Author: Daisy Hollman

CppCon 2023 Call for Submissions – Robotics Track

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

The Robotics Track at CppCon unites passionate professionals from the robotics industry and the broader C++ community to create a space for networking, collaboration, and growth in this dynamic field.

By attending talks in this track, you’ll join a community committed to exploring innovative solutions, empowering meaningful connections, and fostering growth in the exciting world of robotics. Together, we can bring the power of C++ to tackle complex challenges and shape the future of robotics technology.

We invite submissions that showcase the synergy between robotics and C++ concepts. Examples include:

  • Utilizing design pattern X to enable feature Y in a robotics project.
  • Comparing the impact of functional programming style vs. object-oriented style on a use case.
  • How leveraging C++17/20 features can optimize performance or safety in robotics systems.

Topics of interest include:

  • Simulation
  • Planning
  • Machine learning
  • State estimation
  • Controls
  • Foreign function interfaces
  • API design
  • Performance
  • Safety
  • Tooling
  • Infrastructure
  • Dependency management

Remember to indicate your interest in the Robotics Track in the Comments Section of the submission form. The submission process can be found here.

Griswald Brooks

Robotics Track chair

CppCon 2023 Call for Submissions – Software Design Track

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

Building software is much more than just writing lines of code. Amongst other, it also entails the management of interactions, the reduction of coupling and dependencies between software entities and the creation of good and meaningful abstractions. These are the aspects focused on in the CppCon Software Design Track.

Since software design can play a much more central role for the success of a project than the low-level implementations could ever do, CppCon also desires to cover this aspect of software engineering. Therefore you are strongly encouraged to submit talks for the Software Design Track.

Topics may include:

  • Design for change, scalability, extension, and testability.
  • Design techniques for all paradigms.
  • Both static and dynamic polymorphism.
  • Design and architectural patterns.
  • Good and bad experiences from real world projects (that is, war stories).
  • Advice on how to manage big projects via proper software organization.

Klaus Iglberger and Mike Shah, Ph.D.

Software Design Track co-chairs

CppCon 2023 Call for Submissions – Scientific Computing Track

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

The call for submission for the Scientific Computing Track at CppCon 2023 is now open! We are looking for talks that cover a wide range of topics related to scientific computing with C++.

This includes, but is not limited to:

  • New C++ features and libraries for scientific computing
  • Parallel and distributed computing techniques
  • Numerical methods and algorithms
  • Machine learning
  • Data visualization and analysis
  • Software engineering for scientific computing

Scientific computing is a critical field that is used in a wide range of applications, from weather forecasting to medical imaging. By submitting a talk to the scientific computing track, you can help to share your knowledge and expertise with the C++ community. We encourage submissions from both experienced and new speakers. If you have a talk that you think would be a good fit for the Scientific Computing Track, please submit it by June 25, 2023. Submissions should be made through the CppCon website.

Damien Lebrun-Grandie

Scientific Computing Track chair

CppCon 2023 Call for Submissions – Embedded Track

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

CppCon has put out its call for submissions and the Embedded Track wants you to contribute! Whether your project is a multi-year effort for a large team or a hobby project you built at home for an Arduino or Raspberry Pi, there are thousands of developers out there struggling with the same kinds of issues that you’ve faced. Your experience and insights can provide a powerful learning experience and help them overcome those issues.

The Embedded Track has seen a wide variety of talks over the years, and we’d love to hear your contributions. Here are some examples of possible topics:

  • What challenges you’ve faced using C++ in an embedded environment.
  • What you learned from applying a new feature from C++17/20/23 in an embedded environment
    for the first time.
  • Case studies and performance analyses showing how to get the most out of C++.
  • How you adapted a design or technique to work within the constraints of your project.
  • What you wish someone had told you before you started developing for embedded systems.
  • That interesting new component or library that you developed for an embedded system.

A major goal of CppCon’s Embedded Track is to help connect embedded developers to the broader C++ community and vice versa. We think that both groups have a lot to learn from the other.

For talk topic ideas, possible formats, submission instructions, and valuable advice on how to make the best possible submission, see the Submissions page. You can also reach out to the organizers of the Embedded Track to ask questions or discuss ideas for submissions.

Ben Saks

Embedded Track chair

CppCon 2023 Call for Submissions – Back to Basics Track

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

To become an expert at any skill, one must first master the fundamentals. Whether you are a beginner or an expert, the Back to Basics (B2B) Track is calling for talks that showcase the foundational programming topics that every C++ programmer should know. CppCon has a history dating several years of Back to Basics topics that both beginners and experts can benefit from for learning and mastering C++ foundations. The visibility for these talks is high both onsite and on the CppCon YouTube channel — so we’d like you to consider submitting to this track and being part of this track’s rich history!

Submissions to this track focus on teaching and explaining the technical aspects of the C++ programming language from first principles. The talks in this track are technical, but each topic is taught from the first building blocks so the audience can follow along (and the attention to detail of a B2B talk may even benefit the experts!).

