Call For Proposals (CFP)

The Overture Maps Foundation Member Summit is our annual event where members come together to exchange ideas, strengthen connections, and set Overture’s future direction. This year’s summit will build momentum for our shared mission through key discussions, collaborative sessions, and engaging activities that bring our community closer and align us on goals for the year ahead.

_{The Linux Foundation uses 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 Closes: Sunday, February 8 at 11:59 PM CET (UTC +1) / 2:59 PM PST (UTC -8)
• CFP Notifications: Tuesday, February 24
• Schedule Announcement: Wednesday, February 25
• Event Dates: Tuesday, April 21 – Thursday, April 23

• Overture 101: Introductory talks about Overture’s data, schema, and platform. 
• Advanced Topics: Deep dives into more technical Overture-related topics.
• Use Cases: Real-world examples of how your organization is adopting or leveraging Overture data.
• Product & Business Perspectives: Talks exploring strategy & market opportunities enabled by Overture.
• Other: Have an idea that doesn’t fit into the above categories? Propose it anyway!

• Session: 30 minutes
• Session: 10 minutes

• All speakers are required to adhere to our Code of Conduct. We also highly recommend that speakers take our Inclusive Speaker Orientation Course.
• Panel submissions must include the names of all participants in the initial submission to be considered. In addition, The Linux Foundation does not accept submissions with all-male panels in an effort to increase speaker diversity.
• Complimentary Passes For Speakers – One complimentary pass for the event will be provided for the accepted speaker(s) per submission.
• 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!

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.

First time using Sessionize?

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.

Submitting on behalf of somebody else?

While speakers ordinarily submit their sessions themselves, it’s also common for them to have someone else do it in their name. Submitters can choose to submit as someone else and must fill out the necessary speaker fields, but the session submission process is otherwise identical to when the session is submitted by the speaker themselves.

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.

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