Speaker Guide

Thank you for speaking at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023, taking place virtually and in-person November 6 – 9, at McCormick Place West in Chicago, Illinois.

Please bookmark this page for easy reference and continue to check back as the event gets closer as we will be adding additional speaker information as they are available. If you have any questions, please email the CNCF Content Team.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Timing of sessions and room locations are subject to change through Friday, September 29.

• Travel Fund Request Deadline: Thursday, September 14
• Upload Bio + Headshot to Sched.com Deadline: Friday, September 15
• Speaker Registration Deadline: Friday, September 15
• Finalized Schedule Date: Friday, September 29
• AV Requests Due: Friday, October 6
• Last Day to Request Speaker Additions or Changes: Friday, October 13
• Pre-Recorded Session Upload Deadline (virtual only): Friday, October 13
• Presentation Upload to Sched Deadline: Wednesday, November 1
• Event Dates: November 6 – 9, 2023

Please review the sections below to find more information about the above dates and deadlines.

Registration

To confirm your participation and secure your speaking slot, it’s important to complete your registration by Friday, September 15, using the details you received in your notification email. If you require this information again, please reach out to the CNCF Content Team. Failure to register by the deadline may result in your slot being given to someone on our waitlist.

Complimentary registration is also extended to co-speakers or panelists from the original CFP submission. Please ensure their participation format aligns with yours before registering. For example, you cannot present in person if your co-speaker can only participate virtually.

If you’re attending the event in person, please review our Health + Safety page. Remember to check for updates as the event approaches.

Visa Letter Requests

If you require a visa letter, please register for the event, and then complete the visa letter request form.

Speaker Travel Funding

If you are not being assisted or sponsored by a company or organization, and would be otherwise unable to attend for financial reasons, you may apply for travel funding. The deadline for travel funding applications is Thursday, September 14. You will receive notification from our travel fund team no later than Friday, September 22.

Note: Talk acceptance does not guarantee travel funding.

Venue

This year’s event will take place at McCormick Place West located at 2301 S Indiana Ave. Chicago, IL 60616.

Hotel Details

We have several discounted room blocks that we invite you to view on our Venue + Travel page. Rooms may sell out in advance of the room block close date, so we encourage you to book early to secure a room at the conference rate.

The schedule will be announced on Wednesday, August 30, and will be posted on our website using Sched.com.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The timing of sessions is subject to change through Friday, September 29, due to schedule changes that will be made as speakers finalize whether speaking in person or virtually.

• Please note that all lightning talks are 5-minutes, maintainer and breakout sessions are 35-minutes, and tutorials are 90-minutes.
• If you have a conflict with the timing of your talk, find that it conflicts with the content of another talk, or are having problems uploading your bio and photo, please contact the CNCF Content Team.

Please note the following technical requirements:

• All speakers must supply their own computers and HDMI adapters to use during their talk.
• Presentation slides should be formatted in 16:9. 
• The room will include a screen, projector, and (1) microphone for each speaker or panelist.
• If you require any additional AV, please email the CNCF Content Team by Friday, October 6. CNCF will make every effort to accommodate additional AV needs; however, final approval for additional AV requests will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Presentation Details

All speakers are required to submit a PDF-format version of their final presentation slides ahead of the event to Sched.com. We find that adding the presentations before the event helps to drive interest in attending the session. The deadline for presentations is Wednesday, November 1.

To upload slides:

• Log in to your speaker profile through Sched.com or via the mobile site
• On the top of the page click “Manage and Promote Your Session”
• Click “Add Presentation”
• Click in the “Select a File” box and add the PDF document (note: there is a 50MB size limit)
• Click “Upload” and your slides will automatically be saved

Branded Powerpoint

We designed an optional PowerPoint template for our speakers. Use of this template is not required but we do welcome you to use it for your convenience.

Please see the section below for additional information on the CNCF brand guide.

