W4CFI Road 2 Disobey - Turn your experience into a conference talk

We've noticed that many women in cybersecurity have valuable expertise and experiences to share, but don't see themselves as conference speakers.

When Call for Paper, or CFP, season opens, the same thoughts often appear:

"I'm not expert enough."

"Someone has probably already talked about this."

"Nobody would want to listen to me."

Meanwhile, those same people are investigating incidents, building detections, securing environments, conducting research, solving difficult technical problems, and helping others every day. That's where the idea for W4CFI Road 2 Disobey came from.

W4CFI Road 2 Disobey is a free, four-session coaching programme organised by Women4Cyber Finland in collaboration with Disobey. Its goal is simple: to help women in cybersecurity turn their experience into a conference talk and submit a CFP to Disobey.

Disobey has become one of the most recognised cybersecurity conferences in Finland and a place where technical practitioners talk about their work, ideas, and experiences with the community. Disobey shares W4CFI’s goal of seeing more women take the stage and showcase their expertise.

We believe that expertise begins when you solve a problem, learn a lesson, discover a better approach, or gain an insight that could help others. Our philosophy is simple:

If you've done it, you can talk about it.

Throughout the programme, participants will receive guidance from experienced conference speakers, CFP experts, technical professionals, and members of the Disobey community. Together, we'll turn ideas into abstracts, abstracts into talk structures, and talk structures into CFP submissions.

Who is this programme for?

This programme is designed for women working in cybersecurity who are curious about speaking but don't quite know where to start.

Maybe you've never submitted a CFP before. Maybe you've given presentations internally at work but never spoken at a conference. Or perhaps you've had a talk idea sitting in the back of your mind without ever taking the next step.

You do not need to be a well-known expert, published researcher, or experienced speaker. If you've solved a problem, built something, learned from a mistake, or discovered a better way of doing things, you already have the foundation for a talk.

What can you expect?

Over four sessions, we'll take participants from a rough idea to a completed CFP.

We'll begin by learning what makes a strong Disobey topic and look into how everyday work can become a conference talk. From there, we'll work on turning ideas into compelling abstracts, building a clear talk structure, and understanding what makes technical content engaging for an audience. Along the way, participants will receive feedback, learn how conference submissions are evaluated, and gain practical tools for building confidence as a presenter.

The programme concludes with a final review session where participants present their talk ideas, receive feedback, and refine their submissions.

By the end of the programme, participants will have a clear talk topic, a structured outline, a CFP-ready abstract, and — most importantly — the confidence to press the submit button.

Learn from people who have been there

One of the biggest challenges for first-time speakers is that the process often feels mysterious. How do conference organisers evaluate CFPs? What makes a talk stand out? How technical is "technical enough"? What if your submission gets rejected?

Throughout the programme, participants will have the opportunity to learn directly from people who have gone through the CFP process themselves. Besides providing practical guidance, the goal is to show that becoming a conference speaker is achievable, and that many successful speakers started with exactly the same doubts and questions.

Why this programme matters

We've all attended talks that changed how we think about a topic. Those talks only happened because someone decided to share what they had learned. Every year, valuable ideas, experiences, lessons learned, and technical insights remain unheard because people decide not to submit. W4CFI Road 2 Disobey was created to lower that barrier.

We want to help more women share their expertise, contribute to the cybersecurity community, and discover that they have something worth saying. We need more role models to show the way!

If you've been thinking about speaking but haven't taken the first step yet, this programme is for you.

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The four coaching sessions are organised in a hybrid format and take place during weekday evenings in August-September 2026. The in-person sessions are organised in Helsinki.

Applications for the first W4CFI Road 2 Disobey cohort are open until 31 July 2026. View the programme details and submit your application.

For more information about the programme, please contact Linda Milvi (linda@women4cyberfinland.com).