Speakers

This guide walks you through the speaker side of the portal, from sending your first proposal to the day of the event. There are two ways to become a speaker, and each has its own walkthrough:

You send a proposal, from the public "Propose a session" link. If you volunteered with us last year, you already have an account and can use it.
We invite you, and you accept the invitation from the email we send you.

Whichever way you come in, you end up in the same place: your speaker dashboard, with a personal checklist that stays with you until the end of the event.

Speaking, volunteering and everything else use one account

There is no separate speaker account. The account you use to volunteer, or for anything else in the portal, is the account you use to speak. If you have never used the portal, you create an account when you propose, or we create one for you when you accept an invitation.

Why we use the portal

Speakers used to send us their details through forms, emails and shared spreadsheets. The portal replaces all of that with one place where you can:

see exactly what we need from you and by when, in your own timezone;
see what the team is doing for you, so nothing is a mystery;
keep your bio, photo and session details up to date in one place, instead of sending them again every time someone asks;
get reminders before things are due, from one system, instead of several.

Your journey does not end when you submit your title and abstract. The checklist keeps going through scheduling, promo materials and the event itself, so you and the organizers can both see how far along things are.

What the portal asks of you depends on how the event is held. An in-person event asks what you need in the room; an online one asks for a tech check and, for some sessions, a video recorded in advance. The lists below cover both; you will only see what applies to your event.

Flow 1: you send a proposal

Use this flow if you found the propose link on our website, in a blog post or in a message from us. It works the same whether you are brand new or you volunteered with us in a previous year.

Before you start

Proposals are only open during the edition's proposal window. If the "Propose a session" button is missing from the portal home page, we have not opened proposals yet.
You can propose up to 3 sessions that are waiting for an answer at the same time.
A title and two sentences is enough to start. You can edit your proposal afterwards.

Steps

Open the portal and choose Propose a session, or open /speakers/propose/ on it directly.
If you are not signed in, the page asks you to create an account first.
- You already have an account (for example from volunteering): choose Sign in. If you cannot remember your password, choose Send me a sign-in code and we will email you a one-time code instead.
- You do not have one yet: choose Create an account. You will be asked to confirm your email address.
After signing in, the proposal form opens. Fill in the About you part:
- Display name (required): how your name should appear on the schedule.
- Pronouns and Location are optional. Timezone is required: we use it to show you times in yours and to know when to reach you.
- Bio (required): a couple of sentences is plenty. Markdown is supported.
- Headshot: optional now, and you can add one later.
- Links to your website, GitHub, Mastodon, LinkedIn and Bluesky, all optional. They are your account's handles: if you have a volunteer profile, they arrive filled in, and a change here follows there.
Fill in the Your session part:
- What kind of session (required): only the kinds we are currently accepting are listed, each with its length and, for an online event, whether it is live or pre-recorded.
- Title and Summary (required). The summary is what attendees would see on the schedule.
- Outline, Prerequisites and Audience are optional but help us plan.
- Level and Language. The language is a code such as en or pt-br. Leave the level as "Not sure yet" if you are unsure.
Choose Send the proposal.
You land on My proposals, where your proposal shows as Pending review. From there you can Edit it or Withdraw it while nobody has answered yet. We also email you a confirmation.

Already have a speaker profile this year?

If you already have a profile with us for this edition, because you sent a proposal earlier or we added you, the form skips the About you half, because we already have those details. Proposing another session is one form.

What happens next

The organizers review proposals and answer each one by email.

Approved: you are on the program. The Speaking menu appears in the portal and your checklist is created. You get an email titled "Your session is in", with links to your session page and your checklist. You sign in with the account you proposed with. Carry on with your speaker dashboard.
Not accepted: you get a short note. Slots sometimes open up later, so an answered proposal can still be approved afterwards, and you would hear from us again.
Withdrawn: if you withdraw, your writing is kept. You can edit it and choose Send it again to put it back in the queue.

Flow 2: we invite you

Use this flow if an organizer invited you. You will get an email whose subject contains "You're invited to" and the event's name, usually with a personal note from the organizer who invited you. The subject can start with a bracketed prefix, so search for the words rather than the start of the line.

