Get Creative With Your FOSS4G NA Poster
When I hear “conference poster,” I picture a giant academic poster with tiny text, maps, and some charts, and for me at least, a last-minute trip to Kinko’s.
But your FOSS4G NA poster does not have to look like that.
Posters are especially good for work that doesn’t fit neatly into a traditional conference presentation.
Maybe you have a side project you’ve been experimenting with.
Maybe you found a clever way to solve an annoying GIS problem.
Maybe you made a map you really like.
Maybe your project isn’t finished yet, and you want advice.
Maybe you have a question you’d like the FOSS4G community to help answer.
A poster is really just a way to give people something to look at while you tell them about an interesting project, idea, map, tool, workflow, dataset, or problem. And there are lots of ways to do that.
Think science fair, not academic conference.
Remember the tri-fold science fair boards? You could create a simple three-panel display with printed maps, screenshots, diagrams, photos, and a few short explanations. Or try something completely different.
Your “poster” could be:
A giant map with annotations showing what you discovered
A storyboard that walks through a project from problem to solution
A before-and-after display showing how data, a map, or a workflow changed
An infographic explaining your ideas or workflows
A photo essay with maps and captions
A decision tree or flowchart explaining how a tool or workflow works
A “how we built this” display with screenshots, code snippets, architecture diagrams, and results
An interactive poster where people add sticky notes, vote on options, answer a question, or contribute ideas
You can print pieces on your home or office printer and mount them on a board. You can use photos, maps, diagrams, screenshots, markers, sticky notes, or whatever else helps tell the story. It is all "poster" worthy.
Rather talk than make a poster?
You can also submit a Lightning Talk.
Lightning Talks are short presentations that are perfect for one focused idea, a quick demo, a project update, a lesson learned, an unusual dataset, or something you think the FOSS4G community would enjoy hearing about.
So whether you want to show up with a giant professionally printed poster, a tri-fold science fair board, a handmade collection of maps, or five minutes of slides, there is still a way to be part of the FOSS4G NA 2026 program.
If you have something you want to share, don’t overthink the format. Get creative and bring it to Sacramento. Poster and Lightning Talk submissions close September 15 AND Early Bird Pricing ends September 17.