Guardians of the Global Network Uniting for Resilience

39th Annual Conference Program Committee

Overview

FIRST is a member-driven, non-profit organization with an emphasis on information sharing within its global membership as well as the incident response community at large. The Program Committee is a volunteer opportunity, open to non-members and managed through an open call submission process. Program Committee members are selected for their expertise in key areas relating to program objectives, previous content committee experience, and geographical diversity.

Program Committee Volunteer Submission and Expectations

Interest due by July 31, 2026 | Acceptance Notifications - Mid-August 2026

2027 Program Committee Join Request - Closed

Term Duration: September 2026-June 2027
Committee Seats: 25
Meeting Commitments:

The following final dates are subject to change and should be used as general guidance. Individual time zones will be considered during final scheduling to ensure maximum participation. Virtual meetings will be recorded for those that ultimately are unable to participate.

Please plan to commit at least one hour per call (subject to change):

  • Week of September 15 – Introductory Meeting, CFS Program Goals, Keynote Suggestions and Brainstorming
  • Week of October 6 – CFS Final Draft Due and Continued Discussion of Program Goals
  • Week of October 27 – PC Touch base, Final Review of CFS, and Keynote Status Check
  • Week of December 8 – PC Assignments and Q&A Before Winter Break
  • Week of January 12 – Review Discussion, Updates, Questions
  • Week of February 2 – Final Voting and Agenda Building

General Responsibilities & Expectations Include:

  • Comfortable communicating in English in both written and oral communications
  • Active participation in discussion on both the mailing list and Slack channel
  • Assist with soliciting of submissions through industry networks
  • Reviewing and grading presentations submitted via the CFS tool
  • Overall content/theme review

Program committee members do not receive a discount on conference registration fees.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact events@first.org.

About the 2027 Conference Program Chair

Martijn has been working in the information security field for almost 30 years.

Currently he works as a consultant at the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) Thailand, to help improve security further in the country. His role includes incident response, threat intelligence, PKI, training, and consulting. He also authored a number of handbooks and whitepapers, several of which can be found on the FIRST website. One of the other projects he is currently involved in is professionalizing the Thailand National Root Certification Authority (NRCA).

Before that, he worked at Royal Dutch Telecom, KPN, the incumbent telecom provider of The Netherlands, where he set up KPN-CERT which he chaired for 12 years. Then he was invited to move to Thailand in 2014, to join the National CERT (ThaiCERT) team. The National CERT function has since moved to the National Cyber Security Agency (NCSA), and Martijn was asked to take an additional role as advisor for this agency.