Open · closes 5 December 2026
Call for speakers
We strip your name, your employer and your bio off the proposal before anyone scores it. Six track chairs read what is left, independently, against the rubric below. If you have done the work, that is the only thing that counts.
Anonymised before review
Names, employers, bios and prior-speaking history are removed within 48 hours of submission. Judges score the idea, not the logo next to it.
Three judges, one rubric
Every proposal is read by at least three track chairs scoring independently. Wide disagreements go to panel moderation rather than being averaged away.
Real feedback either way
Declined proposals get their anonymised scores and at least one line of written feedback. We would rather you come back stronger than guess what went wrong.
The process
From submission to schedule
Six steps, all dated. You will never be left wondering where your proposal sits.
- 01
Submit
Open now · closes 5 December 2026
The form below. Takes about 15 minutes. You can submit up to three proposals; send each one separately.
- 02
Anonymise
Within 48 hours
The programme team strips names, companies, bios and any identifying detail from the abstract before review begins.
- 03
Blind score
7 – 16 December 2026
Each proposal is independently scored against the rubric by at least three judges. Judges recuse themselves from anything they recognise.
- 04
Panel moderation
17 – 19 December 2026
Judges meet to resolve wide score gaps, then identities are unsealed and the panel balances tracks, regions and new voices.
- 05
Notify
By 21 December 2026
Everyone hears back — accepted or not. Declined proposals get their anonymised scores and at least one line of real feedback.
- 06
Schedule live
6 January 2027
Accepted speakers confirm a slot that works for their timezone, then the public agenda goes up — a week before the event.
Scoring rubric
Exactly what the panel scores
Published in advance, deliberately. If you know what we weight, you can write a better proposal — and we get a better conference.
| Criterion | Weight | |
|---|---|---|
| Practitioner valueCan an attendee act on this within a week? We weight lived experience, numbers and post-mortems far above survey talks. | Can an attendee act on this within a week? We weight lived experience, numbers and post-mortems far above survey talks. | 30 |
| OriginalityHave we seen this talk at three other conferences this year? New data, a new failure mode or a genuinely contrarian position scores highest. | Have we seen this talk at three other conferences this year? New data, a new failure mode or a genuinely contrarian position scores highest. | 25 |
| Technical depthSpecific and verifiable beats broad and safe. Name the tools, show the config, explain what broke. | Specific and verifiable beats broad and safe. Name the tools, show the config, explain what broke. | 20 |
| Clarity of proposalA clear abstract and three concrete takeaways. If the panel cannot tell what you will say, it cannot score it. | A clear abstract and three concrete takeaways. If the panel cannot tell what you will say, it cannot score it. | 15 |
| Line-up balanceApplied last, across the whole pool: track coverage, regional and timezone spread, and new voices alongside known ones. | Applied last, across the whole pool: track coverage, regional and timezone spread, and new voices alongside known ones. | 10 |
| Total | 100 | |
The panel
Who reads your proposal
One chair per track, each an active practitioner in that area. Judges recuse themselves from any proposal they recognise, and no judge may submit a proposal of their own.
Rosalind Achebe
Programme Chair
Independent
SBOM & Transparency
Tobias Lindqvist
Track Chair, Build Integrity
Kattegat Robotics
Provenance & CI/CD
Neha Varadarajan
Track Chair, Open Source
Open Commons Foundation
Ecosystem & maintainer risk
Emeka Nwosu
Track Chair, AI Supply Chain
Baobab Research
Model and dataset provenance
Charlotte Weber
Track Chair, Regulation
Nordic Cyber Council
CRA, NIS2, product compliance
Marco Delgado
Track Chair, Detection & Response
Altiplano Security
Incident response and detection
What to propose
Six tracks
SBOM & Transparency
Generating, exchanging, validating and actually using bills of materials — CycloneDX, SPDX, VEX and the operational reality of ingesting them at scale.
Build Integrity & Provenance
SLSA levels, reproducible builds, signing and attestation, hardening CI/CD, and keeping the path from source to artifact tamper-evident.
Open Source Risk
Dependency confusion, typosquatting, maintainer burnout, package registry defence and the economics of the commons everyone builds on.
AI Supply Chain
Model and dataset provenance, AIBOM, poisoned weights, agent tool chains, and what happens when the dependency you shipped is a model.
Regulation & Assurance
EU CRA, NIS2, secure-by-design pledges, FDA and automotive expectations, procurement language and evidence that survives an audit.
Detection & Response
Finding compromise in your pipeline, triaging the next xz, incident comms, and rebuilding trust after a supplier is breached.
Before you start
The rules
- Vendor pitches are rejected. You may reference your product; you may not present a demo reel. Sponsors have their own slots.
- Every proposal is reviewed with the speaker name, company and bio hidden. Identity is revealed only after scoring closes.
- One speaker may submit up to three proposals. We will accept at most one.
- Sessions are recorded and shared with confirmed attendees only. Nothing is published publicly, so you can be specific about what actually went wrong.
- The room is capped and every attendee is reviewed, which is the point — you are presenting to practitioners, not to an open internet audience.
- Talks are live, not pre-recorded, unless your timezone makes that unreasonable — tell us and we will work it out.
- All speakers agree to the Code of Conduct.
Questions before you submit? Email cfp@chainday.live — a human on the programme team answers, and asking does not affect your score.
Submit
Your proposal
About 15 minutes. You can submit up to three proposals — send each separately. Closes 5 December 2026, and we do not extend it.
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