hello and welcome to uh our one year
update on the meet a mentor program at
blue team village
i'm matechi um so i'm gonna be talking
about what's going on with been going on
with the program for the last year and
we're also going to have a couple
interviews with mentormentee pairs who
are willing to share their experiences
with us
so
you're probably wondering what this
program is if you weren't with us last
year
we started this program around defcon
last year
and
we wanted to help our mentees achieve
their goals by matching them with uh
with mentors and give mentors a chance
to um kind of broaden their own
perspectives
um and also develop some skills
so um the program works by a three to
six month long mentor minty matching
this is actually done via python script
based on uh options that people check
off in an intake form
so a little bit of human interaction
there we always try to review and and
think about
pairs that would make sense
but generally speaking we let people's
interests speak for themselves so we
have an ask active discord community we
have a public channel that you might
have seen if you're on the blue team
village discord
and we also have a number of private
text and voice channels as well um
just for
kind of a have this closed private
community
um so we have more monthly meetups with
panel discussions
rounds of lightning talks that both
mentors and mentees can participate in
as well as happy hours blue team village
content and much more under development
so one thing that comes up when we talk
about mentoring is what it is and what
it isn't
the most important thing for us to focus
on is the idea of a mentor being someone
that gives
guidance and advice shares experiences
but isn't necessarily someone who is
there for technical tutoring
and that's uh that's one thing that even
the panel discussions we drive uh try to
focus on is uh sharing you know how to
do something uh as in terms of how to
learn it and how to develop skills and
things like that rather than just how to
build actual technical skills
and it's also important to stress that
mentoring is a bi-directional
relationship so there's give and take
both parties have responsibilities um or
have responsibility for
you know timing for participating for
doing the work
and also both can learn from each other
it's not just the mentee always learning
from the mentor
so we gathered some really interesting
statistics um at the start of the
program um and that is i think that the
thing that stands out to me most is that
you know the things that people want to
learn are the things that others have
learned and are willing to to help
others learn so we have this like you
know confidence and technical skill
acquisition like you know those are
things that our mentors have learned and
are are trying to help others learn and
that's a great match this basically
means that when we run this you know
algorithm for matching that it's
actually going to match quite a number
of people which is pretty cool
um in terms of technical interests
uh it's yeah really really hard
sometimes to match these things and we
try not to depend on that too much for
the actual
um you know strength of a match but it's
always nice to have some common
interests and luckily those top two uh
dfir kind of skills and uh
and um you know sim and logging stuff um
as well as a threat hunting and
intelligence are two kind of common
things that pop up a lot and then for
career level it's also an interesting
spread as well
probably a little unsurprising to people
that most of the people looking for
mentors mentors are actually early in
their career
or are still in university and most of
the mentors are mid-late career
and primarily in infosec roles
so i'm going to share just a couple
lessons learned before we moved on to
the interviews
and
first one of this is
anyone can be a mentor
um and a mentee so like i said you know
this is this is not a one directional
relationship
um in a lot of times people just want to
have another perspective and you know
when they ask
you know another when they ask a mentor
for a perspective that mentor can also
learn from that as well and rethink
something that they thought they you
know understood well before but getting
that fresh perspective is really
beneficial for both parties
um you know and and even mentors that
have been in their career for 10 years
can learn something from someone else
who's just entering the job market and
that might have changed in you know in
the time since the mentor was
entering the job market at that level so
really interesting bunch of experiences
there that our participants have shared
and then the last
part of the last thing on this slide is
uh sometimes people just
need someone to kind of be their
champion
and to boost their confidence give them
a little a little revving up and a
little um positive reinforcement
so that's something we like to see
and the next one wow this this is a
really important one for me personally
it takes a village to run this program
um
and it's
it's something that takes a lot of work
if you want to do it right
um so
important lesson for everyone in life
myself all the mentors all the mentees
is to learn to ask for help
um and you know there are always people
that'll be there to support you if you
just ask for it
um and also you know we've we've
benefited from a number of people who
stepped in to develop the program
and also the people that continually
participate in it
and that there's so many different ways
to to participate uh some people are
really great at thinking up ideas and
and thinking broader perspective longer
term bigger picture and then there are
other people that are just absolute gold
to rely on to just get the work done
like you give them a task and it's going