Past Topics for submission may include:

  • Debugging
  • Casting
  • Concurrency
  • Pointers
  • Arrays
  • Templates
  • Smart Pointers
  • Object-Oriented Programming
  • And we also encourage repeats — because we want your unique way of teaching!

Trainers, teachers, engineers, or those with deep expertise of foundational topics (yes that’s you!) are wanted to help train the next C++ talent in the Back to Basics (B2B) Track!

Details on the submission process can be found on the Main Program Submissions page.

Mike Shah, Ph.D. and Klaus Iglberger

Back to Basics Track co-chairs

CppCon 2023 Call for Submissions

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

CppCon is the annual, week-long (October 1st-6th, 2023) face-to-face gathering for the entire C++ community. The conference Main Program consists of five days of several concurrent tracks of sixty-minute sessions.

This conference is organized by the C++ Community for the C++ Community. We want the whole community to be represented. We especially encourage those who identify as coming from an underrepresented community to apply to present and to be present. Presenting a talk is not limited to previous presenters or previous attendees.

This year’s edition of CppCon will be onsite at the Gaylord Rockies in Aurora, Colorado.

Have you learned something interesting about C++, maybe a new technique possible in C++17/20/23? Or perhaps you have implemented something cool, maybe a new C++ library? Or perhaps have an idea for a future language or library feature that you want to advocate for? If so, consider sharing it with other C++ enthusiasts by giving a Main Program talk at CppCon 2023.

In the past year there has been great interest in C++ “evolution” or “successor” languages. These are an important part of today’s C++ community, and so CppCon 2022 had well-received talks about Val and other such experiments. These talks are in scope for CppCon 2023, as long as they are of interest to C++ developers and tied to C++ evolution and are not primarily talks about rewriting entire C++ codebases in something other than C++. For example, a talk on How to migrate your C++ code to Haskell is off-topic and will not be considered, but a talk on What C++ Programmers Can Learn from Swift, or What Rust Procedural Macros Might Look Like in C++, or Results of Val/Carbon/Circle Experiments That Could Be Incorporated Into ISO C++ Evolution are on-topic and will be considered.

The submission deadline is June 25th, with decisions sent by July 31st.

To facilitate a double-blind review process, please avoid statements in your abstract that remove all uncertainty about who you are. See examples on the Submissions page.

We plan to have most (if not all) of the same tracks as last year, and we would like to add a few more. Each track will put out a call for submissions as we confirm their participation. If you plan to submit to a track, please indicate in your submission which track(s) you’d expect your talk to fit into. If you have new ideas for tracks or special interest areas to better serve the C++ community, please get in touch with the program committee directly with your thoughts.

For talk topic ideas, possible formats, submission instructions and valuable advice on how to make the best possible submission, see the Submissions page.

Note: Calls for Lightning Talks and Open Content sessions will be made later this summer. The deadline for these is the conference itself.

CppCon 2022 Call for Submissions

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

CppCon is the annual, week-long (September 11th-16th, 2022) face-to-face (and now also online) gathering for the entire C++ community. The conference Main Program consists of five days of several concurrent tracks of sixty-minute sessions.

This conference is organized by the C++ Community for the C++ Community. We want the whole community to be represented. We especially encourage those who identify as coming from an underrepresented community to apply to present and to be present. Presenting a talk is not limited to previous presenters or previous attendees.

We hope that everyone can join us onsite, but we know that some people cannot join us in Aurora this September. Leveraging our experience of serving the global C++ community online in the last two years and our many years of providing an unmatched in-person experience, this year’s CppCon will again be a hybrid conference with some presenters and attendees onsite in Aurora, Colorado, and some presenters and attendees online.

We are looking for presenters who can present in person and also for presenters who will be presenting remotely (presenter teams welcome). Submitters can apply for onsite, online or both. We understand that a submission is not a commitment and that situations may change. We are prepared to respond appropriately to changing situations that affect your availability. Our goal is always to present the best possible program to attendees, both onsite and online, and we look forward to working with you to achieve this.

Have you learned something interesting about C++, maybe a new technique possible in C++17/20/23? Or perhaps you have implemented something cool, maybe a new C++ library? Or perhaps have an idea for a future language or library feature that you want to advocate for? If so, consider sharing it with other C++ enthusiasts by giving a regular program talk at CppCon 2022.

The submissions deadline is June 24th, with decisions sent by July 31st.

To facilitate a double-blind review process, please avoid statements in your abstract that remove all uncertainty about who you are. See examples on the Submissions page.

In addition to the dedicated Back to Basics Track, Embedded Track, Scientific Computing Track, Software Design Track, and Tooling Track, we are looking for people with new ideas for tracks or specialities to better serve the C++ community.

For topic ideas, possible formats, submission instructions and valuable advice on how to make the best possible submission, see the Submissions page.

Note: Calls for Lightning Talks and Open Content sessions will be made later this summer. The deadline for these is the conference itself.

