Call For Proposals (CFP)

15-16 September | berlin, germany

Grid operators have to deliver affordable, reliable, safe, clean energy, and they need digital infrastructure to do it. Across the sector, utilities and vendors are increasingly turning to open source as the proven way to co-develop the shared, non-competitive building blocks required to modernize the grid faster, at lower cost, and without dependence on single-vendor roadmaps.

LF Energy Summit Europe convenes utilities, grid operators, technology vendors, energy companies, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to showcase how open source is being used today to build production-grade digital infrastructure for energy systems. The event highlights recent project developments, emerging innovations, and practical lessons from organizations shipping real code, not just ideas.

Attendees will gain insight from leading experts and practitioners into best practices, tools, and technologies; learn how to participate in and scale open source communities; and connect directly with the peers and leaders who are developing the digital grid together.

Please be aware that the Linux Foundation will now utilize Sessionize for CFP submissions. Sessionize is a cloud-based event content management software designed to be intuitive and user-friendly. If you need guidance, please review how to submit your session for an event to see step-by-step instructions and helpful screenshots.

• CFP Opens: Monday, 23 March at 8:00 AM CET (UTC+1) / 12:00 AM PDT (UTC-7)
• CFP Close: Monday 25 May at 11:59 PM CEST (UTC+2) / 2:59 PM PDT (UTC-7)
• CFP Notifications: Friday, 12 June
• Schedule Announced: Monday, 15 June
• Event Dates: Tuesday – Wednesday, 15-16 September

• Lightning Talk (typically 5-10 minutes in length)
• Session Presentation (typically 30-40 minutes in length)
• Panel Discussion (typically 30-40 minutes to one hour in length)
• Birds of a Feather (typically 45 minutes to one hour in length)
• Tutorial (typically 1.5 – 2 hours in length)
• Demo

• All speakers are required to adhere to our Code of Conduct. We also highly recommend that speakers take our online Inclusive Speaker Orientation Course.
• Panel submissions (any talk with 3+ speakers) must include the names of all participants in the initial submission to be considered. In addition, The Linux Foundation does not accept submissions featuring all-male panels to increase speaker diversity.
• Avoid submitting low-effort, AI-generated proposals. While The Linux Foundation does not ban the use of AI, especially since it can be a helpful tool for non-native English speakers, we strongly discourage submissions that appear to be low-quality or clearly AI-generated “slop.” If we identify that a submitter is consistently submitting AI-generated slop, it may result in removal from the review process and/or a ban from future Linux Foundation CFPs.
• Avoid sales or marketing pitches and discussing unlicensed or potentially closed-source technologies when preparing your proposal; these talks are almost always rejected due to the fact that they take away from the integrity of our events and are rarely well-received by conference attendees.
• All accepted speakers are required to submit their slides prior to the event.

While it is not our intention to provide you with strict instructions on how to prepare your proposal, we hope you will take a moment to review the following guidelines that we have put together to help you prepare the best submission possible. To get started, here are three things that you should consider before submitting your proposal:

1. What are you hoping to get from your presentation?
2. What do you expect the audience to gain from your presentation?
3. How will your presentation help better the ecosystem?

There are plenty of ways to give a presentation about projects and technologies without focusing on company-specific efforts. Remember the things to consider that we mentioned above when writing your proposal and think of ways to make it interesting for attendees while still letting you share your experiences, educate the community about an issue, or generate interest in a project.

HOW TO GIVE A GREAT TALK

We want to make sure submitters receive resources to help put together a great submission and if accepted, give the best presentation possible. To help do this, we recommend viewing seasoned speaker Dawn Foster’s in-depth session titled Overcoming Imposter Syndrome to Become a Conference Speaker!

HAVE MORE QUESTIONS? FIRST TIME SUBMITTING? DON’T FEEL INTIMIDATED

Linux Foundation events are an excellent way to get to know the community and share your ideas and the work that you are doing and we strongly encourage first-time speakers to submit talks for our events. In the instance that you aren’t sure about your abstract, reach out to us and we will be more than happy to work with you on your proposal.

The Linux Foundation is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for participants at all of our events. We encourage all submitters to review our complete Code of Conduct.

CFP Questions?

If you have any questions regarding the CFP process, please contact us at cfp@linuxfoundation.org.