This year the SQL Relay committee has decided to make a couple of changes to our session selection procedure.

Our aim this year is to be as inclusive and transparent on our process as we can manage. To this end, this post is going to lay out our aims and how we plan to achieve them.

We want everyone to feel they can submit without worrying that their submission will be overlooked due to Gender, Disability, Availability to do the whole tour or any other reason you may be concerned about.

To do this we are moving to a blind selection process. I (Stuart) will be the only member of the committee who can see the list of submissions. At the end of the Call for Sessions I will release only the session abstracts to the rest of the committee members, who will then choose the sessions based only on the abstracts.

Then, should we have openings due to people’s availability we will go through again to fill in any holes in the agenda.

If you require any special requirements then please add them to your submission. They won’t be used during the selection process, but will allow us and our venues to ensure we cover them
The Call for Papers is available here – SQL Relay 2018 CfP

If you are worried about any other reasons you may feel that your submission may be overlooked and want to talk them through, then please contact me (comments, Contact Form or on Twitter (@napalmgram). Anything you ask will be treated in confidence.

If you would like some help with or an independent review your abstract then please get in touch with Speaking Mentors where some of the best SQL Session submitters can help you out.