SotM Europe: Propose a session

OpenStreetMap UK volunteers are organising State of the Map Europe 2025, a conference taking place in Dundee, Scotland. We’ve now begun the Call for Proposals, in which we ask proposals to be submitted for talks, workshops, panel discussions, or other schedule items. Whether you’re involved in OpenStreetMap(OSM) as a professional or a volunteer, we need you to bring the topics and content for the content each year. If you’re ready, go ahead and propose a session, or read on to gather more about the process.

We use a system called “Pretalx” to manage submissions and later produce the conference schedule. This allows you to start and modify your submission until the deadline. Once you have created an account you can respond to the call for sessions by answering questions on 3 pages. The first page is all about the session, and includes selecting a Session Track.

Session Tracks

This is a quick way to see which subject of talks are on the schedule and help people choose which room they go to (we try to avoid clashes of interest). Don’t worry if you find it difficult to choose a track for your proposal, pick whichever feels best. Reading these track descriptions will can also help see what we’re excited to see proposed.

Track: Map Progress are reports on increasing or improving the OpenStreetMap database from the view of individuals, groups, or someone looking at the changes. A talk titled “State of Null Island’s Map” could describe how much more of the country has been mapped this year, if the roads were already done have you now got most of the buildings added? Crunching data and talking about the numbers is great, or you could show maps of what it looks like now. This track isn’t limited to updates about locations. What progress has been done recording all the disabled parking spaces, or was there a project to make sure “places of worship” all had the religion tag added?

Track: OSM Basics is for talks that explain core concepts of OpenStreetMap in a clear and accessible way. These sessions are ideal for anyone who wants to strengthen their understanding of essential OSM topics — whether they’re new to the project or have been involved for years but haven’t explored certain areas before. Talks in this track aren’t necessarily for beginners, but they should avoid assuming deep prior knowledge.Presentations should be easy to follow regardless of background or how long you’ve been in the project. Examples could be How I started mapping on my smart watch, or A panel discussion of armchair mappers.

Track: Community and Vision highlights the people, stories, and ideas that shape OpenStreetMap beyond the map itself. This track focuses on the ways we organise, collaborate, support each other, and think about where we’re headed. Do you know Struggles increasing local chapter membership or our recent mapping events? If you’ve led an initiative, built connections in your community, faced challenges in participation or inclusion, or have thoughts on OSM’s future direction, this is the place to share it.

Track: Software and Engineering is likely to be technical subjects, the systems and code that power to OpenStreetMap tools and infrastructure. That could be editing tools, map rendering systems, or how the data model works and visions for improvement. Sessions in this track can assume some level of technical understanding, but it’s still good to make it clear in the description how much the audience should know if attending.

Track: Cartography & Outputs covers how OpenStreetMap data is styled and visualised, and other ways it’s put to use like navigation applications. Sessions could be about updates in rendering systems, or tutorials for using GIS software with OSM data. We’d also like to know novel uses of the data such as Using solar panel mapping to estimate regional energy production.

Track: Mapping & Collection focuses on how OpenStreetMap data gets created and improved. Topics include surveying, tagging, editing, and data collection — whether by hand, in teams, or with automated tools. Share your insights on using editors, managing imports, or coordinating mapping efforts.

Track: Humanitarian for topics related to OpenStreetMap being used or improved in disaster response and by humanitarian agencies. What to tell us about a new project mapping with NGOs? How do you deploy to new locations for rapid map surveying or collection, or the difficulties off funding activities, this is a good track to submit to.

Track: Not just OSM is where OpenStreetMap plays a role but isn’t the whole story of a tool or project. This includes platforms that support multiple data sources, apps where OSM is one of several options, or workflows that only partly rely on OSM. If your project connects with OSM without being centred on it, this is the place to share it.

Questions about your session

The first page also asks what “session type” it is, to get an idea of the time-length and room we will use. We’re open to accommodating unlisted types, which has included being outside or a session that moves. The main types we have as options are:

Talk – 20 mins + 5 min Q&A, the classic style that suits most sessions.
Extended talk – 40 mins + 10 mins Q&A, for talks that have many sub-parts to cover. We won’t have slots for many of these.
Panel discussion – 45-60 mins, several speakers that will be asked to comment on topics or answer questions which may be prepared or come from the audience via a moderator/host. You may have asked people to be on the panel already or do it when your proposal is accepted, please let us know in the notes.
Discussion group – 60 mins, also known as a “Town Hall” it’s similar to a panel but the questions/topics are open to everyone to answer or respond to comments made. The host will help each person get a say. We will likely keep time for these sessions to be proposed during the event.
Workshop – 60-90 mins, lessons where participants can follow along and achieve a new skill or understanding. Please say in the longer description what pre-existing knowledge will be required and what equipment or accounts. Software and accounts required should ideally be free, or have a free trial that is suitable for the workshop. We will try and schedule these for flat-floor classrooms.
Other – for something that is far off the other types because of location or time. Please put details in the notes so we can figure out if it can be accommodated.

