ConFoo 2026 in Review

A short article talking about my experience applying to speak at ConFoo, attending the conference, and being given an opportunity to speak after all.

ConFoo is one of Canada’s biggest developer conferences drawing in over 100 speakers from around the world. The speakers converge in Montreal to share their knowledge by giving close to 200 talks over the course of three days.

Gare Centrale (Central Station) next to the conference hotel in Montreal

Every year I submit proposals to speak at ConFoo and I’ve been fortunate because I've been selected 5 times over the past 6 years. I don’t take being selected for granted because there are so many talented speakers vying for a spot. This year there were 964 talks proposed which appears to be a new record.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t selected to give a talk this year but an opportunity arose allowing me to go as an attendee. To save money, I decided to drive up which gave me the opportunity to visit with my dad for a couple days before the conference. My dad lives in Toronto which is about five and a half hours from Montreal. That’s not bad considering I live in Moncton. A trip to see him from Moncton is usually between a 15 and 17-hour drive depending on traffic and if you stop for a break.

In the lead-up to the conference, I was digging into Slack so I decided to turn some of that information into a talk just in case another talk is needed. At the very least, I figured I could present it to a local developer user group.

The conference kicked off on Wednesday, February 25th and the number of attendees this year seemed higher. After Covid, people were a reluctant to start attending in-person conferences again so it’s nice to see ConFoo bouncing back.

This was my first time being at ConFoo as an attendee and that made it a bit different. I was still able to reconnect with some speakers that I hadn’t seen since last year but it was less stressful because I didn’t have my next talk in the back of my mind.

As it would turn out, word came on day 2 of the conference that one of the speakers couldn’t make it because he just became a dad. The organizer asked the speakers if someone would like to replace him so I spoke to the organizer to see if he’d want me to give the replacement talk and he gave me the ok.

I spent the evening rehearsing in my hotel room and then, on Friday, I gave my Slack talk. In return for giving the talk, I received one of this year’s fancy speaker badges as shown in the following image:

As always, it was a really good conference! I learned a lot and got to meet some new people.

I’ve already started work on talk ideas for ConFoo 2027 which will be the 25th anniversary of the conference. If you have the opportunity to attend, I highly recommend it. Not just because of the high-quality talks but also because of the networking opportunities with attendees and speakers.

ConFoo 2023 in Review

My experience at ConFoo 2023

On Tuesday, February 21st, I started my journey to Montreal to speak at the ConFoo developer conference for my third time.

Usually, when I travel to the big cities, I try to use public transportation to get to and from the airport. The city I live in isn't very big but I decided to give our transportation system a try anyway.

Unfortunately, for me to get to the airport using this approach, I needed to take two city buses and then a coach bus. It's doable but it takes time and the coach bus only goes to the airport twice a day so the timing didn't allow me to use this approach when I returned.

One highlight of my trip to the airport, however, was a pheasant that graced me with his presence.

The conference was held at the Hotel Bonaventure where we were greeted by over 700 attendees and over 150 sessions in 3 days! Being in Montreal, it was fitting that some of the sessions were also available in French.

The past two times that I spoke at this conference, I only spoke for one session each time. This year, I gave two presentations.

My first presentation was given on the second day of the conference. For this session, I talked about how we're using Docker at Dovico to prototype views, try out different UI frameworks, and help speed up the development of Timesheet.

(source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/confoo/52734935208)

The second presentation that I gave was on the final day of the conference. This time, I walked the audience though creating a Slack bot from start to finish by building a simple hot desk booking system!

(source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/confoo/52733940852)

My slides, notes, and links to the code from my talks can be found in the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/cggallant/confoo-2023

As my new friend, Andres Pineda, so correctly articulated in one of his sessions, there's more to a developer conference than just taking in the talks. There's also a networking component to these conferences. When I saw him at the opening party for the speakers, I recognized him but couldn't figure out where from. Later I realized that I had seen him talk online as part of UnoConf and he's one of the contributors to the open-source Uno Platform. We have something in common because I've been privileged to work with Uno and write them several articles for their blog. We were able to connect during the conference.

Speaking of the Uno Platform, while I was in Montreal, I had the opportunity to meet Matthew Mattei in person for lunch. I work with him when writing articles for their blog. I wasn't expecting it but I do appreciate that the Uno Platform sent me home with some swag:

Over the course of the conference, I was fortunate to meet some great people and to take in a number of really good sessions. My only regret is not being able to take in all of the sessions because there are usually 8 other sessions happening at the same time as the session that you're in.

On Saturday, February 25th, I made the journey from the hotel back to the Montreal airport. I thought this was a neat idea as I was walking through the airport to my gate:

It was a great conference and I already miss it. I hope to be able to attend next year's conference and I recommend ConFoo to everyone.

A huge shout out to Yann Larrivée for putting on another amazing event!


As a side note, if you happen to be putting on a developer conference, or know of one that's looking for speakers, let me know because I'd like to speak more. I've started setting up a Sessionize profile but you can also reach me on Twitter or on LinkedIn.