Important Changes for Speakers

Three Full Days of Content

We are eliminating the optional pre-conference workshop day. All three days (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) will feature full conference sessions.

Extended Session Length

All sessions will be 1.5 hours in length. This gives you more time to go deeper into your topic, demonstrate real-world scenarios, and engage with your audience through extended Q&A and hands-on exercises. Plan your content accordingly.

Fewer Sessions Overall

With longer session times, we will have fewer session slots available across the conference. This means the selection process will be more competitive. We encourage you to put your best submissions forward and clearly articulate the value your session will bring to attendees.

Multiple Sessions

As we have done in the past, we may ask selected speakers to present more than one session. If you have multiple topics you are passionate about, we encourage you to submit them. Typically, when a speaker is capable of presenting great content on multiple topics, their likelihood of being selected is greatly increased. Please indicate in your submission if you are open to presenting multiple times.

Opening Keynote Returns

Our new venue gives us the space and infrastructure to bring back an opening keynote to kick off the conference.

Speaker Selection Committees

As we transition to more focused and formal tracks of content we are expanding our speaker selection process to a more independent committee based approach.  All speaker submissions must be received by midnight February 28th, 2026.   We will use the month of March to make selections on our content and notify all speakers of the selected sessions by April 1st.   We want to announce content to attendees by mid-April at the latest.

Our Content Tracks

Beginning this year we are focusing our content on Microsoft Azure and AI technologies. Your session should align with one of our seven tracks:

Pro Code

C#, .NET, ASP.NET Core, Angular, React, Blazor, modern web development patterns, GitHub Copilot, Visual Studio, and best practices for building enterprise applications.

Low Code

Microsoft Power Platform including Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages, Dynamics 365, Dataverse, Azure Automation, Logic Apps, strategies for citizen developer enablement and governance, and more.

Cloud Operations

Azure infrastructure management, Azure Arc, monitoring and observability, cost optimization, landing zones, governance, identity management, and IT Pro focused administration topics.

AI

Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Foundry, Copilot Studio, building AI agents, Microsoft Agent Framework, Model Context Protocol (MCP), prompt engineering, responsible AI practices, and integrating AI into your applications.

Data and Analytics

Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, SQL Server, Cosmos DB, data modeling, data engineering, real-time analytics, and building modern data platforms.

Security

Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Sentinel, Intune, Purview, Entra ID, Zero Trust architecture, compliance, threat protection, and securing your cloud and hybrid environments.

DevOps

Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, Terraform, Bicep, containerization, Kubernetes, agile practices, and platform engineering.

Submitting Your Sessions

When submitting your sessions please be as descriptive as possible in the session title and description. Be sure to share any information you can about yourself and your talk with us directly via the Sessionize form.

We typically receive a large number of session submissions and do our best to choose a great selection of topics and content. Please help promote your own sessions as best you can when describing them to us. The title and description you provide via Sessionize will also be utilized on our website and in our agenda to promote your session to attendees. We look for content that we feel would be appealing to attendees looking to expand their knowledge and grow in our industry.

Speaker Benefits

Speakers selected to present at The Cloud and AI Summit 2026 will receive the following benefits:

• Conference Ticket: Speakers are provided with a full ticket to all three days of the conference.
• Hotel Accommodations: We will provide hotel accommodations for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights (September 29 - October 2).
• Travel Stipend: Out-of-town speakers will be eligible for a travel stipend to help offset the cost of travel.
• Local Transportation: We will provide an Uber code to cover in-town transportation during the event.
• Speaker Appreciation Event: Join us for a speaker appreciation event on the evening of Tuesday, September 29th. Details are TBD.

Important Note on Multi-Speaker Sessions

Speaker benefits (hotel accommodations and travel stipend) are provided for one presenter per session. If you are submitting a session with multiple speakers, please be aware that only one speaker will qualify for these benefits. We will still consider multi-speaker sessions, but we ask that the co-presenter make their own arrangements for accommodations and travel.

However, if two speakers have each been selected for their own individual sessions and wish to submit an additional session where they partner and co-present together, both speakers would qualify for full speaker benefits since each has already been accepted as a speaker in their own right.

Questions?

If you have any questions about our event you would like clarified prior to submitting sessions please reach out to us at support@devupconf.org.

3 nights accommodation covered for speakers. Out-of-town speakers will be eligible for a travel stipend to help offset the cost of travel.