Call for Papers
Note: The submission period for Berlin Buzzwords 2023 is over. You can view or edit your proposals here.
Berlin Buzzwords is an open platform and we thrive on your contributions. Together with our dedicated program committee we want to shape a program that truly is “by the community for the community”. Therefore we are looking forward to your input.
In the following, we want to help you identify if your idea fits at Berlin Buzzwords, what types of talks we are looking for, and help you with your proposal for our Call for Papers.
What we are looking for
Berlin Buzzwords is looking for talks on
- …any aspect of search: From search engines to relevance engineering, and more.
- …Data Science and Making sense of data: AI, ML, Data Wrangling, Data Engineering, MLOps, A/B-testing, etc.
- …everything related to stream processing
- …Operations / Infrastructure, including building and maintaining infrastructure, but also delivery and testing.
- …Scaling up (taking better advantage of a single machine, with threads, accelerators, specialized libraries, …), scaling out (distribution) or even scaling down; including moving from centralized services to “on device”.
- …Storing data and everything that entails.
- …experiments, hacks and novel approaches, but also lessons learned, generally-useful algorithms, and experience reports.
- …societal, environmental and ethical impact of tech.
- …Management, Leadership, Team Culture and internal processes, as well as Open Source & Governance.
The list is not complete and we are always happy about new and unique submissions. If you are looking for inspiration, please check out our YouTube channel to see videos of previous years’ talks.
Please note that we do not accept product presentations or company marketing presentations. If your company is interested in a media partnership or sponsorship, please contact Mareike at partner@berlinbuzzwords.de
What we offer
Being a speaker at Berlin Buzzwords is a perfect opportunity to share your knowledge and experience with fellow attendees. It is a great way to develop your ideas and get feedback from an engaged expert audience. Speaking at Berlin Buzzwords helps you gain experience on stage which you can reference as we record each session on video and publish them on YouTube.
An invitation to speak at Berlin Buzzwords includes a full conference pass with access to the entire event as well as our barcamp on Sunday. We also offer free accommodation for 2 nights at a nearby hotel to speakers from outside of Berlin.
First time speakers
Please don’t hesitate to submit your proposal if you haven’t spoken at Berlin Buzzwords before. We are always looking for new and exciting topics and speakers, and want to grow a community at Berlin Buzzwords that is open to new people and ideas, and therefore explicitly encourage first-time speakers to submit their proposals.
If you need help with the CfP process or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at speaker@berlinbuzzwords.de
Formats
We are offering the the following formats at Berlin Buzzwords:
Talks are the standard session format at Berlin Buzzwords. You present your topic in front of the audience within 40 min. Please include time for Q&A.
Max four panelists plus moderation. Please submit the topic plus at least suggestions for participants.
Tags
From the 2023 edition onwards, we have decided to replace our traditional conference tracks Search, Store, Scale, and Stream with tags. Each session will be allowed to have up to three tags.
We reckon this has a number of advantages: It’s easier for speakers to categorize their session, participants can find talks that are interesting to them much easier (and without overlooking any, because they are classified as “Scale”, but also contain lots of “Search”) and it opens Berlin Buzzwords up to new, exciting topics, that so far didn’t fit our tracks.
The tags we’ve chosen are:
For talks about any aspect of search: From search engines to relevance engineering, etc
Making sense of data: AI, ML, Data Wrangling, Data Engineering, MLOps, A/B-testing, …
Everything about stream processing
Storing data and everything that entails
Scaling up (i.e. taking better advantage of a single machine, with threads, accelerators, specialized libraries, …), scaling out (distribution) or even scaling down (including e.g. moving from centralized services to “on device”, etc.)
Includes building and maintaining infrastructure, but also delivery, testing and everything connected to that.
Covers experiments, hacks and novel approaches, but also lessons learned, generally-useful algorithms, and experience reports.
Talks about Management, Leadership and Team Culture, as well as the interaction with the wider community: Open Source, Governance, etc
Talks about the social, enviromental and ethical impact of tech
Abstract & Description
We now require both abstract and description for proposals. With that change, we want to make it easier for the audience to find interesting and relevant sessions at Berlin Buzzwords.
- Abstract: The abstract is a short summary of the topic of your talk, practically serving as a tl;dr for your session. It will be displayed on our session list, and is a first introduction of your session to the audience.
- Description: The session description is a detailed outline of your talk, explaining why your topic is relevant, what you will be talking about and what the audience will learn.
Both the abstract and the description will help the reviewers to get a good impression of your session and judge it accordingly, and both will be publicly visible when your talk is accepted.
Rules & Guidelines
Rules
- We don‘t allow product presentations or company marketing pitches.
- You are not allowed to switch the topic or content of the talk after the CfP submission period is over, except for in emergencies. If the topic is swapped after the CfP is concluded, the talk needs to be reviewed by the program committee again.
- All co-speakers have to be declared before the CfP submission period ends. Co-speakers that are added after the CfP is concluded do not receive free conference tickets or accommodation and we reserve the right to reject the addition of co-speakers after the CfP.
- We require direct email contact to our speakers for planing purposes.
- By submitting your proposal, you consent that your talk title, abstract and description along with your photo and biography will be made publicly available, if your session is accepted. Talks will be recorded and recordings will be made publicly available on our YouTube-Channel.
Guidelines
Make sure you take the following guidelines to heart:
- Titles should be descriptive and be less than 60 characters long
- The abstract should serve as a tl;dr for your session, giving a brief summary of the contents and what the audience can learn.
- The session description is the most important part of your proposal, since talks will be rated by our program committee mainly on the basis of your description. A good description contains a detailed and focused outline of your talk, explains why your topic is relevant, what you will be talking about and what the audience will learn.
- Please don’t include your biography or personal details in your abstract or description, since personal information will be removed before the review process starts to avoid bias.
- Title, abstract, and description of your talk will be visible to everyone and will be used on our talk description pages if your proposal is accepted, so be sure to write a clear and concise abstract in full sentences and don’t just use bullet points.