Speaker Guide

We welcome you as an Open Source Days 2025 speaker, hosted by The Academy Software Foundation. The event will take place in person at the Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel on 10 August, and will be streamed virtually.

This is your official event speaker guide. Please bookmark this page for easy reference. If you have any questions, please email Jennifer Crowley at jcrowley@linuxfoundation.org.

Please click through the tabs on this page to access information.

• Speaker Registration Deadline: 18 June
• AV Requests Deadline: 8 July
• Virtual Speaker Pre-records Due: 7 August
• Speaker Slide Due Date: 8 August
• Event Dates: 10 August

To confirm that you will be presenting, please register as a speaker by 18 June.

Registration information was sent in your acceptance email. If you need this information sent to you again, please contact Jennifer Crowley.

Open Source Days, hosted by the Academy Software Foundation, will occur at the Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel on 10 August. 

Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel
1128 W Hastings St
Vancouver, BC V6E 4R5, Canada

The schedule will be announced on 5 June and posted on our website using sched.com. You will receive an email from sched.com asking you to create your account. Please upload your bio and photo by June 18 if any details are missing.

Please note:

• Session Presentations and Multi-speaker presentations are 20 minutes. 
• Lightning Talks are 10 minutes.

If you have a conflict with the timing of your talk or find that it conflicts with the content of another talk, or need help uploading your bio and photo, please contact Jennifer Crowley at jcrowley@linuxfoundation.org.

Any additional AV requests are due by 8 July.

• The room will include a screen, projector, (2) wireless microphones, and (4) handheld microphones.
• All speakers must supply their own computer and adapters to use during their talk.

If you require additional AV, please email Jennifer Crowley with those needs by 8 July. The Academy Software Foundation 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.

Due by 8 August
All speakers must submit their final presentation slides before the event. In addition to providing a hard copy for accessibility purposes, we find that adding the presentations before the event helps to drive interest in attending the session.

You can download the optional PowerPoint template here, but please note that you are not required to use this.

Please note that your presentation slides should be submitted in PDF format to Sched.com and must be formatted in 16:9. 

• Log into your Open Source Days speaker profile through Sched.com or via the mobile site.
• Click Manage & promote your session
• Select Add Presentation
• Select a file and click Upload
• Upload your pdf document (note: there is a 50MB size limit)
• The presentation will automatically save to your session
• The above steps, along with screenshots, can also be found here
• Or email a PDF of your presentation to jcrowley@linuxfoundation.org, who will upload it on your behalf.

Pre-Recorded Video Due Date: 7 August

Virtual speakers will pre-record their talk, which will be played during their scheduled session time. Please note that all presentations must have at least one speaker who will be presenting in person.

• 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 style format.
• Please use one of the following file types: MP4 or MOV (under 5gb), dimensions: 1280 x 720 (720p), 1920 x 1080 (1080p).
• Ensure you have stable internet access. A hardwired connection is preferable for your recording. If a hardwired connection is unavailable, turn devices off that will affect your connectivity during your presentation, and make sure that anyone in the house is not on devices and/or consuming bandwidth.

Helpful Zoom Documents and How-to’s

• Enabling HD Video – This is disabled by default, so you will need to enable it before recording.
• Recording Side-by-Side for sessions with more than one speaker
• How to Record in Zoom Instructional Video – Created by our production team to guide you through recording your presentation for either single or multiple speaker sessions, as well as providing tips on lighting, cameras, and audio.

We have multiple options for uploading your pre-recorded presentation:

• Share your file with cfp@linuxfoundation.org
• Add your recording directly into the Google folder (please email jcrowley@linuxfoundation.org to confirm we received your file)
• Or let us know if you have an alternate method (DropBox, file-sharing service, etc.)

In collaboration with the National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT), the Linux Foundation has created an online course designed to teach the viewer about inclusion, diversity, and unconscious bias. We highly recommend all of 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 can be found here. Our code of conduct is strictly enforced. We ask that speakers especially review this code of conduct and are careful to be inclusive in the words and images used during their presentation.

Do you have speaker or schedule-related questions?

Please get in touch with Jennifer Crowley at jcrowley@linuxfoundation.org.