Call for Proposals

1. Good proposals include

• The topic and why it's interesting.
• The audience that will benefit from attending this talk.
• The takeaway for the audience.
• Any background knowledge required to understand the talk.
• Approximate time breakdowns, e.g. minutes 0–10: X, minutes 10–15: Y, etc.

2. Abstract vs Description

Abstract: The abstract tells attendees what the talk is about. It should answer all of the above questions, but remain short and to-the-point. This is your chance to pitch attendees on watching your talk. If your materials are already hosted publicly, you can include the link.

Description: The description expands on the abstract and provides background and additional details. It is often helpful to include an outline. The Program Committee reads each description carefully to determine if a talk is a good fit. This is your chance to pitch the Program Committee on accepting your talk. The Program Committee does occasionally ask for more information after proposals have been submitted, but it's better to include relevant details up front and anticipate what questions they will have. For example, if you think they may feel you're covering too much ground, an outline with time estimates could help alleviate that concern.

3. Additional suggestions

• Who is your target audience?
  Think about your target audience in terms of job role (data scientist, engineer, researcher, etc.) and experience level. Being clear about who you are speaking to is helpful both to you as you prepare and to the audience considering whether your talk is a good fit for them.
• Clear title
  A catchy title can be useful, but don't overdo it. People should get a rough idea of what your presentation is about just by reading the title. Your proposal and your presentation should be consistent with your title.
• Get feedback
  Ask friends and colleagues to review your abstract; bonus points if they are your target audience. Take time to tweak your abstract if needed. If you are a first-time speaker, please indicate this in your proposal and we will reach out with mentorship opportunities.

4. Common pitfalls

Here are some common pitfalls that could lead to the proposal not being understood or rejected by the Program Committee:

• Overly long proposals
  Keep it simple and clear. Good proposals typically provide all the important information within 200 words. This is not a strict limit, just a suggestion to help you stay focused.
• Future work
  While talking about future work is interesting and could be mentioned in your talk, the core content should already be shaped. Don't rely too heavily on future data collection or future prototyping, because things often don't go as expected.
• Sales pitches
  We are a community of creators and users of open source compute tools. You can reference your product or platform, but the audience will find the talk more interesting if they can try your techniques with open source tools. Your problem definition, proposed techniques, and business domain are also interesting, but sales pitches are typically rejected.
• Repeated talks
  We have a strong preference for new talks and new speakers. If your talk is already available online, it is unlikely to be accepted for the conference.