The annual OODAcon event brings together the hackers, thinkers, strategists, disruptors, leaders, technologists, and creators with one foot in the future to discuss the most pressing issues of the day and provide insight into the ways technology is evolving. 

Our theme for OODAcon 2025 is  Accelerating Disruptive Technologies, recognizing that the pace of technological advancement demands new frameworks for assessing, adopting and scaling innovation.

OODAcon will take place on October 29th in Reston Virginia (with a pre-event reception on the 28th to start off the discussion and kickstart the networking).

ATTEND OODAcon 2025

Speakers Include

Alexei Bulazel (Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Cyber), Mark Carney (Quantum Village), Allan Friedman (Cybersecurity Leader), Jennifer Ewbank (CEO, Andaman Strategic, former CIA Deputy Director), Serene (Concert Pianist and CEO, Snowstorm), Jen Hoar (Corporate intelligence professional), Johnny Sawyer (CEO, Sawyer Group, Former COS DIA), Maxie Reynolds (Author The Art of Attack, CEO Subsea Cloud), Bill Vass (CTO BAH), Lisa Costa (VC Partner and CEO Costa Advisory Group, Former CTO US Space Force), Renee Wynn (former NASA CIO), Josh Devon (Entrepreneur, former COO Flashpoint), Thomas Quinn (CISO), David Ginn (CISO), Andy Black (CEO, Kovr.ai), Josh Ray (CEO Blackwire Labs), Dawn Meyerriecks (Former DDS&T CIA), Bill Hagestad (PRC Diplomatic, Intelligence, Military Researcher).

The Thematics and Agenda of OODAcon 2025 (Agenda with times here)

Architecting the Edge: Welcome to OODAcon 2025
This opening session will set the tone for OODAcon 2025 by examining the inflection points shaping the global landscape, from accelerating AI and fusion energy breakthroughs to heightened geopolitical friction and the retooling of industrial strategy. It will provide an executive-level preview of the technologies and national security trends driving this year’s discussions and offer a call to action for navigating disruption with clarity, agility, and foresight.
Matt Devost

Offense, AI and the Future of U.S. Cyber Power
A thematic throughout the day is how accelerating the right use of AI and the right tools will impact U.S. national security including Cyber Power.
Alexei Bulazel

Quantum Advantage in Action: Lessons from DEFCON’s Quantum Village
The quantum revolution is no longer theoretical, it is materializing across computing, sensing, and security. This session will explore the state of quantum readiness, including updates on trapped ion and superconducting platforms, the race toward quantum networking, and the impact of NIST’s post-quantum cryptography standards. Executives will leave with a practical understanding of how quantum disruption is unfolding in the next 12–18 months, and what steps they should take to prepare.
Mark Carney and Bob Gourley

Hardware Supply Chain Security and HBOM
Hardware Bill of Materials (HBOM) advances supply chain security by bringing transparency to the components and dependencies in hardware systems, mirroring the role of Software BOMs (SBOM) in helping organizations proactively identify and mitigate vulnerabilities. Learn the latest on this new approach which can allow rapid response and risk management when flaws or threats are discovered.
Allan Friedman

Outpacing the Adversary: Accelerating Innovation with Urgency and Purpose
Time-to-field now defines success. This session looks at how leaders can move from pilots to capabilities that scale, integrate across silos to create momentum, and apply adversarial thinking to stay ahead of fast-moving competitors. Drawing on lessons from intelligence and industry, we’ll examine what it takes to build strong foundations, align innovation with mission, and form the partnerships that let us outpace the adversary.
Jennifer Ewbank

Securing Internet First Principles; Access, Privacy, and Expression in the Age of Disruptive Technology
This fireside chat with the CEO of Snowstorm examines issues of privacy. Data is being captured everywhere, from edge devices and satellites to biometric wearables and smart infrastructure. This session will examine how governments, corporations, and malicious actors are weaponizing data at scale using AI, and what it means for civil liberties and organizational risk. Strategies for preserving privacy, operational security, and resilience in the face of ubiquitous surveillance will be discussed.
Serene and Matt Devost

Privacy in Prelude: Serene Live at OODAcon
Serene’s music is celebrated for its passionate interpretations and technical mastery, spanning a vast repertoire from Bach to contemporary composers, and she is especially noted for her performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, described as “unprecedented” by the Liszt Academy. Her performances often merge classical piano with technology-driven audiovisual elements, creating immersive experiences that reflect both her artistic and engineering backgrounds.

