14 Years Later, Proving Ground is Proving Out

This panel session introduces the Proving Ground track at BSides Las Vegas, a mentorship program that pairs first-time conference speakers with experienced presenters for about ten to twelve weeks of coaching. The track chairs explain how the program started around 2011 and how its focus has been on telling stories of risk to people who make decisions. They share memorable talks, from social engineering experiments with robots to a satellite penetration test, and note effects beyond this event, including a speaker coaching program that Black Hat later created.

Current mentors and mentees then describe what they took away. The recurring lessons were to condense research into a clear hook, to write for the audience rather than recite material, and to build confidence through practice and feedback. Several mentees admitted nerves about presenting late in a crowded schedule. The panel suggested keeping the existing structure while introducing mentors to each other earlier, improving logistics guidance for speakers, and offering more help with writing call for papers submissions.

The session closes with an overview of the selection process. Planning starts in January, with calls for papers and mentors opening around February. Applicants go through two rounds of review, and anyone who has already spoken at major international conferences is excluded. Mentors rank the anonymized talks they would like to coach, and checkpoint emails track progress. A pre-conference dry run gives speakers feedback from attendees, and donor-funded stipends help first-time speakers cover travel. The takeaway for practitioners is that the program is open to anyone with a technical idea who has not yet presented at a major conference.