to get done and i think one thing i
really learned to this program is that
you need both types of people to really
make a program like this work
um
then the last one out of this is you
know the community supports itself i
i've watched this community over the
last year and i think one of the things
that really stood out to me is that you
know someone asks a question
and then someone answers it and everyone
else kind of like takes that and and
really digs into it so we have some
really fantastic interactions including
like um you know a mentee talking about
a job offer and then other people
sharing their perspective on it
for example you know there was
someone was sharing some contractual
issues with it with a um
with a job offer that they were a little
hesitant about and then they got that
support from the community to say yeah
this doesn't look like the good idea
and that you know that was a valuable
perspective to have
and that kind of um that kind of
interaction
pays forward to uh further interactions
where people feel comfortable to share
their own
questions
so really amazing to see that
and in the end the work is totally worth
it there are times when it's been a
really exhausting
kind of experience to
to run meetups every month and to
to try to put together um aspects of the
program
but you know and and also to to run
through mentormentee matches when you
know there's just so many more mentees
you know available mentors um but
looking back on it you know everyone
that i've i've talked to has had some
kind of uh benefit from this
relationship and that you know that's
gold right there it's not even just
mentor mentee pairs but also just the
support the community
is
really beneficial for people that may
not have another community locally that
they can fall back on um you know and
the connections that you make will keep
on giving back
um you know it's not just job offers and
networking but also just just
friendships and it's always really cool
to see
um the last bit that i have to remind
myself of is that there is always more
work to do but it's important to also
sit back and kind of reflect on on
everything that we've done so far
that's really hard to do when i know how
much i want to do um but just looking at
what we've accomplished in a year is is
really something special and valuable
so with that i'm actually going to hand
over to the interview side of this and
we're going to have some mentors and
mentees share their experiences with us
so we are here with selenia and nico uh
who are uh one of the most active pairs
i've encountered here in this program
so welcome i'm gonna throw a couple
questions out because i think uh you
know i
i'm always a little uh
interested in kind of how how these uh
matches have worked out because it's
kind of made by an algorithm but i like
to hear about the human relationships a
bit so
i'm going to start
directing a question at nico and this
one is how has the mentor program helped
you in your own career and professional
or personal growth
um
i think it
has helped me reinforce all the things
i've learned in security
and it's given me an opportunity to
share those back with the community and
allowed me to
continue to grow my knowledge
and gain something out of it so um
there were plenty of folks to help me
and i'm glad to help somebody else out
and awesome and you were on a panel too
right
yes
is that a fun experience
uh it was my first experience and i did
enjoy it
nice very cool very cool
um and then for selenia um what was one
goal or growth area you had that your
mentor helped you with the most and how
did they help
yeah sure uh nico's really big on goal
setting and at the time i was not and in
fact once we started talking kind of
with
initial conversations after we'd been
paired up i realized oh wow
this is really
not only like mentally stressful
but also
professionally disadvantages to me
because
let's say everyone else has a good goal
in mind for either
it can be whatever you'd like but let's
say for a job that you'd like to have in
the future say as a pen and tester
since i don't have that it's so much
more difficult for me to not only answer
interview questions like where do you
want to be in three to five years which
i can't answer because i don't know and
to like strategize and
help me help myself and have others help
me
so it's been a wonderful experience
working with niko to
kind of set some of those goals and
become more grounded and goal-oriented
goal-oriented approach to career growth
nice yeah it's kind of interesting
because i've seen like a lot of
different pairs either have a very
cavalier just conversational approach to
things and some are a little bit more
formal like kind of following a plan and
helping set goals so it's always
interesting to hear who does it which
way
and the next one i have actually this is
for both of you um was there anything
you got out of the program that you
didn't expect i'll start with nico
um i think just uh
given everything that's happened over
the last
year i should say with covet and
everything else uh it was nice to have
another person to connect to that had
those interests and passions and uh that
want to continue to grow
that was definitely you know something
lacking for me because a lot of the
folks that i tend to work with or i'm
around are you know they've been around
for a while and so it's you don't
necessarily want to you know
poke and prod but you want to you know
get more information and learn more and
stuff like that so
um
and it's just also
again continued to help push me to grow
um
things that i didn't know uh especially
if there was a question it's like you
know what i don't know that but let me
figure that out so
it's one of those things
nice selenia
