Resources for Public Speaking and Conference CFP application

How do you find events to attend or speak at?

I often get asked that and in this article I’ll share the resources I use for CFP (Call for Papers / Proposals) application and public speaking at conferences.

I’ve been doing active public speaking for about 5 years now so some of this feels very natural to me already and I have developed my own mechanics of applying to conferences and submitting CFPs

A CFP template

How to structure your CFP application is a very important aspect of submitting a proposal. It’s not just about the content, but also about how you structure it and how you present it.

CFP Template by Colby Fayock is a way to organize and DRY up submitting your conference proposals. Another reference to is the following open source GitHub repository it lives on if you want to contribute or customize even further.

Conference tracking websites

There are dedicated websites that track events world-wide, as well as their dates for open CFP applications. Some are very specific to an ecosystem or domain, such as JavaScript or DevOps, and others are general lists.

The following are events and conference CFP listings you can track:

• Papercall
• confs.tech
• SeeCFP
• CFPLand
• CallingAllPapers
• FrontendFront CFP
• CodeAndTalk
• .NET Conferences
• CFP Time
• Conf42
• developers.events
• CFP.watch
• CFP Tracker

Some of the above are also available to consume as a newsletter, such as SeeCFP, which makes it easier to receive new upcoming events as a push.

Another website to call out is Sessionize which is a CFP platform, to actually manage the applications sent to events and for event organizers to track, rate them, and so on. But, it’s also possible to browse through events once you register to the Sessionize platform.

There are also open source GitHub repositories which track CFPs that you can watch for updates:

• https://github.com/telstrapurple/DevEvents
• https://github.com/scraly/developers-conferences-agenda
• https://github.com/javaconferences/javaconferences.github.io
• https://github.com/frontendfront/front-end-conferences

CFP Twitter

Twitter is a great signal for open CFPs and generally speaking, a good resource for tracking conferences.

Here are a few accounts and Twitter Lists worth mentioning:

• TechDailyCFP
• CallingAllPapers is the Twitter version of the website mentioned above
• PHP CFPs
• IT CFP List

DevRel Twitter Lists

• Devocate’s DevRelPeeps
• Chris Short’s DevRel-iens
• Peter’s DevRel
• Sebastien’s DevRel
• Webchick’s DevRel & Community
• KathyLam’s DevRel
• Kin Lane’s DevRel
• Michael Friedrich’s DevRel
• Alex Moreno’s DevRel Pro
• Daniele’s DevRel news
• Alyss Noland’s Tech DevRel
• Rob Axelsen’s DevRel

Developer Relations and Community newsletters

Another great resource of getting more familiar with Developer Relations and all about developer Community management are newsletters that focus on this domain explicitly.

These DevRel & Community newsletters also feature upcoming events, and open CFPs before they close.

DevRel and Community newsletters:

• Tessa Kriesel’s newsletter Subscribe on her website
• DevRel Weekly
• Community Club Weekly
• Developer Advocado’s Weekly

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Do you know of other great resources that I should list here?
Hit me up at @liran_tal and let me know, I’ll add it to this article!