devopsdays Cape Town - propose

As this is the first Cape Town event, we cannot guarantee the ability to contribute to flight & accomodation for speakers yet. This might change, please indicate if your company can cover your costs, contribute a portion or none at all.

There are three ways to propose a session:

1. A proposal for a talk/panel during the conference part : these are 30 minute slots that will have the full attention of all attendees, as everybody will be in that one room.
2. An Ignite talk that will be presented during the Ignite sessions. These are 5 minutes slots with slides changing every 15 seconds (20 slides total) which are also presented to all attendees in one room
3. Open Space session : even without a prepared presentation we welcome the discussion and interaction by having people propose a session on the fly during Open Space. Check the Open Space explanation for more information.

Our main criteria to make it to the top selection are:

• new presenters: people who are new to the space and have insightful stuff to say; we want to hear everybody’s voice.
• no vendor pitches: as much as we value vendors and sponsors, we just don’t think this is the right forum. You can demo at your table or during Open Space.
• no third-party submissions: If a PR firm or your marketing department is proposing the talk, you’ve already shown that as a speaker you’re distant from the process. This is a small community-driven event, and speakers need to be directly engaged with the organizers and attendees.
• original content: the talk should have been created by yourself and not copied from another person’s one.

How to submit a proposal: Send an email to [[email protected] ] with the following information

1. Proposal working title (can be changed later)
2. Type (presentation, panel discussion, moderated general discussion, debate, etc.,ignite)
3. Description or abstract

• Be specific… we aren’t mind readers (a description of about 20 lines is about right)
• Detail is good… but not as important as explaining why your proposal would be interesting
• Propose your own talk; don’t have someone else do it for you.
• Nominations welcome… if you know someone who has content/experience relevant to the DevOps conversation, please point us in their direction!
• Multiple proposals welcome… just follow the other rules