More and more international Hansken members at the annual Hansken.io
"It felt like a larger US tech conference, but with a more intimate touch”, one of the participants said after the Hansken.io. And we couldn't have asked for a better reaction, while that is exactly the tone we intended to set! On September 20 and 21, the time had come for the second edition of the annual meeting where Dutch and worldwide Hansken users could meet. And with about 150 people from 11 countries and 25 different organizations in attendance, we are quite pleased with the outcome.
Investing in the Community
This year, all Hansken partners were invited to the Volkshotel in Amsterdam. An informal setting with lots of room for everyone to get to know each other (better) and share knowledge about their own work and experiences with Hansken. Because we continue to deliberately focus on this: speak to one another and learn from eachother. And it was effective. We noted that there was a lot of networking going on among those present.
Who did we welcome in Amsterdam?
And we were happy to see that the group of active members is growing. In fact, we have more than doubled the amount of attendees compared to 2022. Not only in terms of numbers, but also the country of origin (see flags in the image) and background is getting more divers. Visitors included Hansken users such as investigators from various investigative agencies, but also digital professionals, forensic IT experts, software engineers, company managers and decision makers; all law enforcement. To bring people closer together, we initiated some pro-active action. And the 'Getting to Know You' exercises in the plenary program were a huge success. Also the boat ride with dinner provided an excellent opportunity to interact.
A look at the extensive field of digital forensics
There was also an in-depth substantive program regarding developments in the discipline, with a focus on Hansken in particular. We began with an energetic and insightful key not from Felix Nijpels, Dutch police. This was followed by a 1,5-day intensive program featuring 18 speakers, and numerous presentations, and workshops. AI, deep fakes, other digital advances inside the NFI (Aardwolf, Toucan, and Vehicle Logistics), Hansken in containers, and innovations such as the visualization of trace relations were also highlighted.
More and more visible on the global map
All of these innovations position Hansken as a key player in the international field of digital forensics. For example, the week that followed the Hansken.io (September 25-28), we were invited to be one of the plenary speakers at the ICDDF in Birmingham. This is a significant and exclusive meeting with forensic players and LEAs (1500 people, by invitation only) from all over the world. And after that, our colleague Hans Henseler traveled to Singapore to attend the DFRWS in October, where he presented ‘ChatGPT as a co-pilot in Hansken’ and other workshops. And in the Netherlands we are preparing our participation in a large police conference (DEX-XL) in November.
In other words, there will be plenty of upcoming possibilities to meet Hansken 'in the wild'!