Open · submissions live Closes 15 July 2026 · 23:59 CEST

Bring the work.
Take the stage.

Begin your submission — — days remaining until 15 July 2026 · 23:59 CEST

Built by the people who maintain the libraries you ship — and the ones writing the law you'll be audited against.
Four tracks · rolling feedback.

Submission opens19 March 2026
Closes15 July 2026 · 23:59 CEST
DecisionsRolling · final notifications by August
EditionNº 02 · Prague
§ I — The Tracks Four halls, four conversations

Where your
work belongs.

The committee reviews each track separately. Submit to the one your work most clearly belongs to — if it spans two, that's a strong signal and you can flag it on the form.

§ Track 01 Hall A

Business Value
& Enterprise Adoption

How organisations adopt, manage, and invest in secure technologies.

Risk reduction, operational efficiency, procurement, enterprise strategy, and the business case for security. Real numbers from real deployments — what changed once secure communications were treated as line-item investment, not afterthought. Decision-maker–oriented.

Audience · Decision makers · executives
Format · Talks · panels · case studies
Programme chair · TBA
§ Track 02 Hall A

Technical Deep Dive
& Innovation

Advanced technical content, implementation lessons, emerging work.

Cryptographic libraries, protocols, performance, debugging, post-quantum readiness, and related innovations. TLS, PKI, secure protocols. Real-world deployments and case studies. Vendor-neutral, focused on sharing knowledge with the broader community.

Audience · Engineers · researchers
Format · Talks · workshops · panels
Programme chair · TBA
§ Track 03 Hall B

Security, Compliance
& the Law

The regulatory, legal, and assurance landscape around cryptography.

FIPS 140-3, compliance frameworks, supply chain security, governance, audit readiness, policy, and legal risk. Topics that sit at the intersection of code and statute — and the practitioners on either side of that line.

Audience · Compliance · policy · legal
Format · Talks · panels · briefings
Programme chair · TBA
§ Track 04 Hall B

Community, Contribution
& the Future

The people, structures, and collaboration that sustain secure open technology.

Governance, sustainability, contribution models, ecosystem development, and the future of open source security. The work of stewardship, told by the people doing it. Maintainer wellbeing, funding, fork-survivors, the long arc of community.

Audience · Maintainers · communities
Format · Talks · panels · open hours
Programme chair · TBA
§ Aside A second surface — for tutors, not talkers

Would you rather lead a day than give a talk?

Tutorials Day runs on the Monday before the conference. Four small benches — twenty seats each — taught by maintainers, integrators, and the people who put the silicon in the room. Proposals are open. Half-day or full-day. Same window as the talk CFP.

Propose a tutorial Different surface · different form
§ II — Calibration What lands · what doesn't

Yes — please.

  • War stories from production. Outages, near-misses, the bug you found at 03:00.
  • Concrete numbers. Benchmarks. Latency budgets. Memory footprints. Real measurements.
  • Lessons from the regulatory layer. What it actually took to get certified.
  • Migration narratives. Day-by-day, with the rollback plan.
  • Things you got wrong and what you'd do differently.
  • Work that's already in the world. Shipped beats theoretical.

No — thank you.

  • Vendor pitches dressed as talks. We can tell.
  • "Introduction to TLS" talks. Our audience already knows.
  • Pure speculation about quantum timelines, AI-and-crypto futures.
  • Talks given elsewhere in the last 12 months without significant new material.
  • Slideware-only sessions. If a demo can be live, it should be.
  • Anything where the substance is "we exist."
§ III — What to send The form takes ten minutes

Six fields, no theatrics.

  1. § 01 Title 120 characters max. Plain. No subtitle. No colon.
  2. § 02 Track Pick one of the four. Note any cross-track relevance in field §6.
  3. § 03 Abstract 300 words. Tell us what you did, what you found, and why it matters. Plain prose. The committee reads ~140 of these — clarity wins.
  4. § 04 Length 30 / 45 / 60 / 90 minutes — your preference. We may negotiate.
  5. § 05 Speaker bio 120 words. Recent relevant work. A photograph (any format).
  6. § 06 Notes for the committee Anything else — co-presenters, scheduling constraints, related submissions, prior versions of this talk, conflicts of interest, the bit you didn't want to put in the abstract.
§ IV — How we read Two readers · then the planners · rolling feedback

The review process.

