As the Call for Speakers has recently closed, we wanted to thank you all again for taking the time to apply to speak at WordCamp London.
We’ve had a huge number of submissions (118!), so we’re finding it very difficult to select the right presentations. We’d said we’d inform all speakers on the outcome of their application by 16th February, and unfortunately, this deadline wasn’t reached. We’re very sorry for the delay, and we are working hard to ensure we get this done by mid-next week.
The selection process
The speaker selection process involves several steps, some which need to be repeated in order to ensure the final schedule is representative of the community, and that adequate representation of minority groups is achieved.
It usually goes something like this;
– Blind voting – the organising team assign points to each talk based solely on the session title and description.
– Group discussion – the organising team reviews each talk (even the applications that scored the lowest average score)
– Tuning and iteration – the organising team takes into consideration representation across the community, ensuring we have equal representation across genders, skill-level, speaking experience, companies, etc.
It is crucial for us to do a group discussion after blind voting and to keep iterating on the schedule as we go along; blind voting is not a reliable way to ensure equal representation.
Please bear with us!
We have already let all applicants know about the delay. We will be announcing the schedule, and getting in touch with applicants again to let them know the outcome of their application very shortly.
If you have any questions or concerns about the application process, please get in touch.