Content Guidelines for Speakers

Speaker Eligibility:

  • Must be available to present in-person
  • All skill levels welcome - from beginners sharing their learning journey to experienced professionals
  • No requirement to currently work in the tech industry, or to be enrolled in an IT/CompSci course
  • We prioritize practitioners, learners, and community members over self-styled influencers, bloggers, or social media personalities

What We Welcome:

  • Educational content that teaches new skills, concepts, or technologies
  • Technical deep-dives and case studies that share learning experiences
  • Open source project showcases and community contributions
  • Industry insights and trend analysis that benefit the broader community
  • Personal development stories and lessons learned from technical challenges
  • Beginner-friendly talks and “learning in public” presentations
  • You! Don’t be afraid to reach out to us, with questions, queries, tips to get over stage fright, or just for a chat.

Maybes

  • Surveys - we ask that you check in with us before including surveys as part of your talk. We also ask that you avoid the collection of personal details, and that any information gathered be used for research purposes only.

What We Expect

  • We ask that you share your slides and demo code at least 24 hours before the meet-up. This allows us time to add it to our website and to confirm everything fits within these guidelines.
  • List of sources and references used in your talk, either in your slides, docs or repo. We like to add these to our website to share with folk who want to learn more!
  • Disclosure of AI use. We allow the reasonable use of AI tools but ask that you disclose what AI tools you used, and how you used them. (We’re curious to see what tools folk like, and to share and compare!) We also ask that you avoid using AI to completely generate your code and/or presentation.
  • If anything comes up that prevents you from speaking at an event - it’s even happened to the organisers - please let us know ASAP! We’re happy to try and make it work at a later date.

What We Don’t Allow:

  • Talks should focus on technology and learning rather than political topics
  • Content of any talk that excludes, demeans, or makes any community members feel unwelcome - including ‘jokes’ - go against our values as a meetup group.
  • Product demos focused primarily on selling or promoting paid services
  • Presentations where the main goal is lead generation or customer acquisition
  • Talks that spend more than 2-3 minutes on company/product promotion
  • Content that requires audience members to sign up for trials or provide contact information
  • Presentations that are primarily marketing materials repackaged as technical content
  • Talks focused on building personal brand, follower count, or social media presence

We may allow promotion as part of a sponsorship arrangement, but there still must be a tangible benefit to the community that does not involve trials, sign-ups, or paid subscriptions. Reach out to us to learn more!

The Community Test:

Before submitting, ask yourself: “Would this talk provide value to attendees even if they never became customers or users of my product or service?” If the answer is no, it’s likely too sales-focused for our community.

Acceptable Mentions:

  • Brief introductions mentioning your company/role
  • Crediting tools or platforms used in technical examples
  • Mentioning open source projects you’ve contributed to, found useful, or just want to show love to
  • Sharing contact information for follow-up technical questions

Enforcement:

We reserve the right to review slides in advance and may pause presentations that veer into sales territory. Violations may result in speaking restrictions.

We also reserve the right to review surveys included as part

Compensation

We’re currently not in a position to offer payment to speakers, but we are happy to give you a shout out on our social media channels and marketing materials.