Two stages, two different jobs.

Step 01
Mar 19
Submission opens
CFP form goes live. You can edit until the deadline.
Step 02
Jul 15
Submission closes
23:59 CEST. Late submissions are not accepted; please don't ask.
Step 03
Jun · Jul
Stage one: committee review
Each submission is read by at least two members of the Programme Committee, per track. Reviewers return written feedback and decide whether it advances to stage two. Two sets of eyes, minimum — nothing moves forward on a single reader's say-so.
Step 04
Jul · Aug
Stage two: programme review
Everything that clears stage one goes to the Conference Planning Committee for a final pass. We confirm each talk is substantive, that no single speaker crowds out the rest, and that the lineup serves the conference's goals and objectives. This is where many strong talks become one coherent programme.
Step 05
Rolling
Decisions out
Decisions issue on a rolling basis as review concludes — all final notifications by August. Every submitter receives written feedback, accepted or not.
Who reads Stage one is handled by the Programme Committee: OpenSSL Corporation directors, OpenSSL Foundation directors, members of OpenSSL's advisory committees (BAC and TAC), and invited individuals — external specialists and academics, including faculty from universities in and around Brno. Stage two is handled by the Conference Planning Committee — the conference organizers.
A note on rolling feedback If you submit early, the committee will return one round of substantive feedback — pre-decision, at stage one. You can revise and resubmit by the deadline. We do this because the talks we want most are often the ones being drafted by people who have never given a conference talk before.
§ IV·b — The path Five beats · envelope to applause

From the form to the stage.

i.You submit

An envelope arrives.

Six fields, ten minutes. The committee takes it from there.

ii.We read

Two readers, by hand.

Stage one. At least two members of the Programme Committee read each submission. Written feedback for everyone, rolling feedback for early submissions. The ones that pass advance.

iii.We plan

The lineup takes shape.

Stage two. The organizers weigh substance, balance, and fit — shaping many good talks into one coherent programme.

iv.The reply

A sealed letter follows.

Every submitter gets written feedback. Accepted? Travel grants open the same day.

v.October

You're on the stage.

Forty minutes. Your work. Three days in Prague. The fund travels with the talk.

§ V — After you're accepted Three short asks we make once your talk is in. Self-portrait reel Fifteen-minute conversation A short bio & a photo
After acceptance · in July

Send us a self-portrait,
on film.

When the acceptance letter goes out, every speaker is asked to self-record a short introduction — thirty-five seconds — about who they are and what they will be talking about. A phone, tablet, or laptop webcam is all you need. We use it on the website, the programme, and the social channels in the run-up to October.

  1. i

    State your name & your hands

    Where you work, what you maintain, and the last project you cared about enough to lose sleep over.

  2. ii

    The shape of the talk

    One sentence on what you'll cover, and one on who in the audience will lean forward when you do.

  3. iii

    Why now, why Prague

    What the room will be able to do — or stop doing — once they've heard this. Be specific. Skip the throat-clearing.

  4. iv

    Send it in

    Phone, tablet, or laptop webcam — vertical or horizontal, decent room tone. MP4 or MOV, up to 200 MB, to speakers@openssl-conference.org within seven days of acceptance.

Length 35 seconds
Camera Phone, tablet, or laptop webcam · 1080p or better
Audio Built-in mic is fine · find a quiet room
Use Programme · website · social run-up
Due 7 days from acceptance
§ Vb — Conversation After acceptance · before September

And — a fifteen-minute conversation with Monika.

Once your talk is locked in, our resident podcaster Monika books a short video call — a quarter of an hour at your convenience — to talk through what you're bringing to Prague. The recording becomes one of the pre-conference podcast episodes and the source for the short social clips that run through September and October. You see the edit first. Anything you'd rather not air, we cut.