Lightning talks will be held Monday, November 6 with each talk lasting no longer than 5 minutes. To minimize the transition times, we are combining all pre-recorded talks and in-person presentation decks into one master lightning talk presentation. The lightning talks will take place in the order listed on the schedule (subject to change).

• All in-person lightning talk speakers must submit their PowerPoint slide deck to our Lightning Talk Folder by 11:59 PM PDT on Monday, October 16
• Your deck must be 16:9 and in .pptx format
• If your slides require a special font, please submit that along with your deck
• Do not embed any videos, please also submit those along with your deck
• Please note that we cannot accept a pdf document

 If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to the CNCF Content Team.

The official conference name is KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023. Please use the full name when creating your presentation. You may shorten the name to just KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, but you may not refer to the conference as KubeCon only. Please refer to the CNCF Style Guide for a list of appropriate names and abbreviations.

Official conference logos and other CNCF artwork are available for download on GitHub:

• KubeCon + CloudNativeCon logos
• CNCF logos and artwork

Before using any logos or artwork, please note:

• You must use the full KubeCon + CloudNativeCon conference logo. It is not permitted to use the KubeCon or CloudNativeCon logos separate from each other.
• Use of any trademark or logo is subject to the trademark policy.
• If you would like to use the Kubernetes logo for booth graphics, collateral, or swag, please adhere to the usage guidelines.
• The Certified Kubernetes marks may be used only by companies who are certified through CNCF’s Certified Kubernetes Software Conformance program. All usage cases must comply with the brand guidelines.

If you have any questions about trademarked logos, please email info@cncf.io.

The Linux Foundation, in collaboration with the National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT), has created an online course designed to teach the viewer about inclusion, diversity, and unconscious bias. It is strongly encouraged by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation that all our speakers watch the course to learn tips/tools to use when speaking to encourage inclusivity in presentations and messaging.

Please read and abide by our code of conduct, which is strictly enforced. We ask that speakers especially review and are careful to be inclusive in the words and images used during their presentation.

Uploading your pre-record

Please reach out to the CNCF Content Team as soon as possible to update your status on the schedule as virtual. We have multiple options for uploading your pre-recorded presentation:

• Add your recording directly into the Google folder
• Share your file directly with the CNCF Content Team
• Or let us know if you have an alternate method (DropBox, WeTransfer, etc.)

Before sharing, you should save your presentation file in following format:

Naming Format: SessionTitle_YourName_version# (Example: My_KubeCon_Video_JohnSmith_v1.mp4)

In order to mitigate technical risks, we are not allowing speakers to present their talk live. You must upload the recording by Friday, October 13. This is a hard deadline. If you cannot meet this deadline we may have to cancel your session.

Virtual Platform

Our virtual platform will allow speakers to deliver content by pre-recorded talk. More details on how to engage with audience Q+A via Slack will be sent closer to the event.

Pre-recording requirements and information

• Some suggested tools to use for recording are Quicktime, Google Hangouts, Zoom, a screen recorder, or something similar.
• The recording should show your slides/screen as well as you presenting using a picture-in-picture format. 
• Ensure you have stable internet access. A hardwired connection is preferable, but if that is not available, turn devices off that could affect your connectivity during your presentation, and make sure that anyone else in the house is not on devices and/or consuming bandwidth.
• If you need assistance with your pre-recorded talk, please contact the CNCF Content Team for additional information.

The video requirements are as follows:

• Video Codec: h.264 (MUST) 
• Video File Format: MP4 (MUST) 
• Resolution: 1920×1080 (MAXIMUM) 
• What Frame Rate: 29.97 (MAXIMUM) 
• What Bitrate settings: 3mbps to 4mbps (NO LARGER THAN) 
• What audio codec: AAC @ 256k (NO HIGHER THAN) 
• Audio File Format: MP3 (MUST) 
• Size Limit for final output? 1.5GB per 60 min (MAXIMUM)
• Files must be no larger than 1.5GB per 1-hour of video. If we receive larger files, we will compress them to the size specs we require.

If you have any other venue, speaker, or schedule-related questions, please contact the CNCF Content Team.