Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

Kara Luton’s path from ballerina to public relations to software engineer may be unusual, but with more software developers coming from non-traditional backgrounds, it’s not as surprising as it used to be. What’s impressive to me is how quickly Kara has embraced her new career and been able to help others by giving talks at conferences and meetups. As Kara points out in this week’s Speaker’s Story, speaking is a great way to bolster your career and encourage others in the field.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

As a freelance developer, it can be hard to justify the time and energy required to speak at conferences, but for George Mandis, the experience is well worth it. Like many speakers, George is an experienced software developer who’s passionate about mentoring and teaching newcomers to the field. In this week’s interview, hear more about how speaking at over 20 conferences so far has helped take George’s career to the next level.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

This week, I interviewed Rhia Dixon, a relatively new conference speaker who’s been accepted to speak at 6 conferences in her first year on the stage! While new to speaking at conferences, Rhia obviously has a gift for communication, and sometimes beginners are actually the best people to take advice from. Read on to hear Rhia’s fresh approach to tech conference speaking and some of the fantastic women in tech who have inspired her.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

Like many conference speakers, John got his start speaking at local meetups. Over time, he got more comfortable in front of a crowd, and has now spoken at over 20 technology conferences on a variety of topics. Now it’s become part of the way he helps his company, Comcast, make an impact on the technology community.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

Jaime and I shared the stage once at The Lead Dev, and since then I’ve gotten to know Jaime a bit more on Twitter and by following his podcast, More Than Just Code. Jaime has spoken at a lot of conferences, but like many of us, he’s applied at an order of magnitude more. Read on to learn more about his process and some of his suggestions for new speakers.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

Jason’s story is very similar to my own when it comes to speaking, but he’s been at it quite a bit longer. Now, he’s built a name for himself in the Ruby community as one of the top people in testing, and has spoken internationally at events of all sizes. I’ve dealt with the problem of testing legacy systems before, so I enjoyed Jason’s talk on the issue. Read on to learn more about Jason’s experience and advice for fellow speakers.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

Keanan Koppenhaver and I met through the Chicago PHP Usergroup last year, and since we’ve been fortunate enough to share the stage at Midwest PHP, and share a meal in the airport on the way home. Speaking is always a good chance to meet other people, but it’s also a fast way to learn new skills. I’ve seen several of Keanan’s talks including one about Alexa and another about serverless functions in PHP. Keanan also has an entrepreneurial spirit, which I appreciate, so it was great to learn more about his experience speaking.

Last week, I added a couple new sources that more than tripled the number of conference CFPs listed on our site. Unfortunately, I made an assumption that any publicly available API would be okay to integrate with, and one of the new sources got a little bothered about my cross-posting their listings. In order to increase transparency, I’m going to show you where I get all the data for this site, and outline my policy on sharing this data.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

I was probably a year into speaking at conferences before I heard about “developer relations” (also called “DevRel”). It’s a relatively new field that blends software development and marketing, so many conference speakers get into DevRel (and vice-versa). This week’s featured speaker, Alex Lakatos runs a great newsletter for developer relations professionals called Developer Avocados 🥑 Weekly. In addition to that, he has a fantastic story about how he accidentally fell into speaking, so read on to learn more about Alex and his tips for technical speakers.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

Joe and I are both from Chicago, so we’ve known each other for a few years. One thing I really admire about Joe is his eagerness to help new developers find their way in our industry. While we didn’t talk about it in this interview, he runs Chicago Apprenticeships, a site dedicated to helping bootcamp graduates find their first development job.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

After being reluctant (and admittedly nervous) to get on stage as a speaker, Nicola was finally convinced that her experience was worth sharing. Her story is inspiring, because as Nicola points out, there aren’t a ton of speakers like her (Australian, female designers) out there.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

Like many people who get into public speaking, Chris Holland has a strong drive to help other engineers perform at their best. When I first met Chris, he was speaking on application security at a regional PHP conference. One thing that comes across here (and if you meet Chris in person) is his passion for helping other engineers learn about topics that can be challenging to tackle.

This week, I released three new features to newsletter subscribers that should improve your experience with CFP Land: Category Preferences, 🔔 New tags, and Perks.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

Laura is currently the Chief Product Officer at Modern Teacher, an edtech startup based in Chicago, IL. She was recently featured as a “Woman on Top in Tech” by Asian Entrepreneur magazine, and has been involved in public speaking for many years. In this interview, we cover how she got into speaking at tech conferences, her advice for new speakers, and some of the ways speaking has benefited her professionally.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

This week, I’m thrilled to bring you the story of Geshan Manandhar, a native of Nepal who now lives in Australia. One of the things I love about speaking at conferences is the opportunity to meet people from all over the world, so reading Geshan’s experience as a speaker on multiple continents was inspiring.

Technology conference speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, experience levels, and interests. At CFP Land, we highlight different speakers every week in our Speaker’s Story blog posts.

When I started CFP Land last year, it was to help other speakers like me find out about new opportunities. In the past few months the project has struck a chord and hundreds of speakers have followed @cfp_land on Twitter or subscribed to the weekly email.

TL;DR: Back in 2017, I made a personal goal to get accepted to speak at 4 conferences. I made it 🎉 and used the experience to launch CFP Land, a free tool to help conference speakers keep up with CFPs (Calls for Proposals) 📣

Not sure where to start? New to public speaking? Want to know more about the CFP process for technology conferences? You’ve come to the right place.

Here are some tips and resources compiled from experienced speakers and writers.