Steps

Open the invitation email and choose the Accept or decline the invitation button. If the button does not work, copy the address in the email into your browser. The link is personal to you and works for 14 days. If it expires, ask the organizer who invited you to send it again.
The invitation page shows what you are being invited to: the type of session, its title, and the organizer's note. Choose Accept the invitation, or Decline if you cannot make it. Accepting signs you in and creates your speaker account if you do not have one yet, so you do not need a password to start.
On the Welcome page:
- check your username, first name and last name, and add your pronouns if you like;
- agree to the Code of Conduct and the Terms of Service, which both have to be agreed to before you can use the portal;
- a password is optional. Leave it blank to sign in with an emailed code next time, or set one now. You can also do this later under Manage account. Then choose Continue to my dashboard.
Your speaker dashboard opens. Your first jobs are to fill in your speaker profile and read your checklist.

After you accept, you also get a "Welcome aboard" email that repeats your username and how to sign in again.

Signing in later

Open the portal, choose Sign in, and either use your password or choose Send me a sign-in code. We email you a one-time code and you are in. There is no separate password to remember unless you want one.

Your speaker dashboard

Once you are on the program, the Speaking menu opens your speaker area.

Dashboard: your sessions and their status, banners for anything that needs attention (such as a missing bio or photo), and how many to-dos are open and which one is due next.
My speaker checklist: everything we need from you, and everything we are doing for you. See below.
My speaker profile: your display name, bio, headshot, location, timezone and links. The links are your account's handles, shared with your volunteer profile. You can untick Show my bio, photo and links on the public site; your name still appears on your sessions.
My sessions: your sessions, where you can check and edit the title, summary and other details. Once your session is scheduled, the title, its web address and your display name are locked, because they are on the schedule by then. Ask your liaison if one needs to change. A session page has three tabs: Overview, Checklist and, when the event records sessions, Files. If your session is pre-recorded, Files is where you upload your video; if the team records the event, it is where their recording of your session and what they share with you appear; see Your video and files.
My proposals: proposals you sent and where they stand.
Speaker guide: the guide for your kind of session. Open it, then tick the "I have read" box at the end when you have. If you have more than one kind of session there is a guide for each.
Schedule: your slot, once we have scheduled you, shown in your timezone.

Your checklist

The checklist has two lists, and a third when there is a recording of your session to follow: one you pre-recorded, or the team's recording of your session at an in-person event.

Your to-dos are the things we need from you, each with a due date shown in your timezone. Typical items are:

check your session title and summary;
update your bio and headshot;
read the guide for your kind of session;
join the team chat;
confirm your scheduled slot;
share a link to your slides;
register for the event, when it has tickets;
in person: tell us what you need in the room (adapters, a microphone, captions, step-free access);
online: do a tech check with the team;
when the team records the event: review your recording before it goes out.

What we're preparing for you is the team's side: onboarding email, the chat channel and role when the event has one, promo materials, scheduling, the schedule confirmation, and day-of reminders. You see who is on each item and when it is due, so you can tell what is waiting on us.

What we're preparing for your video is the third list, for sessions with a recording. It follows the team's work on the recording, whether you sent it or they filmed it. How to send yours, and what each item means, is in Your video and files.

A few labels you will see:

Label	What it means
ticks itself	The portal ticks it when you do the thing, for example when your bio and headshot are saved.
Waiting	This item cannot start yet. The reason is shown below it, for example "your slot is not scheduled yet". It opens by itself when the reason goes away.
Due date	Shown in your timezone. Items with no date have no deadline yet.

Use All, by due date or By session at the top to switch views if you have more than one session.

We send you one reminder email when items are due within 7, 3 and 1 days, so you do not have to keep the checklist open.

Your information

The portal stores what you give us: your name and email, bio, optional photo, timezone and links, and your session details, along with how your checklist is going.
Your profile has a setting, Show my bio, photo and links on the public site. It is on by default, and you can turn it off. The public site does not read it yet, so for now it only records your choice.
The portal does not use advertising or analytics trackers, and we do not share your details with third-party analytics services.
Videos, whether you pre-recorded them or the team filmed your session, and the files the team shares with you, live in private storage that only you and the team can reach. Your video and files says who can see what.

Getting help

Reply to any email from the portal, or ask your liaison, the organizer looking after you, if you have one. For accessibility needs, timezone problems or anything else that does not fit a form, write to us and we will sort it out.