um speaking experience a couple of times
actually um
i'd always i've always been a lurker
like if you look at my reddit account
it's like zero comments but has existed
for a decade
so i'd always kind of
that's my default right is to choose to
stay involved at the periphery of things
um until recently
where
i realized again i'm kind of doing a
disservice not only to myself but to my
peers and colleagues and to those who
will come after us
by
not being more involved and so i decided
as a goal to myself a little less formal
to
take some baby steps outside of my
comfort zone and to start putting myself
out there a little bit more
and there were a couple of volunteering
opportunities that actually came up some
with blue team village and one with the
diana initiative
that i
kind of jumped on despite my previous
context and those ended up quickly
evolving from hey we could use some help
organizing this meeting to hey there's
an opportunity to
be a kind of a panel speaker
or a brief presenter a monthly meetup
would you like to yes
and
i'm modestly confident in my public
speaking skills but
i'm
quite bad at
taking that first step and getting over
like
the fear hump
or
breaking out of my shell however you'd
like to say it so i'm really glad that
the mentorship
program has kind of kick-started me into
being a bit more engaged uh
engageful with the community a bit more
engaged
with uh my peers
yeah that's awesome i i mean i i
obviously as someone who's been involved
with bluetooth for years i'm a huge
proponent of volunteer opportunities
like they just do so much just like
mentoring does
so the last question i have uh this is
again for both of you and i'll start
with nico and that's one major takeaway
or what is one major takeaway from this
mentoring experience that you'd like to
share with others
uh
the biggest thing i would have to say is
uh that you don't have to go it alone um
there are tons of folks out that are
out there that are willing to
uh
help
or they're seeking help so um i know a
few years back i was seeking help i was
trying to
figure out how to break into
um analysts work and things like that
and
i wasn't getting a whole lot of answers
so
definitely this program has
helped with
me being able to
give that back to somebody else um and
hopefully be there to help answer some
questions or help throw some guidance
somewhere
awesome selenia
uh that was my point as well actually
was that
i've been
so
pleasantly surprised about how warm and
supportive and advocative people in the
security space are um
you know wow i think that
for a mentee mentor relationship
the mentee should really take some
proactive steps to kind of
be
the lead in that relationship it's a
little bit of you get out of it what you
put into it
um
that being said i completely agree with
nico and that not only are you more than
welcome here we have a really hard
tough road ahead of us and could really
use your help
so
as people start looking for next steps
or trying to break into the space
or into different roles or
evolve their careers in different way i
think that we can all
you know take baby steps like i've done
and like nico sounds like have
done during this relationship to
break out of our comfort zones a little
bit and tap that collective network
and engaging with the broader community
like we've spoken about
so
i
not only do i think that you'll be a
little bit surprised about what you find
but i think you'll also be surprised
about what you can offer and contribute
back
yeah that's definitely a point i i
always try to make
well thank you very much for your time
really appreciate it um
and i'm just really happy that uh that
this has worked out and it's been a
positive experience for everyone
involved so thank you very much
thank you
so now i am joined by scooby and danny
dev
um and i think
scooby's one of our core mentors has
been with the program since we first
started thinking of it and i i think
i've seen danny dave's name pop up quite
a bit from the very beginning so
really awesome to have uh frequent flyer
people here i'm going to start with a
question for scooby and this one is uh
how has the mentor program helped you in
your own career and professional or
personal growth
um i think it's mainly personal more
than career and
at that point because i was already
doing some mentoring also um
at my
job during my professional life
uh on the other end meeting those people
with very different backgrounds i
currently have three different mentees
and danny is the latest addition to the
to the crew
um but but have people from pretty much
around the world
um
like danny is uh is in the md i have
people in europe and and one in the
united states so it really opens up sort
of very different type of work uh
compared to what i used to do before
where i was mainly working with with
people
just in my local community right so now
i can start to understand how uh works
work uh outside of canada
um
so and i have i have some
some now where i work i have some some
people that are also spanish background
so working with danny also kind of
helped me understand better
uh how these people i don't want to say
these people think everybody but but i
you can you understand what i mean that
there's still a little um
there's a
i don't know the right word in english
but there's some some behaviors that
that some people in some different
country have and sometimes it's it's
more it's easier for me to ask danny for
for his opinion than someone i work with
on a daily basis uh not to hurt their
feelings and stuff like that so that's
definitely something um
that is present and then that helped me
maybe that's that's a pretty i said
nothing uh professionally but i just
said something
so
no i i think that's a really great point
