Homeland-security-Forum-bagOn October 14th I attended the 2010 Technology & Homeland Security Forum in Niagara Falls, NY.  The event was hosted by infoTech Niagara, Erie County LEPC, Infragard Buffalo and Niagara County Data Processing organizations.  This was the 10th anniversary of this security conference.

Why did I attend?  Security seminars are my IT horror films.    Secondly, as InfoTech Niagara, a hi tech association for the Buffalo area, was co-hosting the event, I wanted to observe what was possible for our area and Silicon Halton. While InfoTech Niagara is ~11years old, their membership numbers rival ours.  Thirdly, to gain first-hand experience commuting to the Buffalo area.

In reverse order, the commute: I left at 6:30am. The door-to-door commute from Oakville was just south of 60min.  The Toronto-bound QEW through Oakville was already moving at the customary crawl.  I coasted along at the speed limit so as to not exaggerate travel times.  Crossing the border at the Peace Bridge took ~2min.  Parking was free.  In comparison, I couldn’t have commuted to downtown Toronto in the same time frame and parking certainly wouldn’t have been free. 

Seneca Niagara Casino

The Conference:  From what I could see, there was 300-400 attendees at the Senca Convention Center, 50+ exhibitors and 3 periods of presentations, each period providing a choice of 6 different  topics, for 18 in total.  Most of the vendors were from NY and in the security, DR, BCP or ediscovery space. The event opened with a keynote on e-discovery.  It was a professional event by all accounts.  Disappointingly I was unable to pickup a wireless signal until the very end of the conference, virtually nobody had laptops, couldn’t find Twitter or a Twitter #hashtag being used (which I’ve found exponentially increases the positive experience of a seminar) nor was a hasttag promoted. As with all conferences, I wish they’d provision power bars at a number (not all) tables – enough to get juiced up from from time-to-time.

Bottom line: This is a worthwhile conference to attend next year.  I’d recommend going. More on the Security Forum by Rick here.

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