Call for Proposals — apply to present at RustFest Global!

• 日本語で
• 简体中文
• 繁體中文
• 한국어로
• En español

This document applies to RustFest Global Call for Proposals (CfP). We are inviting the Rust community to submit proposals for talks and other activities!

When you’re ready, use this form to submit a proposal.

Proposals will be reviewed by the organizing teams and invited committee members. You will receive an email when your proposal has been selected for an upcoming event. Proposals that aren't selected remain in the selection pool for later events unless they are withdrawn by you.

We want to encourage new speakers to get on the virtual stage or experienced speakers to try out something new. Never have given a talk at a conference or thinking about changing the main topic of your speaking efforts? We are your conference!

Upcoming events #

• RustFest Global 2021 Rust in Arts Edition - ended
• RustFest Global 2021–22 LATAM Edition - ended
• RustFest Global 2021–22 EMEA Edition - closing soon!

Deadlines #

The RustFest Global CfP has no hard deadline. Instead, each edition uses the proposals to create its event. Once the agenda has been created, no further proposals for that event are reviewed. If you would like your submission to be considered for an event, it should usually arrive 3-4 weeks before the event date.

Topics #

RustFest is a Rust event. We are looking for Rust topics or topics that would interest Rustaceans (people involved with Rust). The Rust community is a very curious one, so talks about interesting new developments in the world of programming are welcome. Topics covering the social aspects of programming are also met with big interest.

Supported languages #

Currently RustFest proposals can be submitted in the following 6 languages: English, Spanish (español), Japanese (日本語), Korean (한국어), Simplified Chinese (简体中文), Traditional Chinese (繁體中文).

All talks accepted in languages other than in English will include professional subtitles in English when they are aired. For this we will ask you to pre-record your talk at least a week in advance. If a recording is necessary, one of the organizers will be in touch with you and will be able to provide help with the recording. The proposed talks may either be presented in one of the above-listed languages, or you can request in the submission form to present in another, unlisted language: in this case, after a talk is chosen by one of the events, the organizing team will reach out to discuss how we could best support the presentation (with e.g. subtitles).

Formats #

Talks submitted for Rustfest Global can be either standard talks (up to 25 min) or longform talks (up to 50 min). We are also generally open for different formats like more interactive sessions, bite-sized short sessions in multiple chunks and more. Let your creativity run wild and select the appropriate option from the dropdown in the submission form to propose such a session. All teams will get a chance to evaluate every proposal, though certain formats and topics, by nature, fit some of the events better than others.

You will also have a chance to highlight your submission in the form for a specific team and event if you think your proposal is particularly well-suited for that event.

Please remember to reserve time for questions if you would like to have a Q&A session after your session. We will be on a tight schedule and enforce the end of a talk rigorously. We suggest timing your presentation in advance.

Help Available #

There are about a million reasons why you don’t consider yourself a speaker. We are here to prove you wrong. We are your conference, regardless of whether this is your first time on stage or you are an experienced speaker. If you are unsure, feel free to contact us:

• We are happy to brainstorm your interests to see if a great topic is hiding.
• We are happy to connect you with mentors early on to help prepare your submission, or you can refer to the Example Submission section below for tips.
• We are happy to review and advise on how to produce a slide deck.
• If you need practice giving talks, get in touch, we can hook you up with local groups or set up a stage for you and a bunch of friends in advance, so you can practice in front of a friendly crowd.
• Again, whatever else you might need, we’re here to help. Get in touch: coaching@rustfest.eu (just do NOT use this to submit a proposal).

If you need more encouragement, check out the following site from Tiffany Conroy, We Are All Awesome that tries to convince you to speak. For guides on the practical parts, see Zach Holman's speaking.io.

Accessibility #

RustFests care about accessibility a lot. Also for a virtual conference, accessibility is key. We will support your talk by providing captioning. When creating slides, we will provide you with information on how you can make your material as accessible as possible. Please read our Accessibility Guidelines and Code of Conduct.

