Suggested Topics

• GraphQL Working Group
• GraphQL Specification (including incremental delivery, nullability)
• GraphQL-over-HTTP specification
• Federation specification
• Reference software (GraphQL.js, graphql-http, GraphiQL and LSP)
• GraphQL in Production
• Case studies
• Federation and Distributed Systems
• Schema evolution (including backwards compatibility and versioning)
• Security
• Scaling
• Observability, telemetry and tracing
• Developer Experience
• Frontend
• Backend
• Patterns and community trends
• Testing
• Documentation

Important Notes

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

Preparing to Submit Your Proposal

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:

• What are you hoping to get from your presentation?
• What do you expect the audience to gain from your presentation?
• 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 with this, we recommend viewing seasoned speaker Dawn Foster's in-depth talk: Getting Over Your Imposter Syndrome to Become a Conference Speaker.

Have More Questions? 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.

The Talk Selection Process

The GraphQL Foundation strives to select conference talks based on fair criteria in a transparent manner. There are three groups involved in the selection process, each with their own focus to help create an engaging and balanced conference schedule:

• The Technical Steering Committee (TSC)
• The new Subject Matter Experts initiative (SMEs)
• The Program Committee

The Technical Steering Committee

The TSC are a group of 11 individuals who are elected to serve a two year term to provide technical oversight of all GraphQL development efforts. When evaluating conference talks they focus on quality and use the following criteria:

• Relevance
• Originality
• Soundness
• Quality of Presentation
• Importance

Subject Matter Experts

The SME initiative is new for 2025. This will be a panel of volunteers drawn from industry experts, working group members, security and observability experts, and maintainers and contributors to open source GraphQL projects. When evaluating the talks, they will focus on how exciting and engaging the talks are and use the following criteria:

• Subject Content
• Originality
• Audience Engagement

The Program Committee

The Program Committee is made up of representatives from the GraphQL Foundation board and interested members of the GraphQL community who have had experience organizing conferences. They shape the schedule from the highest-rated talks, ensuring balance across industries and affiliations, and also including a range of speaker experience and demographics, to ensure a varied and well-rounded representation of the GraphQL ecosystem.

Have More Questions? 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.