Nicolas Bacca, IoT Security Expert, Joining Holberton School Mentors

We are very proud to welcome Nicolas Bacca to the Holberton School mentors team. Nicolas will design and lead the IoT security track at the school.

Nicolas is the co-founder and CTO of  Ledger, a startup designing Bitcoin hardware wallets and other auditable, open and secure Personal Security Devices.  He has been involved in the embedded security industry for more than 15 years as R&D engineer, independent consultant for major industry players; CEO and CTO of several startups. He built the most cost efficient FIDO U2F Security Key implementation with his team, is passionate about optimized code and well implemented security protocols, tries to push for more open standards at every possible opportunity. Also, he is not afraid of nudging closed objects into being more open when diplomacy fails.

In his own words:

The IoT design, privacy and security journey at Holberton will let you peek at interesting things happening at the bottom of the software stack, in this mysterious realm where you just can’t throw more RAM or servers at problems to make them disappear – what powers modern embedded systems such as the Nest, how your data is collected and protected in a network of connected objects, and how to recognize and implement good security and privacy practices.

You’ll build your own Open Source FIDO U2F Security Key from an open development kit that you’ll use to secure your Google, Github or Dropbox accounts even if your password is “Holberton1234” (*), then break your neighbour’s security and fix yours. You’ll acquire solid field experience to make educated decisions, kick broken designs before they get a chance to get implemented and sleep better knowing you helped making your favorite Agency job more challenging.

(*) graduation not guaranteed if you used this password