Presenting a New Lightning Talks Format for JSConf Colombia
This year we want to announce a new talk format which we’ll be including in JSConf Colombia — Lightning talks! We’re hoping this will increase community participation and increase the number of Colombian speakers on our stage. Before we get into the “how”, let’s look at the “why”.
Last month we were thrilled to announce the launch of JSConf Colombia’s 5th edition. For four years we’ve watched how not only the Colombian community but also the Latin American community comes together to share and celebrate the knowledge during the conference.
We’ve witnessed the transformation and empowerment that each edition brings to our local JavaScript communities through the growth of local meetups, the new friendships and connections being made, new technologies being adopted and the professional development of our local talent.
After our first year, our visiting speakers took home with them a great impression of our country, and they helped spread the word about JSConf Colombia throughout the globe. They brought us the attention and proposals of JavaScript heavyweights worldwide which we then invited to later editions, and because of them, we’ve grown to be a recognized and prestigious conference in the JSConf family.
Thanks to this, our CFP becomes more and more popular, and we happily receive hundreds of proposals each year. This makes the process of selecting speakers harder, and regretfully we have to turn down almost 90% of the CFPs we receive. The exciting part is that even though JSConf creates the ideal environment for the growth of our local communities, it’s safe to say that more than 80% of the proposals we receive are from folks outside of Colombia.
This phenomenon results in only a small number of local speakers being selected for our main-track talks (although workshop-wise the number of local speakers is much greater). For transparency’s sake, here’s a complete list of the local speakers we’ve had in the past:
2013
2015
2016
2017
Because of this and our commitment to empowerment and strengthening Colombia’s developer communities, we decided that we needed to take action to encourage the participation of these communities. This with the aim of improving and creating diverse and inclusive spaces. We’ve created this space for them to dramatically increase the participation of local speakers by introducing a new talk format which we’ll include this year.
Lightning talks are 15-minute talks which allow us to open up six spots on the main stage exclusively for Colombian speakers. We’ll make our 5th edition the year with the most local participation so far.
We’re so excited to announce this, and we hope you are too! Join us by brainstorm topics you’d like to share with us and send us your proposals. We’re waiting for you to come to share with us as we celebrate this grand event.