Annual Global Threat Brief
This high-impact briefing will examine the most urgent and emerging global threats that decision-makers must track. From cybercrime-as-a-service and regional conflict escalation to systemic risks in energy and technology supply chains, this session will provide a concise, scenario-driven view of where the world is heading, and what it means for your organization.
Jen Hoar and Johnny Sawyer

Data at the Edge: Subsea and Sustainable Next-Gen Datacenters
Gain new insights into how deploying subsea data centers at the network edge can dramatically improve sustainability and reduce operational costs by leveraging the ocean’s cooling properties and proximity to renewable energy sources.
Maxie Reynolds

AI, Space, Automation and the Impact on Modernizing the Military
This session explores the transformative impacts of Space, AI and Automation upon U.S. national security. Panelists will discuss how advanced technologies are enabling new approaches to protecting our way of life and deliver actionable insights that will drive decisions in the coming year.
Bill Vass, Lisa Costa, Renee Wynn and Bob Gourley

From Automation to Autonomy: Navigating the Next Wave of AI Agents
This panel will examine the realities of AI as it is being applied to real world enterprises, with a focus on how to navigate the coming age of Agentic AI.
Josh Devon, Thomas Quinn, David Ginn, Josh Ray, Andy Black

Navigating the Deep Future: From Strategic Foresight to Action
This session will draw on years of national security and innovation leadership to explore how strategic foresight can drive better decision-making in an era defined by cascading crises and continuous disruption. Attendees will be challenged to rethink planning assumptions and adopt more adaptive, anticipatory approaches to strategy.
Dawn Meyerriecks

China’s Technology Disruption Strategy
The PRC’s efforts to assert dominance across AI, biotech, space, and advanced manufacturing are increasingly strategic and coordinated. This session analyzes China’s integrated approach to reshaping global technology standards and supply chains while expanding influence through legal, cyber, and gray-zone tactics. Expect an unclassified but deeply informed look at how these moves affect U.S. competitiveness, national security, and the global innovation order.
Bill Hagestad

OODA Network Members receive a 50% discount off ticket price. For more on the benefits of joining this exclusive group of leaders and decision-makers see: The OODA Network.

OODAcon is Sponsored By:

Diamond Sponsor:

• Carahsoft: Trusted government IT solutions provider & top-ranked GSA Schedule Contract holder driving public sector IT modernization. Carahsoft is enabling government to tap into the greatest of American innovation quickly and efficiently, which is required for success in the age of exponential innovation.

Gold Sponsors:

