Speaker Guide

We welcome you as a speaker for OpenSSF Community Day North America 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 21.

This is your official event speaker guide. Please bookmark this page for easy reference, and click the tabs to access information.

• Schedule Announcement: February 26
• Speaker Registration Deadline: March 10
• Additional AV Needs Deadline: April 30
• Slide Submission Deadline: May 20
• Event Date: May 21

You should have received registration information in your speaker notification email. If you need those details again, please contact cfp@linuxfoundation.org.

If you have already registered for the event and are now a speaker listed on the schedule, please reach out to our registration team to request a refund.

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

Please note the following:

• The provision of a visa letter by The Linux Foundation does not guarantee visa approval, as final approval is made at the sole discretion of the government of the event’s host country.
• The Linux Foundation strongly recommends requesting a visa letter at your earliest convenience and contacting your local Embassy/Consulate with any visa questions.
• The Linux Foundation processes most visa letter requests in (3) business days.

OpenSSF Community Day North America will take place at the Minneapolis Convention Center. More venue and hotel details are available on our Venue & Travel page.

The schedule will be 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, if needed.

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

Please note the following technical requirements:

• All speakers must supply their own computer and adapters for their talk.
• Presentation slides should be formatted in 16:9.  
• The conference-branded PowerPoint template is available to download here, but you are not required to use it.
• The room will include a screen, projector, and (2) microphones (one lavalier and one handheld) and a wireless clicker.
• If you require additional AV, please email Jennifer Crowley with those needs by April 30. The Linux Foundation will try to accommodate other AV needs; however, final approval for additional AV requests will be made on a case-by-case basis.
  

Due by May 20

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

Please submit your presentation slides to Sched.com as PDFs in 16:9 format. 

To upload slides, follow these instructions (guide with screenshots):

• Log in to your speaker profile through Sched.com
• Go to your session within Sched
• Click on Session tools to the right of the session title
• Underneath the session title, select Add Presentation
• Upload your pdf document (note: there is a 50MB size limit)
• The presentation will automatically save to your session
• Or send them to jcrowley@linuxfoundation.org, who will upload them on your behalf

The OpenSSF Community Day North America PowerPoint template is available for download here, however you do not need to use it for your presentation.

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 that all of our speakers watch the course to learn tips/tools to use when speaking to encourage inclusivity in presentations and messaging. Pleaseclick here for the course. 

Please read and abide by our Code of Conduct, available 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 presentations.

If you have any questions, please contact us at cfp@linuxfoundation.org.