and i think one of the things that that
i've really gotten out of this program
too is just
when i look and see how many different
people we have participating from so
many different countries cultures
and backgrounds it's
it's really amazing and i mean you know
we've been stuck in a pandemic where we
can't travel so much so it's kind of a
nice opportunity to have some some
cross-country cross-cultural connections
without needing to fly
is
yes and i i was a a very avid traveler
before that so being stuck here for that
long is uh
is really hard yeah well hopefully maybe
next year um so the next question is
going to be for for danny and this one
is what was one goal or growth area that
your mentor helped you with the most and
in what way
so
one of the goals or
the way scoby helped me
was in
management side
once i entered to this mentoring program
i was just an analyst
and
if our first
session i was promoted to a manager so
one of the key parts
in this
in this conversation and this session
with with the scooby was management this
was fairly new for me
managed
one team manage people you know
because i i always was [ __ ] focusing
myself on resolving problems resolving
with handling with computer not with
humans you know so skewie
helped me in that part looking the
looking from from another perspective
looking at things from another
perspective on how to manage the team
and resolve that
a particular problem so yeah
oh that's awesome congratulations on the
promotion too
thank you
um so my next question actually since
it's got the last one too um you know
we're a little short on time
i'm going to direct this one back to
scooby to start and i'll come back to
danny as well and this one is what was
one major takeaway from this mentoring
experience you'd like to share with
others
um you know as danny asks some questions
and we're have very similar roles right
now it really makes me
see the parallels of what i'm doing so
by him asking questions that i might not
have asked myself i it forced me to
reflect on some things and sometimes
find solutions or find the things that
that i need to improve where i work
where i didn't even know
they needed to be improved right because
he sees it in his own ways and he has
his own challenge and
sometimes they relate almost one for one
and i just didn't realize with all the
other things that that
that we have to do that what he cares
about is actually something that i
should start being like caring about as
well and
employment where i work
so it's really a two-way relationship i
think
no that's great and danny
oh
uh
as i said before
looking
the problem from another perspective now
that i'm working with the stakeholders
and from more from management
point of view i need to
to one of the things that i learned i
need to
see the problems from another
perspective
see
what's uh not the stakeholders where
they are what what what what are their
needs not only focusing in the technical
part but what the stakeholder needs so
those are one
that's
at least for the
past sessions that's my major take away
from this and it's helping me a lot and
as well the team to grow in
in the company that that i am now
nah that's awesome
it's really i i mean i i think from the
start it really stuck out to me that for
a lot of people this is a it's a two-way
relationship you know a mentor doesn't
just
just mentor for the sake of helping the
mentee but also to develop themselves
and that's that's become very clear
through all the the interviews i've had
in just the past year of interaction
with people
so thank you very much for your time uh
it's really appreciated and i'm glad
that you've gotten to share your
experience with everyone else thank you
thank you
see you then
thank you everyone
all right so now we are here joined by
ali and uh and her mentee serial killer
um so i'm gonna actually kick off with a
question for ali
and i i'm really excited to hear the
answer for this one and that is what
motivated you to become a mentor
well
i actually was asked by one of the folks
to join as a court mentor and i was so
excited and so honored to be asked
especially seeing as i don't have a
traditional you know technical
background i have more of a business
type of experience to lend to the
program so i was really surprised and i
was so honored um
and i absolutely like said yes without
even hesitating or thinking about my
other obligations i said yes it sounds
so awesome and i knew that i was going
to give it my all
for whatever that required of me just
because i really believe in the mentor
mentee type of structure and really how
much that is needed especially in this
industry
all right so for seal killer
what were your goals and hopes for the
mentoring experience when you signed up
for it
i think my goals overall was just to
have a better connection to the infosec
community
like i'm not really that much involved
or i haven't been in the past and it's
something that i wanted to do to
progress in my career and to help out
inside the infosec community
nice um so
on that note um serial killer i'm going
to ask you what was one goal that your
mentor helped you with the most uh
during
during this process and how did they
help you
i think my one goal was to be more
outwardly focused and to
become a better communicator
so that i could provide some sort of
input into the infosec community and ali
has definitely helped me
lift up my confidence because i
suffered a lot from
imposter syndrome
yeah that's definitely something that
comes up quite a lot and i think we even
had it we've had probably like five or
six panel discussions where it that has
come up at this point so definitely a
common theme and i'm sure a lot of
people watching are going to be able to
relate to that one
