Conference News: GHC Updates Attendee Policies; CSA Goes Virtual Again; ViVe CFP

GHC Safeguards its Mission: AnitaB.org’s Grace Hopper Celebration is the world’s largest tech conference for women and nonbinary people. In response to concerns over attendees who exploited the expo hall last year, the organizers are making changes to GHC 24, which will be held October 8 – 11 in Philadelphia. As recently reported by Computerworld, GHC will modify its registration procedure to require valid ID at registration, and attendees must also agree to GHC’s updated code of conduct, which stipulates that behavior while attending the event aligns with the organization’s mission. Perhaps the most notable change in 2024 is that all attendees will be assigned timed entry to the expo, giving everyone the chance to enjoy the hall without having to fight crowds. According to Computerworld, GHC is also planning “enhanced cybersecurity monitoring to detect any coordinated efforts early, so they can be dealt with, and onsite security personnel to handle problems that might arise at the venue. These measures were created in consultation with external security consultants, local law enforcement.”

Back into the Cloud: The Cloud Security Alliance has decided to transform SECtember.ai from an in-person conference into two free virtual events. The first SECtember.ai Global will be on 26 September and happen as a half-day conference “featuring key thought leaders, an update on the AI Safety Initiative research & tools, and a preview of the main conference,” according to the CSA announcement. CSA Global AI Symposium will be the second event, hosted as the official SECtember conference from 22 – 24 October. It will include sessions programmed for the original in-person conference plus additional industry leading content.

Submission Opportunity: Merging the leadership of CHIME and the marketplace of HLTH, ViVe (16-19 February; Nashville) is designed to offer the digital health ecosystem one central event focused on the business of transformation in healthcare. Now until 20 September, interested speakers can submit a proposal. To improve your chances of getting invited to speak at ViVe, bear in mind a few important tips from the organizers. First, they accept applications on a rolling basis and therefore recommend applying early; in fact, one’s chances of being selected will decrease as the deadline approaches. Also, each executive is limited to one submission, so multiple proposals for one person won’t be considered. Finally, while ViVe loves to help companies make big announcements on their stage, in general they are more interested in the viewpoints of an leader’s broad experience and not their company’s marketing talking points.

Lunchtime Learning: The PanelPicker submission process and public voting for SXSW 2025 wrapped a few weeks ago, and notifications won’t be made until October. Need a little SXSW in your life before then?In a recent email, SXSW co-president Hugh Forrest reflected on a few of his favorite speakers from the past who have been in the news lately, including: former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki (who sadly passed away earlier this month at 56) who gave SXSW 2018 conversation with Wired editor Nicholas Thompson; Julia Louis-Dreyfus, in the spotlight given a reignited interest in the HBO series Veep during the election, who spoke about that role and other highlights of her career in this 2015 session; and President Biden, who announced that he will spend the last few months of his time in the White House focused on one of his long-standing passions — the Cancer Moonshot Project – discussing the urgency of this initiative when he spoke at SXSW 2017.

Coming Up Next Week: While the week of Labor Day is historically slow, conference activity picks up in earnest by Friday when global consumer and electronics convention IFA Berlin kicks off. IFA Berlin splits programming between the Messe Berlin and STATION Berlin venues. At Forbes Future of Work Summit (12 September; New York), leaders explore the intersection of two phenomena with huge impact for the future of work: the rise of generative artificial intelligence, and the shift to a skills-based economy. NYC TV Week runs 9-12 September, presented by Next TV, Broadcasting+Cable, and Multichannel News, offering content and networking for senior executives across streaming, broadcast, and cable. On 9 September, Oracle CloudWorld gets underway in Las Vegas, assembling the company’s ecosystem of customers and partners. Technical leaders meet at AI Hardware & Edge AI Summit (10-12 September; Santa Clara) for design and deployment best practices in ML hardware and software infrastructure across the cloud-edge continuum. And SaaStr Annual runs from 10-12 at the San Mateo Event Center as an indoor/outdoor festival to help SaaS founders scale faster and succeed.