Length
~15 minutes · conversation, not a script
Format
Video call · we record both sides
Host
Monika · resident podcaster, OpenSSL Conference
Edit
Shared with you before publication · cuts on request
Use
Podcast feed · LinkedIn · X · YouTube Shorts · speaker page
Scheduled
By appointment · after acceptance
§ Vc — Biography & photo After acceptance · with your reel

And — a few lines, and a photo of you.

Last, a short prose biography — around thirty words, written in the third person — and a photograph of yourself to put up online. The two run together on the programme, your speaker page, the conference badge, and the notes for your podcast episode. Plain is perfect: what you maintain, where you do it, and the one thing you're known for. No need for a CV.

Bio
~30 words · third person · plain
Photo
A headshot · for the website & programme · any format, phone is fine
Tone
What you maintain · where · what you're known for
Use
Programme · speaker page · badge · episode notes
Due
With your reel · 7 days from acceptance
§ VI — Travel grants For accepted speakers · no questions of dignity

Money should not be the reason
your work isn't on the stage.

Edition Nº 02 holds a travel-grant fund, underwritten by the Corporation and our patron sponsors. It covers economy travel from anywhere in the world, four nights at the Vienna House Diplomat, and the conference pass. Applications open the day decisions are sent.

Eligibility

Any accepted speaker whose employer cannot or will not cover the cost — or who has no employer. We do not means-test; we trust your declaration.

Coverage

Economy flights from origin city. Four nights at the conference hotel. Conference pass and meals. Visa-application fees if applicable.

Privacy

Grants are administered by the Foundation directly; the programme committee is not informed of who receives one. Your acceptance is decided on the work alone.

§ VII — Questions Eight, the most common

Asked before you, answered for you.

01 Can I co-present with someone else?

Yes. Name your co-presenter in the Notes field of the submission form. The committee reviews the talk, not the line-up; we'll write to the lead submitter and you can sort the credits between you. Travel grants are per-person for accepted speakers, so co-presenters can both apply.

02 Can I submit two different talks?

Yes, but we'll only schedule one. If both score well, we'll tell you and ask which you'd rather give. Don't water down either submission to game this — send both at full strength.

03 What's the difference between a talk and a workshop?

A talk is 30–60 minutes, presentation format, with Q&A at the end. A workshop is 90 minutes, hands-on, capped at the people who can fit in a room with laptops open. If you'd rather lead a longer, hands-on session, see Propose a tutorial instead — that's a separate window and a different form.

04 Will the talk be recorded?

Yes, in audio and video, published to the conference channel about two weeks after October. You see the cut before it goes public; anything you'd rather not air, we cut. The hallway is on you to stay off the record.

05 I've never given a conference talk. Should I submit?

Yes — emphatically. The talks the committee wants most are often being drafted by people who've never given one. Submit early and you get one round of substantive written feedback before the decision, so you can revise and resubmit. The rolling-feedback window exists for exactly this reason.

06 My employer won't pay for the trip. Can I still come?

Yes. Edition Nº 02 holds a travel-grant fund — economy travel from anywhere, four nights at the conference hotel, the conference pass and meals. Any accepted speaker whose employer cannot or will not cover the trip is eligible — no means-testing, the committee never sees who applied. If your employer might pay but needs convincing, we wrote the case for you: Make the case.

07 What if I miss the deadline?

Late submissions are not accepted; please don't ask. Better to send a rough draft on time than a perfect submission a week late. The form accepts revisions up to the deadline, so submit early and keep editing.

08 Who reads my submission?

Two readers from the programme committee, drawn from the track you submitted to. Names are stripped before review. We follow IETF-style double-blind procedure. Decisions are by consensus of the two readers; ties go to a third. The committee chairs ratify all decisions, in pairs.

§ VIII — Submit Live · open until 15 July 2026

Send it in.

Ten minutes. Six fields. If you're not sure, send it anyway — the committee would rather decline a brave abstract than miss a great talk.

Send your talk Opens the submission form in a new tab · ~10 minutes Your details are saved as you go; you can return to finish.
— What it asks —
  1. § 01Title120 chars · plain
  2. § 02Trackone of four
  3. § 03Abstract300 words
  4. § 04Length30 / 45 / 60 min
  5. § 05Speaker bio120 words · redacted on review
  6. § 06Notesoptional