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Every weekend we round up the the best of what we've read, watched and listened to this week, across design, development, and the big ideas shaping our industry. You'll also get the first chance to register for our events, and the best offers. And you should follow us on Twitter.

What opportunities are there?

In 2019, we have several conferences planned, across a range of topic areas. These fall broadly into four categories–Design, Development, Product and Leadership/Culture.

We also run several "What Do You Know" events throughout the year, with shorter (5 minute) presentations that offer less experienced speakers a pathway to speaking in front of larger audiences.

• If you're a front end engineer, jump to the developer section.
• If you're a Design professional, jump to details about design presentations.
• If you're a Product professional, jump to details about product presentations.
• If you're a design or engineering leader, or a HR or Culture professional, then our design leadership conference, Design Leaders, and our engineering leadership conference, Code Leaders, as well as our Culture conference focus on building great teams and organisations. We'd love to hear from you about how you and your organisation are doing just that.

For engineering focused professionals

As with our design conferences, our JavaScript, front-end development and engineering focussed conference Code, and engineering track at Summit mixes largely invited long sessions with shorter, 20 minute sessions drawn from our Call For Presentations.

1. Web Directions Code in June in Melbourne is a single track front end development focussed conference. Like most of our events, it mixes longer (45-50 minute sessions) with shorter (20 minute) sessions. Generally longer sessions are by invited experts, local and international, while shorter sessions are chosen from a Call For Presentations process. The CFP for Summit is open now, and closes March 29th 2019.

2. Web Directions Summit takes place early November and features a development track. The CFP for Summit is open now, and closes June 30 2019.

Apply to speak

We have a single form for proposing engineering sessions at our conferences, as depending on the balance of the program, a session may in our estimation be better suited to one event or another. If you are only able to make one of these events, you can indicate this in the CFP form.

What do we look for?

We are for the most part looking for shorter, 20 minute sessions. This format typically suits very focussed presentations, that zoom in on a single idea or concept. And, to have the best possible chance of having your proposal accepted, understanding the sort of content we focus on is key.

Traditionally Web Directions events have focussed on core enabling technologies

• CSS
• HTML
• JavaScript, particularly new language features, or widely used but not particularly well understood language features
• DOM/Browser APIs (particularly newer APIs such as web payments, crypto)

on core engineering patterns and practices around

• performance
• security
• testing
• debugging
• architectures

and on computer science concepts such as

• algorithms
• mathematics
• garbage collection
• functional programming

In particular we have typically stayed away from specific solutions, whether open source or commercial, no matter how widely used and popular they might currently be. How to do X with Angular, or React for example is well served elsewhere and unlikely to be accepted for our conferences.

Recent developer focussed sessions at our events can be found at Web Directions Summit 2018 and Code 2018

But in short–sessions on under appreciated or emerging language features of CSS and JavaScript, browser APIs (for example the web payments API), concepts and techniques–if in doubt, drop us a line and we'll talk.

For Design focussed professionals

If you are a Design professional in the broadest sense, from Product to IxD to UX, Design Research to Content Strategy, Visual Design to Typography, we have two key events.

Web Directions Design in April in Melbourne is a single track Design focussed conference. Like most of our events, it mixes longer (45-50 minute sessions) with shorter (20 minute) sessions. Generally longer sessions are from invited experts, local and international, while shorter sessions are chosen from a Call For Presentations which is open now, until Feb 1st.

Web Directions Summit takes place early November, and features a Design track. The CFP for Summit is open now, and closes June 30 2019. It too features longer and shorter sessions.

We have a single form for proposing Design sessions at our conferences, as depending on the balance of the program, a session may in our estimation be better suited to one event or another. If you are only able to make one of these events, you can indicate this in the CFP form below.

What do we look for?

We are for the most part looking for shorter, 20 minute sessions. This format typically suits very focussed presentations, that zoom in on a single idea or concept. Recent sessions along these lines from Web Directions Summit 2018 and Design 2018.

But in short–sessions on design concepts and techniques–if in doubt, drop us a line and we'll talk more.

For Product professionals

If you are a product professional we have two key events.

Web Directions Product a brand new event in August in Melbourne is a single track Product focussed conference. Like most of our events, it mixes longer (45-50 minute sessions) with shorter (20 minute) sessions. Generally longer sessions are from invited experts, local and international, while shorter sessions are chosen from a Call For Presentations which is open now, until April 27th.

Web Directions Summit takes place early November, and now features a Product track. The CFP for Summit is open now, and closes June 30 2019. It too features longer and shorter sessions.

We have a single form for proposing Product sessions at our conferences, as depending on the balance of the program, a session may in our estimation be better suited to one event or another. If you are only able to make one of these events, you can indicate this in the CFP form below.

What do we look for?

We are for the most part looking for shorter, 20 minute sessions. This format typically suits very focussed presentations, that zoom in on a single idea or concept. Recent sessions along these lines from Web Directions Summit.

But in short–sessions on design concepts and techniques–if in doubt, drop us a line and we'll talk more.

For Deign and Engineering Leaders, and Culture focused professionals

Design Leaders

Alongside Design in April in Melbourne we hold Design Leaders. This focusses on the challenges facing professionals managing and leading design teams. If you lead design teams, we'd love to hear from you about the challenges you face and the way you go about solving them.

Engineering Leaders

Alongside Code in June in Melbourne we hold Code Leaders. This focusses on the challenges facing professionals managing and leading engineering teams. If you lead developers, we'd love to hear from you about the challenges you face and the way you go about solving them.

Culture Professionals

As with many of our conferences Culture, in November in Sydney is a single track conference that blends invited long sessions with shorter, 20 minute sessions drawn from our Call For Presentations, which is open now until June 30 2019.

What do we look for?

We are for the most part looking for shorter, 20 minute sessions. This format typically suits very focussed presentations, that zoom in on a single idea or concept. Recent sessions along these lines include:

For more see the program for 2018's events.

• Design Leaders
• Code Leaders
• Culture

Would you like to talk more an clarify what we're looking for, or explore ideas? Just drop us a line and we'll talk.

What do I do next?

Whether you're a seasoned expert speaker, or never stood in front of an audience. we're keen to hear from you.

Below you'll find the open calls for presentations. We keep this form open all the time, but we do have cut off dates for upcoming events. For 2019 these dates are

Our Call for Presentations for out 2019 events are open now, and close

• For Design and Design Leaders on Feb 1st 2019
• For Code and Code Leaders on March 29th 2019
• For Product, on April 27 2019
• For Summit (design, product and engineering tracks) June 30 2019
• For Culture (creating better teams and workplace cultures) June 30 2019

Praise for past Web Directions events

Web Directions is the must-attend event of the year for anyone serious about web development.

Phil Whitehouse,
Innovation Lead DigitasLBi

I’ve been admiring the Web Directions events for years, and was honored to be part… What a fantastic event!

Ethan Marcotte,
inventor "responsive Web design"

Out of any conference, Web Directions is far and away our favourite

Dave Greiner,
founder Campaign Monitor

Code of Conduct

For over a decade, we've worked hard to create inclusive, fun, inspring and safe events for the Web Industry.

As part of our commitment to these values, we've adopted a code of conduct for all involved: ourselves, our speakers, our partners and our audience.