We’re excited to announce that the call for proposals deadline for Open Community Experience (OCX) 2026 has been extended to 19 November, giving you an extra week to join our exceptional speaker lineup.
As we prepare to welcome the global open source community to Brussels on 21–23 April 2026, our program committees have been hard at work reviewing early submissions. These proposals capture the spirit of OCX: open collaboration, technical depth, and the creativity that drives innovation across industries.
Here’s a glimpse of some of the early talks you can expect to see on stage:
OCX main track
The main track unites all communities with cross-cutting topics that move open source forward, including open source security, Java, IoT, robotics and edge, OpenHW, RISC-V, and tools and other cool stuff.
Selected talks include:
- 15 years in politics made me a better developer by Mads Opheim
- Rebuilding trust: From open source to open accountability by John Ellis
- Java 25: Brewing brilliance for the next decade by Deepika Udayagiri
- API = Some REST and HTTP, right? RIGHT?! By Rustam Mehmandarov
Open Community for Tooling
From IDEs to modeling tools, the tooling track is shaping up to be a hub for developer productivity and innovation.
Selected talks include:
- Programming in every language: Building cultural tools with Langium by Malik Lanlokun
- AI in action: The ultimate live demo with Theia AI by Jonas Helming
These and other sessions of this track will explore how modern development environments are evolving, and what’s next for the tools powering global developer teams.
Open Community for Automotive
As vehicles become ever more software-defined, OC for Automotive offers a compelling window into how tomorrow’s mobility is being re-engineered through open collaboration and innovation.
Selected talks include:
- Diagnostics reimagined: How Eclipse OpenSOVD powers open collaboration and standard evolution by Thilo Schmitt and Alexander Mohr
- Fifty shades of SDV: A blueprint-driven roadmap for orchestration adoption by Naci Dai and Oliver Kral
Discover the technologies, standards, and partnerships driving safe, sustainable and scalable innovation in mobility and software-defined vehicles.
Open Community for AI
OC for AI brings together developers, researchers, and policymakers to explore responsible, transparent, and collaborative approaches to AI innovation in open source.
Selected talks include:
- Commit to quality: AI-enhanced testing in open source by Longyu Zhang
- Understanding machine decisions by Haishi Bai
Sessions in this track will cover AI-enhanced tooling, customising AI, and applying it in production, data sharing and dataspaces and more.
Open Community for Compliance
With new regulations like the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) transforming open source practices, the compliance track offers timely insights for developers, maintainers, legal experts and industry leaders collaborating on approaches to security and regulatory compliance.
Selected talks include:
- Taming the SBOM chaos: A legal compass for the CRA and open source compliance by Hendrik Schöttle
- Layered compliance: Using the Swiss cheese model to prevent catastrophic failure by Georg Link
Speakers are set to explore compliant open source ecosystems, certification in open source compliance, CRA implementation, and standardisation.
Open Community for Research
Research meets real-world impact in this track, which connects academia and industry to turn open source innovation into action.
Selected talks include:
- VOStack open source Software Stack for the virtualisation of IoT devices by Anastasios Zafeiropoulos
- UniTime overview: From research to practice by Tomas Muller
Sessions in this track will showcase how open source accelerates the translation of research into practical, scalable technologies.
Join us at OCX 2026
We have extended our call for proposals deadline! The new submission deadline is 19 November 2025. Early submissions have already set a high bar, but there’s room for more great ideas, from hands-on demos to community best practices and forward-looking research.
Early-bird registration is open. Secure your discounted OCX pass and join 600+ open source innovators.
Join us in Brussels, and help shape the future of open source collaboration.
