Call for Proposals

PGConf.dev 2025 is now accepting proposals for 25 minute talks, 50 minute talks, and alternative content. This is an opportunity to share your experiences with the PostgreSQL community!

Submit Your Proposal

Wondering what you should propose? Here are some questions to get you started:

Have you been working on a new feature or initiative?
Have you analyzed or improved a community process or resource?
Did you take on a project, face setbacks, and learn lessons?
Did you solve a tough problem in another open source community?

25 Minute Talks

25 minute talks may highlight a particular contribution or summarize an investigation or thought experiment.

We'd like to use these slots to:

Celebrate and bring awareness to community initiatives
Enable and improve community members' productivity and happiness
Inspire discussion with short-form analysis and commentary

Here are some examples of topics we would love to see proposed:

Demo and explain a PostgreSQL feature you developed
Share a new community initiative you started
Explain new features you added to a community resource (like the Commitfest app)
Share how your open source community solved a systemic problem
Talk about PostgreSQL's top non-code contribution needs
Show how to use rr to debug an issue in PostgreSQL

50 Minute Talks

50 minute talks should have a story arc. These may introduce new research, share hard-won learnings, showcase proof-of-concept solutions, present fresh analysis of an issue, or educate the community on a non-obvious issue.

Some of the high level categories:

Failed PostgreSQL projects and what you learned from them
Proof-of-concept features and performance improvements
Academic database research
Long-form surveys and analyses of PostgreSQL problems
Architectural issues in PostgreSQL and how to fix them
New perspectives on systemic community concerns
Educational content and how-tos
Missing features and user needs

Here are some specific examples of 50-minute talks we would love to see proposed:

Ideas for improving PostgreSQL's buffer replacement algorithm
Every performance bottleneck you've found this year and how you found them
Improving PostgreSQL's analytic workload support
Analysis of top complaints against PostgreSQL on Stack Overflow and how to fix them
How to use every PostgreSQL developer extension
Operating system concepts for the PostgreSQL developer

Alternative Content

Alternative Content encompasses activities and content that don't fit neatly in a 25 or 50 minute talk format, e.g. panels, interactive content, trainings, summits, microconferences, outreach events, and special interest sessions. This is an opportunity for community building.

Your proposal should include a detailed description of the content, a list of materials and resources needed, and a description of the target audience.

Some examples of alternative content that we may find interesting:

Panel discussion on a community-building topic like mental health
Student outreach breakfast
Extension Ecosystem Summit
Community organizing microconference
AMA with PostgreSQL contributors on overcoming setbacks
Live coding session
Silent auction for charity
PostgreSQL run/walk
PostgreSQL Women coffee break

The number of alternative content proposals we accept will be based on their format, resource requirements, and scheduling constraints.

Submission Notes

A talk may be proposed as both a 50 minute talk and 25 minute talk. You should explain, in the body of the proposal, which length you prefer. Alternative content may only be proposed to the alternative content track.

While you may propose content with multiple speakers, 50 minute talks receive, at most, two complimentary registrations. 25 minute talks receive one complimentary registration. And alternative content creators will receive subsidized registration on a case-by-case basis.

Tips

Proposed talks about your company's product are unlikely to be accepted unless they discuss issues encountered and how PostgreSQL could be modified to make it easier to extend and support.
Be sure to focus your bio on what makes you uniquely positioned to deliver the content you are proposing.
Proposed content with a goal of creating consensus around a topic like a summit or microconference is more likely to be accepted if it is co-proposed by individuals from multiple companies.
Check out the PGConf.dev 2024 schedule to see what we accepted and for more inspiration.

Program Committee

Please contact program@pgconf.dev with any questions about the CFP.

Amit Kapila (Fujitsu)
Jonathan Katz (Amazon)
Melanie Plageman (Microsoft)
Noah Misch (Google)
Paul Ramsey (Crunchy Data)

Submit Your Proposal