The other information about your session to provide are the basics: Session Title (keep it short and informative); Abstract (the quick intro to make people attend); Longer description (usually displayed right after the abstract, give more information about what it will contain and who it’s aimed at). The “notes” field is for you to give information to those that will review your session proposal, and to those that will build the schedule, but notes won’t be shown on the schedule. There’s a tick box if you don’t wish for the session to be recorded, we hope we can record/stream the majority of talks to reach more people. Session image and additional speaker are extra information that can be provided to display in the schedule for your session.

The second page asks for keywords about your talk, 3 or 5 should do it and is to clarify the topics at quick glance. Affiliation should be filled in if you’re speaking on behalf of a company or organisation, or the talk is about a specific project that you want named. We welcome talks with affiliations and transparency helps that, however we may limit how many sessions we accept per organisation. We’ve also added a tick box if this would be your first time speaking to over 50 people, partially to gather statistics but also to see if we can focus help and encouragement to those that are new to public speaking. Depending on how many rooms we have in the final schedule, it may be that some sessions have less than 50 audience members.

About yourself

The third page of the submission form is about yourself. We’d briefly like to tell people about your background as it relates to the talk you’re giving. You can upload a picture too, this can be really helpful if people want to remember who they heard speak and talk to you further during the breaks.

Advice for submissions

If you’re involved in a few different things then you’re welcome to submit multiple proposals, just remember our volunteers don’t want to be reading through many sessions with only slight variations. We hope to have lots of submissions, and will try and accept many, here are some tips on what makes a good talk or other session:

Be clear with the title and description, what is it about and what will the audience get from hearing you speak.
If it’s not obvious how your session relates to OpenStreetMap, then explain the connection in the description or notes.
Sharing experiences and covering topics raised in the last 2 years is good, you might want to make that clear. If your session is a longer term thought or vision you might want to add a note that you don’t think it’s been shared before or shared from your perspective. The “OSM Basics” brings an exception, but will be less favoured if a similar presentation has been given at a SotM event within the last 5 years.
Send messages within projects or locations you care about to see if anyone is proposing a session, if not then you should propose a session. Sessions can also be co-led if you plan before.
You may use generative AI like ChatGPT to assist in writing your abstract or talk description, but please declare that in the ‘notes’ to organisers.

Our team of session reviewers will broadly score each submission, and we’ll select those with the best average score to fill our schedule. When the selection has been done you’ll receive an e-mail about the outcome of your proposal and a request to confirm that you’re still able to present it. We may make some suggestions or requests: such as changing the format/length of the session, or presenting the session jointly with a speaker that proposed a similar topic.

For the international State of the Map in Manilla, Laura shared some tips and answers to concerns you may have. These are relevant to State of the Map Europe too, and we really encourage you to make a submission to our regional conference. If you have other tips or encouragement, please share them.

Notices for sessions & presenters

The conference language is English and so all sessions should be held in English. It is an important aspect of the conference that participants can interact with the speakers for questions and discussions. We hope to video record and stream the presentations along with slides under the Creative Commons Attribution International 3.0 or later (CC BY 3.0+) license. If you use any music or other third party media like photos during your talk, make sure it was published under a compatible license, as we might otherwise not be able to publish the video recording of your session.

If your session is accepted you will need to attend the conference in-person and purchase a ticket. State of the Map Europe is a non-commercial event where neither the organisers not the speakers are being paid, and we’re unable to offer financial support or accept recorded presentations. Speakers have to get a conference ticket just like everyone else, as well as organise and pay their trip to the conference and their accommodation themselves. Details about the tickets will be announced later.

Submit your proposal

The deadline for submissions is the end of 31st July 2025.

Please submit your proposal using Pretalx, or encourage specific people to submit theirs. We looking forward to hearing from you.