What is the “Xamarin Developer Summit”?

The short answer is that the Xamarin Developer Summit is a community organized replacement for the Evolve Conference. Everywhere we go, and everyone we talk within the Xamarin community has felt a major void left behind by the Evolve Conference. It’s our aim at providing a conference that can fill that void by providing a single community based event that can bring developers together from around the world to share and grow together.

Who is behind this?

The Xamarin Developer Summit is the brainchild of Dan Siegel, and is hosted exclusively by AvantiPoint and our many wonderful Community Volunteers.

Is this just another Xamarin Dev Days or Monkey Fest?

No, those are great events, but they fill a very different need. This is a full-fledged multi-day conference in which we will be taking over the entire hotel and with your help maybe the entire area…

I’m a student or otherwise have a financial hardship. Do you have any Scholarship?

YES!!! We do have a scholarship program, and we want to hear from you if you’re in need of some help to attend.

What should I expect from this conference?

The conference team is committed to reaching developers at every level in their career. We will absolutely have resources to help people who have never built a Hello World app in their life with Xamarin. At the same time, we will have content to help enrich the knowledge of MVP’s and other Senior level Developer who has been in the Xamarin ecosystem for years, as well as content to help those somewhere between those extremes.

We believe strongly in providing you the very best experience of any Xamarin event that you’ll attend all year. We have made every effort to ensure participation from the authors and maintainers of as many of your favorite Open Source libraries as possible giving you a chance to get 1 on 1 and ask all of the questions you never thought you’d be able to ask.

This is just some community event, so why should I come to the Xamarin Developer Summit instead of going to Build or Ignite?

Those are great conferences, and we love them! They aren’t Xamarin focused though, and as a result, the Xamarin team gets a very limited number of sessions in competition with all of the various other groups within Microsoft. We are also working in partnership with the Xamarin team as well as others inside Microsoft to ensure that we can strike just the right blend between Microsoft and the Community to give you an event that is a Must Attend if you’re a Xamarin Developer.

I’ve never spoken at a big event before? Should I still submit?

Yes! Absolutely, we welcome all speakers including those looking to get started. This is your opportunity to shine. Perhaps you don’t have a big name in the community but this is your chance. To help us get to know you better be sure to follow up with us by email. Let us know what makes you special.

What should I talk about?

You should submit papers for a talk on ANY subject that meets the following criteria:

• You are passionate about it
• You do not have to be the worlds foremost expert, but you should have enough knowledge to be able to speak to the subject matter and help people learn more about it
• It should be related to Xamarin and something that would interest someone developing apps with Xamarin. This could be strongly related such as a talk on Xamarin Forms. Or more broadly related such as a talk on DevOps, Logging, IoT etc.

I’d like to give a talk on a technology that isn’t from Microsoft, should I still submit?

If it would be of interest to someone developing apps with Xamarin, then absolutely! This is not a Microsoft Conference so we absolutely welcome 3^rd party solutions!

Do I need to submit more than one talk?

In some cases, we may accept a speaker who has only submitted a single talk. However, conferences often get several submissions for a single topic. The result is that several great speakers may be turned away because there simply wasn’t a fallback talk for the organizers to accept.

I see that you’re looking to have Panels, how do I get on one?

Let us know that you’re interested in being on a Panel and any topics that you may want to see for Panel discussions. As we’re putting together Panels we may reach out.

I saw that you’re looking for Sessions, Workshops, and Hackathons. Do I need to submit something in each of these?

Yes and no. We believe strongly that applied learning is very important. It is great when you go to a conference and you see some expert talking about something cool you didn’t know was possible, but it leaves you with a feeling of “great now what”. You should be prepared to have a general session on a topic as well as a Hackathon or Workshop. We also recognize that some speakers may have more than one general session. We still encourage you to find ways of interacting directly with attendees beyond speaking from stage.

How do I apply to speak?

Create an account on Sessionize.com and submit your sessions at our CFP link

I can’t afford the airfare or hotel, can I still speak?

Only the event ticket is guaranteed for all speakers. We still encourage you to submit your talk, we will work with speakers on a case by case basis.

When will I know if any of my talks were accepted?

We will begin reaching out to speakers 2 – 3 weeks after the CFP closes. We generally expect all talks to be selected within 5 weeks following the close of the CFP.

How will talks be selected?

Speakers will be selected by a Panel. The Panel will contain various community members who have volunteered to help the conference. All Panel members will have no idea who the speaker is for the first round of review to ensure that all sessions are ranked impartially without personal bias for or against a speaker. Sessions containing descriptions/titles containing identifying information about the speaker may be disqualified at the sole discretion of Dan Siegel.

What is the breakdown of Community Sessions?

In order to ensure that we can provide the most beneficial content possible we give first priority to many of our industry partners for sessions we feel are best provided by them. We anticipate running roughly 40 sessions over the 2 days with around 16 partner sessions. This leaves us more than half of the total sessions to be filled by community speakers.