The first HackFormers meeting was held on September 8th, 2011 between Noon and 1:00 p.m. at the Olive Garden restaurant at the La Frontera Complex in Round Rock, TX. The main purpose for this meeting was to discuss how as HackFormers we can use the God given talents and skills in information security to help transform the world for Christ Jesus.
The meeting started with prayer by Mano Paul and during the meeting, Mano introduced the idea of HackFormers, based out of the Biblical text from Acts 17:6 and shared his vision of leveraging one’s information security knowledge and skills to teach and reach others with the love of Jesus Christ. The idea behind the name was HACKers (generically referring to whitehats and those in Information Security) who serves Christ Jesus in the Great Commission as TRANSFORMers.
Mano started with the history and timeline of how the idea came about and the need for a group like HackFormers.
The salient points in this discussion was:
- Many of us share a passion for information security while at the same time have a common faith and passion for Jesus Christ.
- HackFormers is an attempt to blend the two so our personal and professional lives are no different.
- We invest our time and talents in the things that are eternal (not of this world, out of this world)
He then shared about the core belief of the group which is the fabric of the organization and clarified, who we are and who we are not.
Mano then shared the modus operandi of how each one is called to Teach and Reach and stated that our motto is to “Teach Security, Teach Christ; Teach Security in Christ” and Reach out to others with the love of Christ.
The meeting was closed with prayer.