to preserve digital freedom. From their first case, when the Secret Service thought that a Steve Jackson cyberpunk role-playing game manual was a how-to handbook for cybercrimes to the present-day challenges of privacy and security, we are lucky to have them fighting on our side. (I myself owe them for a couple of times when they’ve helped me personally.)

They have an opening for a senior position — Technology Projects Director, who will lead a 16-person team whose goal is to work on projects to create a more secure, private, and censorship-resistant internet. The Technology Projects Director will be a member of the senior leadership team, and help the EFF figure out what their next moves are: what positions to take, what projects to invest resources in, and the strategic direction of the organization.

Some of the projects the Director will oversee are:

Privacy Badger, EFF’s wildly popular tracker blocker
HTTPS Everywhere, used by millions to make their web browsing more secure
Certbot, a Let’s Encrypt client helping website owners globally receive and install SSL certificates to secure their sites
Panopticlick, a research and education project that sheds light on the seedy underbelly of browser fingerprinting
STARTTLS Everywhere, a project to foster STARTTLS adoption and make email delivery more secure
EFF’s Threat Lab, which has published blockbuster investigations into abusive practices by technology companies, leading to major policy changes

More details about the position are available here.

The EFF wants to encourage lots of different people to apply for this role, but they won’t achieve that without the help of the community. Please help them by sending a note about this role to folks that you believe might be a good fit, and sharing this announcement on social media.

If you’re thinking of potentially applying but have a few questions, email rainey@eff.org, and someone will get back to you.

I may have to send them an application.

Current Events Tampa Bay

Tential Tuesday: Tuesday, March 31st at Zydeco Beer Works in Ybor City!

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date March 4, 2020

The first Tential Tuesday of 2020 takes place at the end of the month — Tuesday, March 31 — at Zydeco Beer Works in Ybor City! There’ll be a special presentation on digital transformation in Tampa Bay, and you won’t want to miss it.

Current Events Tampa Bay

Roberto Torres at Café con Tampa (Oxford Exchange) this Friday!

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date March 3, 2020

Roberto Torres is an unstoppable force for good in Tampa Bay. Since founding the Blind Tiger Café, he’s since expanded to multiple locations all over the area, including a branch called Endeavr located right in our new startup accelerator, Embarc Collective.

Café con Tampa is also an unstoppable force for good — it’s a weekly gathering on Friday mornings between 8 and 9 a.m. at the Commerce Club (upstairs at Oxford Exchange) where you’ll see interesting speakers give presentations over breakfast on topics that matter to them. Think of it as an intellectual salon with the city’s best breakfast sandwiches.

This Friday, March 6th, Roberto Torres is the guest speaker at Café con Tampa, and he’ll be presenting on a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: choosing Tampa as the destination to live, work, and play.

(I myself made this decision 6 years ago, having driven into town with a Honda CR-V full of my stuff on March 7th, 2014 — this presentation will be a sort of early anniversary for me!)

I’ll be there, and I’d like to see some of Tampa’s tech community come to this one. It happens this Friday at 8:00 a.m., ends promptly at 9:00. Tickets are $12 at the door (they take cash or credit), and covers the cost of the room and the breakfast buffet.

Career Current Events Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay Innovation Center’s Entrepreneur & Investment Challenge is looking for applicants

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date March 3, 2020

Tampa Bay Innovation Center’s Spring 2020 Entrepreneurship & Investment Challenge takes place from April 28th through July 15th, and they’re looking for Tampa Bay-based tech startups to join!

The Entrepreneurship & Investment Challenge is a program focused on preparing technology ventures in how to scale a company. It’s not about preparing your pitch, marketing, or raising money. Instead, it takes an “inside-out” approach. It’s about preparing your company not to just look ready but to be ready to take an investment, hit the ground running, and execute your plan.

From their site:

The program helps CEOs develop into leaders that can rapidly execute plans, adjust plans when appropriate, and give them the experience to know how to navigate the obstacles that derail promising startups. While a good pitch will attract investors, the deal is closed based on your response to questions and successful due diligence. Having the confidence that you can handle the next phase of your startup will help close the deal with investors.

Eligible companies are:

Scalable B2B tech ventures
Are pre-seed, seed, or post-seed to Series A
At the post-MVP / proof of concept stage
In possession of less that $2 million in capital
Made up of two or more team members
Able to commit to a 12-week program

The program is free-as-in-beer — you won’t spend anything to attend — and no equity is required. It’s offered in a series of 1= to 2-day workshops over 10 to 12 weeks, and accommodates up to 10 companies per cohort.

Interested? Find out more at the Entrepreneurship & Investment Challenge page at the Tampa Bay Innovation Center site.

Current Events Players Tampa Bay

Don’t miss the 7th annual WITI Geek Glam this Thursday!

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date March 2, 2020

The WITI (Women in Technology International) Geek Glam is Tampa Bay’s most glamorous tech event, and it takes place this Thursday, March 5th at Tampa River Center at Julian B Lane Riverfront Park. One of the events at the Geek Glam will be the fashion show, featuring a number of Tampa Bay tech women, including my favorite, Anitra Pavka:

The event will also feature:

A silent auction, whose proceeds will go to the WITI Tampa Network Scholarship fund at SPC and USF to support future generations of Tampa Bay technologists
A pop-up market
Door prizes
Networking with 350 of your peers in the Tampa Bay tech community
A DJ to keep the tunes going and a photographer for some non-selfie shots
Some nerd with an accordion providing scintillating conversation and additional musical merriment

…and it all happens in this gorgeous venue with a wonderful riverfront view:

Here’s the event schedule:

5:30 – Event Starts
6:00 – Welcome from WITI
7:00 – Welcome from Sponsors
7:15 – Fashion Show
8:30 – Silent Auction Closes
9:00 – End of Geek Glam 2020!

And here’s how you can attend:

You can go to the event registration page and buy a ticket, which is $30 for WITI members and $45 for non-members.
You can attend for free by volunteering. Suzanne Ricci is looking for a handful of volunteers; the details are on LinkedIn.

This will be a fun, stylish event, and it’s both a great cause as well as a great opportunity to catch up with local techies and other business movers and shakers. Don’t miss out on this one!

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