Visual Studio Live! Austin Call for Papers 2027

The Call for Papers for Visual Studio Live! Austin 2027 is now OPEN.

Proposals are due: October 5th, 2026 - 11:59 PM CST

Submit your proposal here: https://sessionize.com/vslive_austin27

Visual Studio Live! Austin 2027
May 2 - 6, 2027
Hyatt Regency, Austin, TX

Visual Studio Live! Austin Session Formats:

• Workshop – primarily lecture-style, with guided discussion/Q&A
• Hands-on lab – attendees bring a laptop and work through exercises with your guidance
• 75-minute breakout – a deep dive into one topic, lecture or mini-workshop style
• 20-minute fast focus – a quick "tips and tricks" hit on one narrow topic

Submit in any format above, across one track or several (e.g., split 3 talks across different tracks, or submit all 3 within one).

Tips for a successful submission:

Speakers are typically booked for at least two 75-minute sessions, so submit 3 or more 75-minute topics (plus any labs/fast focuses you'd like to give), especially overview/intro topics that many other speakers are likely to submit. A clear, track-appropriate title and a description with concrete takeaways matter most, since many speakers submit similar topics; a strong title, abstract, and takeaways are often what separates otherwise-similar submissions. Having several selectable talks also helps us say yes to great speakers who'd otherwise be cut for having only one.

Also seeking speakers for 2027 VSLive! Training Courses: 2-day, 4-day, and 6-week hands-on labs.

Session, workshop, and hands-on lab proposals are welcome in the following topic areas:

AI, Agents, and Agentic Apps
The AI, Agents, and Agentic Apps track covers building intelligence into real applications and building the agents that increasingly are the application. We want talks on working with LLMs and small language models, RAG and vector search, prompt and context engineering, tool calling and MCP, and the Microsoft AI stack including Microsoft Foundry, the Microsoft Agent Framework, and Copilot Studio, as well as, sessions grounded in other ecosystems and platforms.

We are especially looking for sessions that move past “here’s how to call a model” into what it takes to run these systems in production. This includes evaluating and testing non-deterministic systems, reliability and observability, cost optimization, latency and performance tuning at scale, identity and permissions for agents, securing tool calls against prompt injection, multi-agent orchestration, human-in-the-loop design, and honest guidance on when not to build an agent. Sessions on smaller or local models, where data residency, latency, or budget rule out frontier APIs, are welcome too.

Here are examples of topics that have been selected in past shows for this track:

• Turn Every Idea into an AI App with the GitHub Copilot SDK
• Building MCP Servers with C# and .NET
• Rapidly Create Intelligent AI Agents with Copilot Studio

Application Development
The Application Development track covers development of applications in and around the Microsoft technology stack. We want talks on ASP.NET Core and minimal APIs, Blazor and modern web UI, .NET MAUI and Blazor Hybrid, desktop development with WPF and WinUI, console and worker services, REST and gRPC services, real-time applications with SignalR, and the client-side technologies these apps depend on, including TypeScript, JavaScript frameworks, and component libraries. Sessions grounded in other stacks and ecosystems are welcome when the lessons travel. While we have a dedicated track for data, databases, and data science, this track is a great home for data access frameworks like EF Core and Dapper.

Your topics might demonstrate applied or integration AI as part of an application, be focused on human user interactions and workflows, or be focused on pure backend computing scenarios. We are especially looking for sessions that go beyond the "new project" template into what it takes to build and maintain real applications: UI and component design, state management, authentication and authorization in the app layer, accessibility, offline and occasionally connected scenarios, API versioning and integration, testing strategy, performance and startup tuning, packaging and deployment, and modernizing or upgrading existing apps rather than rewriting them. Whether you're building greenfield, adding a modern front end to something long-lived, or shipping the same codebase to web, desktop, and mobile, bring concrete patterns, trade-offs, and demo-driven guidance attendees can apply to their own applications.

