Submit a Session

The Call for Proposals for DrupalCon Baltimore is now closed.

Our Mission:

DrupalCon is organized by The Drupal Association and Drupal community volunteers. The Drupal Association is an educational non-profit organization dedicated to fostering and supporting the Drupal software project, the community and its growth.

DrupalCon aims to:

  • Gather citizens of the Drupal ecosystem to learn from each other
  • Work collaboratively to drive the project forward
  • Invite people from all backgrounds and areas of experience to submit session proposals to help us achieve these goals.

Speaker Benefits:

Speaking at a DrupalCon is considered a volunteer contribution to the Drupal project. We are happy to offer the following to our speakers:

  • One DrupalCon ticket per session to attend the full conference
  • Archived video of your session available on Youtube shortly after your presentation which can be used for promotion or in your speaker reel

Speakers can expect to pay for travel and lodging expenses incurred while traveling to and attending the conference.

Speaker Resources:

We want to support you as a speaker along your journey - from session submission, to selection, to speaking! We offer the following resources:

  • Pre-submission mentoring - We know submitting a proposal to a conference can be intimidating, especially for newer speakers. We want to support you so that you are confident submitting a session. We would encourage you to use HelpMeAbstract to get feedback from veteran open source speakers. If you would like to set-up a video call with one of our Session Submission Mentors, please email our Program Manager.
  • Contact with the Selection Team - Each Track Team is listed here and we encourage you to reach out to the Track Chairs that are leading the track that you submitted to. You can ask for their feedback on a part of your submission, ask a specific question you might have about what they are looking for, etc.
  • First-Time Speaker Resources - Speaking at DrupalCon for the first time is exciting and fun, but we also realize that it comes with some nerves. We will ask if this is your first time presenting at DrupalCon when you submit your session, and if it is, we’d like to support you by offering additional speaking resources, video calls with past speakers and trainers, and an open line of communication to ensure you feel comfortable and have a great session.
  • Support during the conference in the form of quiet spaces and networking with other speakers

Inclusion Funds for Speakers:

We are dedicated to increasing diversity of speakers at DrupalCon to more closely reflect the community that we serve.  

During the session submission process, we will ask an optional question where you can identify with one or more underrepresented groups. We are asking this question in an effort to better understand our current diversity in speakers as well as to make sure we clearly identify areas of improvement for our future Cons. We appreciate your cooperation in helping us gather data to support these efforts. This information will not affect your session selection status.

If you identify with an underrepresented group and are selected to speak, you are able to request up to $350 for travel and lodging expenses. While submitting your session, please indicate if that is something that would enable you to speak at our conference.

Please note: Consideration in the Inclusion Fund for speakers will not be a factor in session selection and will not affect your selection status. Our goal is to support to those who need it and as a direct action to increase speaker diversity.

The funds will be distributed after receipts are provided for travel (to/from the conference) and lodging (while at the conference). Names of recipients of this fund will not be shared publicly.

Conference Tracks:

You can read descriptions on each of the conference tracks on our Tracks page. We recommend noting the track’s description and suggested topics before submitting a session. Focusing your session submission on a topic that the selection team is looking for will increase the chances of your talk getting selected.

We will be focusing our programming in the following tracks:

Session Proposals Formats:

  • 25-minute sessions
  • 60-minute sessions

Submission requirements:

Before submitting a session, we recommend that you read the following information:

Have you completed these steps? Now you can submit your session.

You will be asked to provide the following information in your proposal:

  • Session Title - make sure it is both catchy and descriptive.
  • Detailed overview of your session - this information should be detailed and informative.  This will be the information that the selection team uses to evaluate your session. It will also be what attendees read when they are selecting to attend your session. It should highlight what level of knowledge attendees should have walking into your session and what they will walk away having learned.
  • Slides - if you have slides for this presentation, sharing them gives the selection committee great insight into what your session will cover.
  • Experience Level - what level of attendee will benefit the most from your session?
  • Session Track - select one of the tracks that you read about above. Ensure that your proposal aligns with what the Track Team has requested. If our selection team feels that your talk would better fit in another track, they will move it.
  • Speaker Experience - All speakers must have public speaking experience prior to presenting at DrupalCon. Please list or describe your speaking experience, including any presentation recording links. This information will not be displayed publicly and will only be used for reference by the session selection team.

Session Selection Process:

Our Selection Team is comprised of experienced community members that work in the field that they are selecting for.  You can read an in-depth explanation of our process here. After session submissions are closed, the team reads through all submissions and evaluates them based on the following:

  • Completeness of the Session Description - They will will ensure that attendees will learn valuable information in the session; that the description of the session is clear and well thought-out; that the session is presenting new and/or interesting information that will add value to the program.
  • Speaker Experience - having publically spoken before is a requirement to speak at our conference but that experience doesn’t have to be at DrupalCon. Our selection team values the information that is provided pertaining to past conferences you’ve spoken at, links to past talk videos/rankings.

You are allowed to submit more than one session to the submission process, but speakers are only chosen to speak by themselves one time during the conference.

Once the team has evaluated all of the sessions, speakers of selected sessions are notified via email from our Program Manager, Amanda Gonser. Once all of the selected speakers are notified and accept their speaking role, all remaining speakers will be notified of their status.

Selected sessions will be announced on our website on February 27, 2017.

Important Dates:

  • February 1, 2017 - Call for Proposals will close at 23:59 Baltimore time (EST/UTC-5)
  • February 2-26, 2017 - Our Selection Team will be reading through sessions and evaluating each of them. Keep an eye on your email during this time in case the Selection Team has clarifying questions about your submission.
  • February 27, 2017 - Selected sessions are announced on our website