so ali um did you have a structure for
mentoring or um when you feel like more
go with the flow like how did you
approach this
um i guess in the very beginning gosh
it's been several months now so thinking
back to the very beginning
i really wanted to really just maximize
the time and the process
with my mentee
and at first i was like okay i need some
type of like structure so that we can
sort of get down
who we are how are we communicating um
through what channels throughout mediums
the frequency of our communications and
then also sort of like the goals and and
the real next steps because
i just wanted to really do the best that
i could do to actually help someone
not just kind of you know
i don't know sort of glaze over things
but really really help them and after
talking with my mentee it was pretty
clear that i could definitely be their
cheerleader
and help them with um
their goals and so
i guess in the beginning it was a little
bit more structured um
hopefully not to any
detriment
but i think that was good for the
beginning to really sort of kick things
off because we were strangers you know
we literally never knew each other
before
um although it sounds like we were
actually in
at least one of the same rooms at defcon
in 2019 which is funny we didn't even
know it so anyway so it was definitely
more structured in the beginning i made
this worksheet that kind of laid out um
the goals and the next steps and sort of
like that to do who's doing what because
not everything was on my mentee you know
i did a lot of stuff too to help them in
terms of like research reminders etc so
it was nice to have everything laid out
and like when is the next time we're
meeting
you know what channel is that and
i think that was good and then
eventually we got into a very natural
flow where you know we meet every sunday
at four o'clock eastern like that's just
our thing
and that was really cool because just
like a nice set set meeting that we both
have to know
okay we have this time to check in so
it is still somewhat structured but
it's honestly kind of i would say more
go with the flow i don't know
that's awesome
it's funny because we actually still use
that template and you're kind enough to
provide the kind of a blank version of
it and it's really helped a lot of
people um solidify goals which is
something we try to emphasize for people
like mentoring should have some amount
of of like you know it's a goal-oriented
type of relationship um that eventually
settles out into friendship which is
definitely an upside program connecting
people that wouldn't have connected
otherwise or maybe they would i don't
know
definitely
um cool well thank you for that uh and
then the last question i have i'm going
to direct both of you and i'll start
with serial killer and that is uh what
is one major takeaway
from this experience that
that you would like to share with others
watching
the
biggest thing for me at least was
to
if you're looking to get help it's okay
to ask for help
like
that was my like
i was very nervous when i first signed
up for the mentor program
because i'm not one to ask for help
almost ever and that was
uh stopping me from doing a lot of
things that i wanted to do
i am sure that that resonates with a lot
of people
myself included
yeah
and then i'll direct the same question
to ali to close it out
gosh it's funny because
for as much as i felt
i was sort of giving to my mentees
knowledge and things to think about and
things to work on etc you know they also
really taught me a lot of things too in
the process seriously
and
not that i was shocked by that by any
means but i guess
there were even things that we would
talk through
that would make me think about you know
how does this apply maybe in my life
right
and so i guess the biggest thing
that i learned through this experience
is honestly just all of the things that
that go into this relationship and this
process and these goals
um is something that like i actually
want to reflect on myself as well and
that was i guess a little bit surprising
um
just that i had
actually some stuff to think about once
it was prompted so in a way
my mentee also kind of mentored me
and i love that
that's a really great way to put it i i
definitely share in that experience too
well we're out time but thank you so
much for your time it's really
appreciated and i love hearing
everyone's perspectives on this so
really again really appreciate it thank
you thank you guys so much thank you
so i wanted to drop a thank you for all
of the core mentors who have developed
this program
um and i've helped run it for the last
year
um tall wireless theox plug hey ellie
hanson loot moose oh my techie that's me
no hack me packets craisins rando rubix
and scooby um and a huge thank you to
all of our amazing mentors and mentees i
mean you know this this program wouldn't
be complete without the people that
actually participate in it so huge
thanks to all of you you're all amazing
and i can't wait to see what we do in
the next year um to the bluetooth
village staff and all of our sponsors
for helping make this happen as well
and then
of course a huge thanks to our
interviewees uh for sharing their
experiences today and of course a very
special shout out to kim for the
recording and video um you're awesome
thank you so much i would not have been
able to deal with all the av on my own
so much appreciated
and the last thing um please if you're
interested in becoming a mentor we
absolutely need way more mentors um and
of course if you're interested in being
a mentee as well um we do have a space
view as well so please visit the links
and feel free to drop any questions in
the blue team village discord channel it
is the meet and mentor public channel
and thank you for watching