I will be speaking at the 2017 Global Conference on Educational Robotics (July 8-12, 2017). For those of you unfamiliar with GCER, the audience is mostly a mix of middle school students, high school students, college students, and educators, most of whom are participating in the robotics competitions hosted at GCER (primarily Botball). I competed in Botball (and the other 2 GCER competitions: KIPR Open and KIPR Aerial) between 2003 and 2015, and that experience (particularly the hacking aspect, which is actively encouraged in all three competitions) was a major factor in why I’m a Namecoin developer. My talk is an outreach effort, which I hope will result in increased interest in the Botball scene in the areas of privacy, security, and human rights. My talk (scheduled for July 10) is entitled “Making HTTPS and Anonymity Networks Slightly More Secure (Or: How I’m Using My Botball Skill Set in the Privacy/Security Field)”.

Huge thanks to KISS Institute for Practical Robotics (which organizes GCER) for suggesting that I give this talk. Looking forward to it!