Diversity and Inclusion at CppCon 2022

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

One of the fundamental missions of the Standard C++ Foundation is to “support the C++ software developer community.” Support starts with ensuring that everyone feels welcome in our community, and as the leadership of the largest community gathering of the year, we take the opportunity to build a more diverse and inclusive community very seriously and try to expand it every year. Here are the new, expanded, and continuing initiatives currently planned, aimed at making everyone feel welcome at CppCon 2022.

  • (NEW) Double-blind review process: Creating a program that is as diverse as possible has always been a priority at CppCon. Each year, the Program Committee aims to create the best conference we can, and a big part of that process is obtaining the most comprehensive and accurate set of reviews for each talk submitted. Our goal is to reduce unconscious bias in the review process, and increase the diversity of submissions. Studies have shown that double-blind review processes have these effects, so this year the Program Committee will be reviewing the abstracts and outlines of submissions without the knowledge of the submitter’s names. To enable this, we will be asking presenters to take steps to anonymize their abstracts.
  • (EXPANDED) New tracks, new track chairs: Having more focused tracks, centered around more specific areas of expertise, is an important part of creating a diverse and inclusive conference. This may be counterintuitive, but focused tracks actually enable speaking opportunities for junior developers: They may not have enough experience with topics of broad appeal, but may still have the domain-specific expertise to submit talks that may be interesting to a significant subset of attendees. This year, in addition to the existing Embedded, Back to Basics, and Software Design tracks, we are adding Tooling and Scientific Computing tracks. If your talk is submitted to a track, your track chair will be happy to provide additional consultation on both your abstract and your talk. Reach out to them!
  • Supporting new speakers: CppCon offers mentoring for newer speakers. As part of the talk submissions process, we provide the option for one-on-one mentoring by experienced speakers. As mentioned above, part of the responsibility of track chairs is to provide subject-matter-specific mentoring to new speakers submitting to their tracks. If you are interested in this program, just mark it in your talk submission form.
  • (EXPANDED) Diversity dinner, now also a workshop: This year, CppCon’s diversity dinner will be expanded to include a workshop to discuss processes, experiences, and paths forward for improving diversity and inclusion in the C++ community. Attendees are encouraged to submit 10-20 minute talks on these topics through a separate submission process.
  • Women in C++ brunch: Building on the success of last year’s Women in C++ dinner, we’re hosting a women’s brunch for this year’s CppCon. Though we’ve always included women in general diversity initiatives at CppCon in the past, as more women have been attending CppCon we want to provide women with specific opportunities to network with others who face similar challenges. The brunch is intended to be an open, welcoming, casual environment for attendees to discuss diversity issues specific to women in C++.
  • Hybrid on-line and in-person conference: We recognize that not everyone’s life circumstances allow them to take a week out of their life to attend a conference in person. This year, CppCon will again facilitate on-line participation for speakers and attendees, with the goal of including those who can’t attend or speak in person. We’re employing a number of emerging technologies to engage with online participants, aimed at making them feel welcome as part of the community as much as possible.
  • Subsidized diversity tickets: CppCon sponsors a number of subsidized on-line and in-person attendance tickets for people from underrepresented groups in C++. More details about this year’s program, including how to apply, will be announced soon.
  • Code of Conduct: CppCon’s Code of Conduct (CoC) includes a dedicated CoC report handling team and CoC training for all conference volunteers before each event. CppCon publishes annual CoC transparency reports after each conference, starting with the CppCon 2021 CoC transparency report.
  • Professional live captioning for keynotes and large sessions: Professional-quality live captioning is expensive, but is important to us because it helps many attendees better follow the live program—not only attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing, but also the many non-native English speakers in the audience.
  • Gender neutral restrooms: Every year, at least one restroom at the venue gets designated as gender neutral to accommodate attendees who may not feel comfortable in either the men’s or the women’s restrooms.
  • Pronouns on name tags: While registering, attendees will be offered the option to add their preferred pronouns to their conference badge.
  • Accessible venue and stages: All talks are held at the conference hotel, which offers wheelchair accessible guest rooms, and wheelchair accessible seating and stage access in meeting rooms. See our accessibility section for more details.
  • Quiet room: We know that conferences and large gatherings can be stressful for some attendees, especially since the isolation caused by the pandemic. Being inclusive means making sure attendees have ways to manage that stress. We provide quiet room space for attendees to relax and recharge; see our quiet room section for more details.
  • Child care: Parenting responsibilities and attending a technical conference are a challenge to mix. CppCon wants to help attendees with children to be able to focus on the conference experience, secure in the knowledge that their children are in a safe and secure environment. See our child care section for more details.
  • (NEW) Feedback: We’ve set up a new email address, diversity@cppcon.org, to work on better understanding people’s reasons for being unable to attend CppCon in the past. We’re working on a survey process to learn more about how we can  make CppCon as diverse and inclusive as possible.

Diversity and inclusion are a priority at CppCon, and we are dedicated to deepening and expanding our support for a diverse and inclusive environment. We look forward to your feedback, and are excited to see many of you—either online or in person—in September at CppCon 2022!


Daisy Hollman, Program Chair
On behalf of the CppCon 2022 organizing committee