Varsha Dwarakanathan Senior Product Security Engineer, Bloomberg
Varsha Dwarakanathan is a Senior Product Security Engineer at Bloomberg. She excels at navigating the often “impossible” middle ground between rapid innovation and rigorous defense, specializing in security by design and embedding resilience directly into the development lifecycle. Through hands-on technical engagement — including architecture and design reviews, threat modeling, and code reviews — she focuses on identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities early and at scale. With a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in cybersecurity, Varsha brings pragmatic, technical security expertise to Bloomberg, where she develops ways to help multi-disciplinary teams with competing priorities find collectively-optimal solutions. Outside of work, Varsha is an enthusiastic tennis player and a regular on the competitive circuit, driven by equal parts discipline and the delusion that going pro is still on the table. An animal lover at heart, she channels that energy into her growing plushie collection – at least until she can retire to her own animal sanctuary.
Keynote: Lost in the AI Woods: Why the Future Still Needs You -- A Dual Keynote
Talks will be streamed on YouTube and Twitch for free.
AI is reshaping cybersecurity and the modern workforce faster than most of us can track — automating analysis, writing code, simulating attacks, and raising the bar on what it means to be effective. For professionals, two questions keep surfacing: Am I still relevant? How do I keep up?
This dual keynote addresses both directly.
In the first half, Salini reframes AI as the ultimate force multiplier for experienced practitioners — not a threat, but a new frontier to own. Drawing on historical parallels and field evidence, she makes the case for shifting from a reactive posture to an opportunistic one, and reclaiming the hacker's original edge: curiosity.
In the second half, Varsha tackles the reality of an always-on world where rising expectations make it harder to slow down - more tools, more updates, and a constant push to move faster.Through practical insights and real-world examples, her talk focuses on moving beyond reactive urgency, offering a more intentional approach in a world that never truly powers down. Two perspectives. One complete map for anyone navigating the age of AI