The Geo Week call for speakers is open, and the deadline is almost here. Submissions close Friday, July 17, so if you’ve been sitting on the fence, consider this your nudge. Every year I meet people who tell me they wish they’d applied, or that they didn’t think they had anything worth talking about. As the Senior Content Manager for Geo Week, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong about that.
There’s also more room than ever to get involved. Geo Week 2027 heads to the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, running February 23 to 25.
Here are five great reasons to put in a talk, in no particular order.
1) You’ve figured out a solution to something frustrating
You’ve done it. That slow, annoying, tedious part of your workflow that’s been bugging you, you found a way to make it markedly better. Maybe you put a new tool to work, changed a process, or leaned on automation or even AI to carry some of the load. However you got there, you solved it. The Geo Week audience is full of people wrestling with the same frustrations, and they’re hunting for solutions. As a real-world expert in your own workflows, you’re the best person to walk them through how you fixed that pesky problem or made someone’s work life easier. We want to hear all kinds of innovative solutions and success stories, and so does our audience. Share that hard-earned knowledge by putting in a talk.
2) You have some well-earned opinions
Sure, plenty of people have opinions about geospatial and built world technology. But how many of them know those workflows and use cases the way you do? Geo Week always makes room for panels built around real experience, sharp viewpoints, and the kind of hard-won perspective the audience actually needs. We know there are a lot of you out there with something to say, and frankly, we want to hear it. Put your most strongly held opinions on the table and share your experiential wisdom. You’ll establish your thought leadership, connect with like-minded professionals, and get the chance to show the many sides of the questions facing our industries today.
3) You tried a new technology or process and learned from it
Trying any new technology comes with risk. What if you’ve spent the money and it doesn’t deliver? What if the results don’t match the promises? But it also comes with real reward when you land on a workflow that saves time, improves safety, or gives you a better deliverable at the end. For those of us who get to trial new tech and see how it fits, sharing what you learned firsthand is incredibly valuable. You can pass along your lessons and talk with others who’ve been through it themselves, or who are trying to figure out where to start. No one is an expert on every cutting-edge tool. But you are an expert on your work, and you can speak to how a new technology fits into it. These lessons and use cases are the core of Geo Week content, and we always find room for them.
4) You’re working on something awesome
Let’s be honest. Some of the most fun talks to sit in on are about the projects that are just plain awesome. Maybe it’s a historic or important place, or somewhere few eyes have ever seen. Maybe it’s the scale, something bigger or more ambitious than anything you’ve taken on before. Maybe it’s the complexity, and the challenge of capturing exactly what you need when there are a hundred ways to get it wrong. Or maybe it’s simply something you found fun, rewarding, or interesting in its own right.
Over the years, Geo Week talks have covered historic places like the Selma bridge and Monticello, ambitious work on dams, stadiums, and entire cities, and natural wonders from Monarch butterfly sanctuaries to underground cave systems. If you’re working on something that keeps you engaged, chances are our audience will be too.
5) You love looking ahead
No one can predict the future perfectly, but that doesn’t stop industry veterans from having a real sense of what’s coming, or from feeling the pull of what’s possible when a breakthrough lands. At Geo Week, we build presentations and panels around exactly that. What do we need to know about the road ahead? What still hasn’t been solved that needs to be? How will your work change when a given technology matures or goes mainstream? And what are the exciting applications we haven’t even dreamed up yet? Your experience, your opinions, and your passions will shape that future, and Geo Week exists to give those ideas a place to be discussed, for connections to form, and for the groundwork to be laid for what’s next.
Submit Now
Still hesitating? Here are a few things worth knowing.
- If you have an idea but aren’t sure you can finalize your abstract, submit what you can (including a description of what you think you want to cover). We’re happy to talk it through and help develop the talk, and we still want to hear from you even if the description isn’t quite right yet.
- If you’ll need approval before attending or committing, submit anyway. We always confirm with speakers that they’re able to attend before putting any of their information on the program.
- If you want a co-speaker or someone to present on your behalf but need time to line them up, submit anyway. We contact all applicants by September, which should give you enough time to have that conversation.
- If you only think you partially fit the categories and topics Geo Week covers, submit anyway. Sometimes a topic comes up that we don’t have a predetermined slot for but is relevant enough to include. It’s okay to apply even if you think you’re only partway there. You might be right on the mark.
- If you’re a student or early-career professional who’s hesitating because you haven’t spoken at a conference before, you have options. You can submit now through the general call, or wait and use the student-only portal that runs October 5 through November 6. Either way, we love putting new voices on the program each year, and we’d very much like to hear what you have to say.
One more thing worth knowing. Accepted speakers may qualify for GISP credits, and with three tracks sharing a single conference pass, your talk could reach a wider slice of the geospatial community than ever before.
Submissions close Friday, July 17. Seriously, go for it.