The Rails World 2024 Call for Papers is now open. Here’s an overview of what kind of talks we are looking for, what’s new this year, and how to submit.

Rails World takes place on September 26 & 27, 2024 at Evergreen Brickworks in Toronto, Canada, and we are expecting 1,000 attendees.

This year there will be 24 talks and keynotes across two tracks. Preference will be for technical talks with concrete takeaways, and original talks that will be presented for the first time at Rails World 2024.

This CFP will remain open until March 21, and we aim to inform all applicants if they are accepted (or not) before tickets are released.

Submit your proposal here.

But first: what kind of talks are we looking for?

Rails is stronger than ever thanks to continued progress in both core frameworks, like Active Record and Action Mailbox, as well as associated tools and frameworks, like Hotwire, Kredis, and Propshaft.

The upcoming Rails 8.0 release is going to push the bar even further.

Therefore, these are the top themes we will have in mind when reviewing submissions:

• Support for the upcoming features in Rails 8
• Rails as the One Person Framework
• And on the other end of that spectrum: Rails at Scale
• The competitive advantage of Rails, whether that is the ease of building with the leanest of teams, its stability over time, or simply the joy and fun of working with it on a creative side project

We will also be on the lookout for talks that align Rails with emerging or important current trends in our industry right now, such as security, PWAs, observability, monitoring, accessibility, LLMs, or the move from microservices back to monoliths, to name a few.

Other suggestions could fall under:

• Case studies of successful Rails projects: What problems or challenges did you overcome?
• Best practices for Rails development, including testing, deployment, and performance optimization: What works for you or your team?
• The state of Rails and its role in the broader tech industry: What are potential areas for growth and innovation?

We encourage you to submit proposals that challenge the status quo, showcase forward-thinking ideas, and push the boundaries of what’s possible with Rails.

Due to space limitations, we will not be accepting workshop proposals this year.

Now, the fun stuff: speaker benefits

Huge shout out to our sponsor Fullscript for supporting speakers this year.

We want the experience of speaking at Rails World to be one of the best and most inviting in the industry. Thanks to Fullscript, we are able to offer each speaker a $400 USD travel stipend to offset the cost of travel to Toronto in addition to the below benefits. Their sponsorship will also cover the speaker dinner and the on-site speaker lounge to help you prep for your talk.

If you are chosen as a speaker, here is what is included:

• Free admission to the conference, naturally.
• Accommodation: The Rails Foundation will cover 3 nights hotel accommodation for each speaker in the speaker hotel (Sept 25-28).
• Stipend: A $400 travel stipend to offset the cost of individual travel thanks to Fullscript.
• Speaker dinner: Speakers will be invited to a private dinner hosted by Rails Foundation Core & Contributing members on Sept 26.
• A speaker gift

Good luck to all who apply!

Questions? Reach out to world@rubyonrails.org.

Interested in sponsoring? Check out the prospectus and get in touch at sponsors@rubyonrails.org.

Work by the Rails Foundation is funded by the support of the foundation’s Core and Contributing members: Cookpad, Doximity, Fleetio, GitHub, Intercom, Procore, Shopify, and 37signals, AppSignal, BigBinary, Cedarcode, Planet Argon, and Renuo.