Written in collaboration with Flink Forward Event Manager, Laura Cuttiford.

At Flink Forward, we are grateful that the digital technology landscape has enabled us to embrace ‘the new now’, and present our conferences in a virtual capacity. Of course, this comes with its challenges, but overall we have been able to adapt to this new way of thinking, and in April 2020, we successfully hosted our first-ever virtual event to a global audience of around 1400 Apache Flink enthusiasts.

Following this success and with the health and safety of our community at the core of our activity, we present Flink Forward Global, October 19 - 22. A four-day conference, with two days of Flink training and two days of conference, including keynotes, breakout sessions, sponsor ‘areas’ and networking opportunities.

The Call for Presentations is currently open until June 28 (this Sunday), so we thought that we would offer some words of encouragement for those wishing to submit their stories alongside speakers from companies such as Netflix, Yelp, Pinterest, and AWS.

Here are 5 reasons why you should consider presenting at Flink Forward:

Opportunity to present your Flink experiences to an untapped and engaged audience
Removing the restriction of travel, allows people to attend Flink Forward, from anywhere in the world. We have experienced a significantly higher uptake of pre-registrations for this event and are excited for you to access a diverse audience of Flink enthusiasts from around the globe. In addition to this, we are working on a networking solution which will enable you to connect with attendees outside of your scheduled talk. Watch this space!

No cost for you or your employer
If you have previously been restricted with your public speaking posts, due to insufficient travel funding from your company, or struggled to dig deep enough in your own pockets for such events, this is no longer an issue! Speaking virtually means zero costs or wasted time due to travel. In fact, you can now boost your position as a core member of the Apache Flink community, by sharing your stories from the comfort of your own home.

Real-time audience feedback
A fully virtual audience allows us to monitor and track attendee activity much easier than before, which means you can see exactly how many people are attending your session as well as their feedback on your talk through the chat function and talk rating system.

Don’t feel comfortable giving a live talk? Pre-record it from the comfort of your home!
We offer a number of options for how you can contribute to the Flink Forward conference program. If you are not able to give a talk in person on the day, due to insufficient internet speed or other distractions, you can choose to pre-record your session and enjoy the conference and interact with fellow speakers and attendees without having to worry about your talk. We do however encourage you to conduct a live Q&A session after your talk ends.

Decreased carbon footprint
Flying and even day to day commuting creates a large imprint on your carbon footprint. If there is anything we have learnt in 2020, is that we can have the whole world at our fingertips, without the necessity of travel!

Of course, if you have any questions (or concerns!) before submitting your talk for Flink Forward, feel free to reach out to a member of our team hello@flink-forward.org.

Hope to see you virtually in October!

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