This is rumour control, here are the facts:

When does the CFP open, when will it close?

The CFP is open right now until the end of August

How long are the speaking slots?

All speaking slots are 30 minutes long.

Who should submit a talk proposal?

In short, if you’re interested in attending GopherCon AU, then you should consider submitting a talk proposal for GopherCon AU. If you’re using Go in a work, or hobby, capacity and want to share your experiences learning, using, teaching, advocating, debugging, extending, experimenting, proselytising, deploying Go or a product written in Go, we want to hear your story.

Will there also be lightning talks, how can I sign up for those?

We plan to offer a few lightning talk slots via in person sign up on the day of the conference. These will be on a first come first served basis.

How will talk submissions be rated?

All talks are reviewed anonymously according to the following review criteria:

1. Relevance. The talk is relevant to the Go community. GopherCon AU is not a general software conference, our audience want to hear about topics that specifically relate to the Go programming language and its community.
2. Clarity. You’ve clearly explained what you are going to talk about.
3. Correctness. You’ve demonstrated knowledge of your topic. You don’t have to be an expert, but you are expected to be speaking from experience.
4. Achievability. You’ve thought about how to present your material in the time available.
5. Impact. The goal of the talk. What new idea, technique, tool, or knowledge will the audience leave your presentation with?

Each reviewer will give your proposal a score from one to five, one being the least relevant, five being the most. From there a shortlist of talks will be drawn up and the organisers will choose the final program.

Can I submit more than one talk?

Yes. If it turns out that we like more than one of your proposals, we’ll ask you to pick the one you want to give.

When will I know if my talk has been accepted?

If things go to plan, we hope to have the full schedule available by the mid of August.

I’ve never written a talk proposal before, where should I start?

Here are several links to blog posts on writing a strong conference proposal

• Submit a Talk to GopherCon! (Carolyn Van Slyck)
• How to write a successful conference proposal (Karolina Szczur)
• Getting your proposal thought the door (Russ Olsen)
• How to write a successful conference proposal (Dave Cheney)

Can you assist me with travel or accomodation expenses?

As a very small group of people organizing a conference our budget is limited so sadly we are not able to offer general assistance for travel and accomodation expenses. We’re bummed about this too, but we have to start somewhere and hopefully when the conference gets large enough we can provide travel or accomodation expenses.

However, all selected speakers will receive a complementary ticket to the conference days (workshop attendance is ticketed separately and not included) and an invitation to join us for a pre-event speaker’s dinner.