So you want to submit a proposal to EMF

We love reading your talk and workshop proposals – EMF wouldn't exist without ridiculously talented people getting up on stage and sharing their favourite things.

But we also know that the proposal form can be daunting, especially for first-timers. You know what you want to do, but how do you get that across in your application? Here's some advice to help you think about your proposal and make it sound amazing to the review team.

Make it about what you love

We're not the average business or tech conference. This isn't about boosting your LinkedIn profile. This certainly isn't about interviewing for a job. This is about sharing what you love with other people who want to learn about it. So you don't have to talk about something you do at work; you don't have to try to sell us something. You just have to love something so much you want to shout about it to the world. If your proposal sounds like a sales pitch or an academic paper, and there's no heart in it, you're more likely to be turned down.

Don't rely on AI to write it for you

You might think that it'll help you, that it'll make it sound better, but it won't. You know how we said we want stuff that has heart in it? Yeah, ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude or whatever...they're not interested in the heart, they're interested in making things bland and uninteresting. And it'll be spotted practically immediately. This doesn't mean you can't spell check. This doesn't mean you can't check the grammar. We just don't want it writing the entire thing for you. We want to hear what you think. What you love. Not what some large language model thinks is statistically plausible.

Remember the audience

While EMF is filled with nerdy, geeky, scientific, making-stuff kind of people, we're all coming from different backgrounds and we all have different experiences. Think about how your proposal would sound to a person on the street. Is it too technical? Are you using too much jargon? Is there a simpler way to describe what it's about? You're going to be up on stage explaining it to an audience that'll be all ages, all levels of education, and all different backgrounds, so if you're not sure it makes sense, ask a friend to review it, or ask online. There are people who want to help.

Keep it anonymous

When we review proposals, we like to make our decisions as free from personal bias as possible. We have a button to click when we recognise who the person is, taking us out of the voting process. So if there's anything in the proposal that makes it really obvious who you are, we'll have to send it back to you to rewrite it. Make sure you haven't included URLs, papers you've written, anything like that. You don't have to prove your credibility to us, you just have to love what you're talking about.

Tell us what you need

If you're planning on running a workshop, it's helpful to include what people will need to bring, what they'll need to install, and what you'll have on hand to use. Spending half a workshop just installing everything doesn't help anyone learn, and working out what you want will help you decide if maybe you're trying to do too much in a small amount of time. Plus, if you're thinking about selling a kit during the workshop, we can work with you to make sure people can purchase it without you having to make sure you have the right change or a card reader.

Don't be afraid to get out there

We love first-time speakers. We love obscure topics. We love people talking about their hobbies. We want to see even more amazing stuff in the tents, showing us the wonders of the world. So don't be afraid to go a little wild – talk about that random historical era you obsess over. Show us how you've used technology in a weird and different way. Talk about your experiences. Have us join your adventure. You've done amazing things in your life, and this is your chance to shine.

Good luck!