Samer Salam

Omar Santos is a cybersecurity thought leader with a passion for driving industry-wide initiatives to enhance the security of critical infrastructures. Omar is the lead of the DEF CON Red Team Village, chair of the Common Security Advisory Framework (CSAF) technical committee, and board member of the OASIS Open standards organization. Omar's collaborative efforts extend to numerous organizations, including the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) and the Industry Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI). Omar is a renowned expert in ethical hacking, vulnerability research, and incident response. He employs his deep understanding of these disciplines to help organizations stay ahead of emerging threats. His dedication to cybersecurity has made a significant impact on businesses, academic institutions, law enforcement agencies, and other entities striving to bolster their security measures. With over twenty books, video courses, white papers, and technical articles under his belt, Omar's expertise is widely recognized and respected. As a principal engineer at Cisco's Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT), Omar not only leads engineers and incident managers in investigating and resolving cybersecurity vulnerabilities, but also actively mentors the next generation of security professionals.

Samer Salam is a technology architect and software engineering leader in the computer networking industry with over 23 years of experience. In his role as a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco Systems, he focuses on identifying disruptive technologies based on market transitions, incubating and mainstreaming emerging technologies, in addition to defining the system and software architecture for networking products. His work spans the areas of Intent Based Networking, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Reasoning, Semantic Technologies and Immersive Visualization. Previously at Cisco, he held multiple technical leadership and software development positions working on IoT, Layer 2 VPN / EVPN, Carrier/Metro Ethernet services, OAM, network resiliency, system scalability, software quality, multi-service edge, broadband, MPLS and dial solutions. Samer was awarded the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP) 2022 Excellence in Service Innovation Award for the Impact to Innovation category. He holds over 95 US and international patents and is co-author of The Internet of Things From Hype to Reality: The Road to Digitization. He authored thirteen IETF RFCs, and multiple articles in academic and industry journals. He is also a speaker at CiscoLive, and blogs on networking technology. He holds an M.S. degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a B.E. degree in Computer and Communications Engineering, with Distinction, from the American University of Beirut, where he received the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture Deans Award for Creative Achievement.

Hazim Dahir, is a Distinguished Engineer at the Cisco Technology Enablement and Acceleration Office. He is working to define and influence next-generation digital transformation architectures across multiple technologies and verticals. Hazim started his Cisco tenure in 1996 as a software engineer and subsequently moved into the services organization focusing on large-scale and emerging technology network architectures. He is currently focusing on developing architectures utilizing security, collaboration, Edge computing, and AI technologies addressing future of work and hybrid cloud requirements for large enterprises. Through his passion for engineering and sustainability, Hazim is currently working on advanced software solutions for electric and autonomous vehicles with global automotive manufacturers. Hazim is a frequent presenter at multiple US and global conferences and standards bodies. He's the vice-chair for the IEEE Edge Computing workgroup. He has more than 20 issued and pending US and International patents, a number of R&D publications, and is the co-author of three technical books.