Kuai Hinojosa

Kuai

Please Note I don't keep my linkedin profile updated
To see my edits to the OWASP Wiki click here  To view LinkedIn profile [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kuai-hinojosa/15/498/680 Click Here]

Who am I?
I am the President for the Minneapolis - St Paul OWASP Chapter in Minnesota. I have lead this chapter for two years (2008 - 2010). Meanwhile, I have become a faithful OWASP missionary. I am now a board member for NYC/NJ Chapter where I lead local OWASP Education efforts and I am also a member of the OWASP Global Education Committee where I lead similar efforts at a Global level.

What have I accomplished for OWASP?
As an OWASP Leader, I have accomplished the following:

Increased OWASP Minneapolis - St Paul chapter attendance significantly Increased local chapter’s membership Obtained the financial and volunteer support of local and nation wide companies, organizations and Universities Increased OWASP exposure academically and internationally by speaking or participating at targeted events Introduced to our community well known influential leaders such as Bruce Schneier and Richard Stallman to mention a few Increased OWASP corporate sponsorship Organized several conferences and special events

Why you should vote for me?
OWASP is a community full of talented technical volunteers who make this community strong, this community needs strong leader with social intelligence who can spread the OWASP mission, continue to raise support and build relationships that will make our community stronger and serve as an example of web application security done right!

As board member I will focus on education efforts and continue to get active support of well known and respected universities, make our training materials solid and leverage the great work of all of the global committees such as the Global Education and Project Committees. It is time we as a community start influencing not only the day to day developer but most importantly new developers coming out of college.

How did accomplished these goals?
I have a As a Chapter President of a local non profit organization, one is faced with a lot of challenges. One of those challenges is attendance. In order to lead a successful chapter a chapter's president has to increase the attendance significantly which then leads to people's interest in OWASP and its mission and then leads to people's support in the chapter. Attendance can be increased with good speakers which are hard to find. This is why it is important for a leader to network in the community and get involved. Another challenge is help, for those chapter leaders out there reading this you know what I am talking about. It is a lot of hard work to organize meetings, conferences, getting good speakers, worry about the location, food and beverages, spreading the word to local communities of potential interest, network with other developers/information security groups and get their support just to mention a few essential tasks. With the help of volunteers, volunteers who are willing to give their precious time and who have some skill set than can bring value to the team. Therefore, as a leader one has to be able to identify self-motivated individuals and find ways to keep them motivated, incite them to participate and guide them through, be able to help them develop their leadership skills. After all without a good team, meeting those challenges could be extremely difficult if not impossible.

The next challenge is sponsorship, yes sponsorship = money. I always thought that being an open source community and non profit that raising money did not matter, how naive right? After all things cost money right? food and beverages, location, travel arrangements for speakers outside of the local community, and name tags just a name a few. So, yes money does matter with that said a successful chapter leader has to do its best by doing more with less and continue to shoot high and get as much sponsorship as possible. In the end of the day, sponsorship provides the ability to continue to offer good quality events which generate more support.

So, as a chapter president I first focused on increasing attendance and I was able to do so by getting well known speakers in the industry to talk at our local meetings. Thanks to the participation of well known names in the industry such as Bruce Schneier, Jeff Williams, Jeremiah Grosman, Rsnake, Richard Stallman, Ryan C Barnett to name a few I was able to increase attendance from an average of 5 to 10 attendees to an average of 30 to 50 attendees and more than 50 attendees in some monthly meetings. In special some special events we have hosted about 300 attendees, and our mailing list has skyrocket. Our high attendance helped raise funds significantly from our members and corporate sponsorship. Again thanks to the help of our chapter's board and my networking skills.

As Global Education Committee member and local board member of the NYC/NJ Metro chapter I continue to gain the support of well known universities and I have helped organized a few successful OWASP AppSec - Academia events. I continue to spread the OWASP gospel at University related events and raise support.