• Sailpoint: At SailPoint, we believe security must start with identity at the foundation. Today’s organizations run on a diverse workforce of not just human but also digital identities, and securing them all is critical. Through the lens of identity, SailPoint empowers organizations to seamlessly manage and secure access to applications and data at speed and scale. Our unified, intelligent, and extensible platform delivers identity-first security, helping organizations defend against dynamic threats while driving productivity and transformation.
• Shadow Nexus: Shadow Nexus is a specialized startup that provides the Intelligence Community, law enforcement, and national security organizations with unparalleled access to the world’s largest collection of hacked, breached, and leaked (HBL) data. By leveraging established dark-web relationships, our mission is to deliver unique open-source foreign adversary intelligence data at scale, giving mission partners the ability to detect threats, track adversaries, and gain visibility into hard-to-reach environments. This combination of dark-web OSINT and advanced data engineering makes Shadow Nexus a trusted partner for organizations that need to stay ahead of nation-state actors, criminal networks, and emerging digital risks.
• Cyware: Cyware is leading the industry in Operational Threat Intelligence and Collective Defense, helping security teams transform threat intelligence from fragmented data points to actionable, real-time decisions. We unify threat intelligence management, intel sharing and collaboration, as well as hyper-orchestration and automation, eliminating silos and enabling organizations to outmaneuver adversaries faster and more effectively. From enterprises to government agencies and ISACs, Cyware empowers defenders to turn intelligence into impact.
• Orca: The Orca Platform is FedRAMP Moderate and GovRAMP authorized. Orca offers a unified and comprehensive cloud security platform that identifies, prioritizes, and remediates security risks and compliance issues across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and Kubernetes. The Orca Platform leverages Orca’s patented SideScanning™ technology to provide complete coverage and comprehensive risk detection.
• Squadra: Squadra Ventures is a venture capital firm led by founder-operators that invests in early-stage cyber and national security companies advancing the critical edge. Grounded in the belief that success is a combination of people, product, and planning, the Squadra team provides transformational support to startup leaders in the complex dual-use technology ecosystem. By applying a growth-stage mindset at the seed stage and a commitment to building alongside entrepreneurs, Squadra empowers extraordinary teams to win and leave a lasting positive impact on the world.
• Sicura: Sicura is a Security Control Management (SCM) platform that automates, remediates, and continuously enforces security controls for regulated government and commercial enterprises. Rooted in NSA-developed frameworks, Sicura enforces Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Secure by Design principles, enabling continuous Authorization to Operate (cATO) and integration with DevSecOps workflows. Trusted by federal agencies like Army DEVCOM and the Department of State, Sicura reduces ATO timelines, ensures real-time compliance and automates security from policy creation to enforcement.
• Snowstorm: Snowstorm is a decentralized microproxy network. Already proven in crisis zones, it is a next-generation system, with evolved protocols which enable true internet freedom infrastructure.
• VulnCheck: VulnCheck is the exploit intelligence company helping enterprises, government organizations, and cybersecurity vendors solve the vulnerability prioritization challenge. Trusted by some of the world’s largest organizations responsible for protecting hundreds of millions of systems and people, VulnCheck helps organizations outpace adversaries by providing the most comprehensive, real-time vulnerability intelligence that is autonomously correlated with unique, proprietary exploit and threat intelligence.
• Tidal Cyber: At Tidal Cyber, we help security teams answer a question most can’t reliably solve: “Can we defend against the threats that matter most to us?” The Tidal Cyber Threat-Led Defense platform ensures your security stack is equipped to defend against the latest & most relevant threats by mapping your tools against TTPs. Coverage maps leverage multiple frameworks, including MITRE ATT&CK, to reveal where your tools effectively defend against adversary behaviors, pinpoint critical coverage gaps, and recommend prioritized actions based on residual risk.

Silver Sponsors:

• Quintessence Labs: Future-proof encryption for the Quantum Era. Achieve quantum resilience with post-quantum cryptography and crypto agility at your fingertips.
• Akamai: Akamai provides the world’s best and most secure digital experiences. Their globally distributed intelligent edge platform surrounds everything, from enterprise to the cloud. This allows customers and their businesses to be fast, smart, and secure. They keep decisions, apps, and experiences closer to the user than anyone, keeping attacks and threats far away. Your existing cloud solutions will be extended to deliver superior user experiences that are instantaneous, rich and above all create lasting business value.
• Permanance: The AI coder that solves security maintenance. Let your builders build and the AI coder handle the rest.
• Blackwire Labs: the first multidisciplinary cybersecurity advisor, powered by AI and trained by cybersecurity experts to enhance your team’s capabilities and improve resilience.
• Cooley: Where innovation meets law.