The Selection Process #

Here is how we select speakers:

• Submissions are anonymized, so we don’t bias against anything related to the submitter.
• All non-English proposals receive an English translation from one of the team members to aid everyone in the voting.
• All team members and invited CFP-selection committee members rate the talks on a scale of 1 to 4.
• On average, once a week every team looks at the submissions and selects talks based on their evaluation criteria (which includes, but may not be solely based on just the talk ratings)
  • The team selects N submissions, which they de-anonymize, which helps in selecting a well-rounded lineup (e.g. to find a mix of seasoned and new speakers). We do want new speakers on the conference, so don't fear losing out to "the pros" in the last minute!
  • The number N depends on how many open slots the team still has unfilled
  • The team makes the final decision on whether to invite a presenter or not
  • All chosen, but not-yet-invited sessions remain in the pool and will be re-evaluated in the next round
• The cycle repeats until the team invites speakers to fill its complete lineup

With this new CFP format, informed by years of previous RustFest-CFP-experience, we hope to explore and iterate on a fairer and more sustainable speaker selection process that does not burden the teams as much as previous iterations while allowing for more creative freedom to explore different experiences without compromising on our core values.

Submission Guidelines #

Following these guidelines will help your submission be selected.

Grammar #

Be respectful. Typos, sloppy formatting and spelling errors make reading your proposal more difficult. By being diligent with your wording, you make it easier to see that you care about your topic and its audience.

Capture the attention of your audience. Your Title and short Summary is the first thing people see during voting, either use them to convince your session is a must-have or make them interested enough to click through to read the extended description. Once your session is selected, these are also the things people will see in the event schedule and on social media, so make them count!

Be concise. We recommend that even in the Description you explain your topic in 3 paragraphs. If you need more than two paragraphs to get to the point of your topic, we need to ask you to slim things down. With the amount of submissions we get, the quicker you can make a good impression, the better.

“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time” — Blaise Pascal

Originality #

Your contribution should be original.

One of the things we want to do with RustFest is to push the community forward. We can’t do this if the same people keep talking about the same things all the time. Thus, we favour original content. If you want to discuss a topic that you have talked about elsewhere, try to add a twist, or new research, or development, something unique. Of course, if your talk is plain awesome as-is, go for that :)

Pre-recorded Talks #

We strongly recommend providing a pre-recorded talk. If your talk is accepted and you would like to submit a pre-recorded talk, we encourage you to do so. Even if you intend to present live, you might be unable to do so. Reasons for this include, but are not limited to, not having a stable internet connection, or presentation anxiety. We do however encourage you to answer questions after the talk. This can also be achieved by having you call in over a telephone line when the internet connection is not sufficient. You may choose to take questions in the chat channel dedicated to your talk, in which you will be able to answer questions also from people watching the Replay of your talk after it aired.

The Perks #

If you get selected as a speaker at RustFest, here’s what you get:

• Full access pass to the all event (Editions). If you happen to already have purchased a ticket we can refund you.
• Gear required to make your talk a success. For example if you require a webcam or microphone, we can discuss how to get one to you. We provide an up to 200 EUR reimbursement budget for all speakers for hardware expenses (just keep your receipts and submit them after the conference). We can also purchase and send you hardware if you cannot afford the upfront costs, please let us know and we will take care of it.
• A 200 EUR stipend for your efforts. Speakers should be compensated for their efforts: preparing and presenting a talk takes time and effort and we want to offset some of this work by sharing the funds provided by our sponsors and attendees. We will require an invoice, and you will need to be able to take care of any taxation requirements of this income that might arise in your country. Alternatively, if you can't or don't want to accept these funds we can donate them to a non-profit organization of your choice (restrictions may apply).
• We are continously working on extra perks and other exciting ways to give back to the community, such as streaming micropayments from attendees.

Example Submission #

Here’s a proposal that we accepted at another conference:

How To Be Better #

A lot of the principles of clean code are forgotten when writing documentation.

Have a single source of truth and don't repeat yourself. Avoid writing brittle code. Use ubiquitous terminology and choose searchable names. Be consistent in your formatting. Test your code. Refactor and practice successive refinement. Don't write any more than you need to.

These principles of clean code can be applied with great effect to the production and maintenance of documentation, but there's more to it than that. Code needs to satisfy machines and coders. Documentation needs to satisfy people performing range of different tasks: from cursory inspection through to intensive development.

This talk will review relevant principles and examine real-world examples, leaving you with a practical mental checklist for writing documentation that will help your users and your software thrive.

Misc #

Besides being livestreamed, all talks will also be recorded, transcribed, and — with your permission and after your review — published on the Rust videos YouTube channel, along with a recording of the slide deck, live-demo or other on-presenter-screen activity. The Rust Videos YouTube channel is managed and moderated by the Rust Community team.

We do this for the benefit of the larger Rust community and those who can’t make it to the conference. We hope you want to help out, but if you are uncomfortable in any way, let us know and we will work things out.

Finally, since you retain full ownership of your slides and recording, we’d like to ask you to make your materials and recording available under a creative commons or other open source license.