July 29, 2026
0 mins readThis summer, as the world's largest soccer tournament took over stadiums across North America, Snyk launched a tour of its own. The Snyk Connect Fan Zone tour brought the energy of the games to Snyk’s biggest fans across the globe. Equal parts AI workshop, networking event, and game-day rally, these meetups brought together the tech world’s greatest defenders for skill-building and friendly competition.
More than a meetup #
The Fan Zone experiences were designed to mirror the spirit of the tournament, bringing people together across geographies and skill sets to collaborate and win big. Hosted at customer and partner offices across 8 cities (plus 3 virtual sessions), each tour stop featured interactive challenges, such as live chatbot hacks and head-to-head vibe coding battles on the big screen. From San Francisco to Charlotte, when customers open their doors to local practitioners, the traditional corporate event ends and true community begins.
Skills and drills #
Each stop on the Fan Zone tour focused on developing practical AI security skills through hands-on challenges. Michael Tayo, InfoSec Lead, Snyk Ambassador, and competitor in the Chicago vibe coding battle, noted that the challenge revealed: "just how quickly you can turn an idea into something tangible with AI."
In just 15 minutes, Tayo and a fellow attendee built functional apps designed to help first-time visitors to the Windy City navigate a tournament watch party. The results: an interactive fun-fact tool to help you pass as the ultimate football expert vs. a local stadium-eats guide for your inner foodie. Tayo noted that the Chicago stop “was a unique opportunity to connect with other developers, exchange ideas,” and emphasized that “there are so many angles from which to approach AI” and that it’s more accessible than ever. Winning an official LEGO set from the tournament collection was the cherry on top.
Host spotlight #
Our Toronto hosts asked for less live hacking and more synergy around DAST. Together, our teams designed a collaborative, analog threat-modeling table sprint—no laptops required. Each cohort got 15 minutes, a black-box target, and one rule: model only what you can see from the browser (DevTools, the Network tab, and local storage). Everything past the API was a black box, mimicking a live external assessment. By the end, attendees saw firsthand just how much an attacker's mindset can uncover on its own.
The final whistle #
AI security is only as good as the teams defending it, and the Fan Zone tour proved that we’re better together. When attendees from different roles, companies, and skill levels realize they’re all solving the same problems, the room transforms from a group of strangers into a team. That's the heart of the Snyk Connect customer community: a standing invitation to level up your skills, exchange ideas, and leave a little more connected than when you arrived.
The Fan Zone tour has wrapped for now, but we're already planning our next event. Whether you're a long-time Snyk customer or newly tasked with driving AI security at your organization, we’ll see you at the next one! Excited to learn more about the challenges covered during the fanzone events? Work through hands-on modules, pass the quizzes, and earn verifiable Snyk badges and a certificate.
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AI Security Engineer Foundations #
Secure the software behind AI. Work through hands-on modules, pass the quizzes, and earn verifiable Snyk badges and a certificate.