Here are examples of topics that have been selected in past shows for this track:

• What is new in Blazor 10
• Creating Secure REST Services
• Building MAUI and Blazor Hybrid Applications
• What's New in EF Core
• Database-as-Code: Beyond the ORM

Career, Leadership, and Human Factors
The Career, Leadership, and Human Factors track covers the people side of building software: how individuals grow, how teams work well together, and how organizations support both. We want talks on leading and influencing at any level, communicating and collaborating across teams and disciplines, and building the resilience, culture, and practices that make sustainable, high-quality work possible. Whether your story is personal (career, wellbeing, mindset) or organizational (culture, change, delivery), the focus should be on people and how they work, not a specific tool or technology. Practical lessons and frameworks attendees can bring back to their teams to make an immediate, positive impact are especially welcome.

Here are examples of topics that have been selected in past shows for this track:

• Human Skills in an AI World: How Technologists Stay Essential
• Elevate Your EQ: Practical Skills to Strengthen Relationships, Regulation, and Leadership Impact
• Navigating Your Career as a Software Engineer
• The Silent Question: What If Technology Disrupts My Role?

Cloud, Architecture, and Security
The Cloud, Architecture, and Security track covers how systems are designed, deployed, and defended in the cloud, on-premises, at the edge, or across all of them.

We want cloud talks on Azure, AWS, and GCP, and cloud-native depth on containers, Kubernetes and AKS, Azure Container Apps, serverless, .NET Aspire, distributed application patterns, hybrid and multi-cloud, migration and modernization, cost and governance.

We want architecture talks on the decisions that shape a system including microservices versus modular monoliths, vertical slice architecture and other approaches, domain and API design, messaging and event-driven patterns, integration and legacy interop, resiliency, and observability. Whether you're designing greenfield, rearchitecting something you've outgrown, or hardening a system that's been in production for decades, bring concrete patterns, trade-offs, and lessons from real experiences and environments.

We want security talks that apply to anywhere code runs including identity and access management, authentication and authorization, zero trust, securing APIs and service-to-service calls, secrets and key management, encryption at rest and in transit, supply chain risk, and threat modeling for developers and architects.

Here are examples of topics that have been selected in past shows for this track:

• Zero Downtime at Scale: Architecting Highly Resilient Applications in Azure
• In Defense of Microservices
• Securing Your Cloud Applications with Identity and Networking Best Practices

Data Engineering and Analytics
The Data Engineering and Analytics track covers the full lifecycle of getting data from source to insight: storage, movement, modeling, and analysis, on Microsoft platforms and beyond. We want talks on SQL Server and Azure SQL, big data and lakehouse architectures including Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks, and data integration and pipelines. We're also looking for sessions on choosing the right data store across relational, NoSQL, and specialized options, data security and encryption, and the data science tooling like Jupyter Notebooks that developers use to explore and work with data. Whether you're deep in a single platform or bridging several, bring practical patterns attendees can apply to their own data estates.

Here are examples of topics that have been selected in past shows for this track:

• Top 10 SQL Features for Developers You Might Have Missed
• Choosing the Right Data Store
• Developer's Guide to Fabric Pipelines & Data Engineering Workflows
• Lakehouses, Warehouses, and OneLake Explained: Architecting with Microsoft Fabric
• Where Should I Be Encrypting My Data
• Jupyter Notebooks in VS Code

Developer Experience and DevOps
The Developer Experience and DevOps track covers how teams build, ship, and operate software well. We want topics ranging from the day-to-day developer workflow to the pipelines, platforms, and practices that get code into production reliably. On the inner loop side, we want talks on getting the most out of Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code, source control and branching strategies, performance and profiling, testing strategy and automation, and AI-assisted development across both traditional IDEs and CLI-driven tools like GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and Codex. On the outer loop side, we're looking for agentic DevOps and AI-assisted delivery, CI/CD and release tooling (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, and beyond), Site Reliability Engineering, Platform Engineering, and the DevSecOps practices that keep security built in rather than bolted on. Whether your session is about the IDE, the terminal, the pipeline, or the team running all three, we want practical, demo-driven content that attendees can take back and apply.

Here are examples of topics that have been selected in past shows for this track:

• Team Development for the Future with Agentic AI & GitHub
• Branches That Don't Suck: Smarter Strategies for Modern Dev Teams
• Secure AI Engineering and DevOps for .NET Developers on Azure
• Mastering AI Development & Building AI Apps with GitHub Copilot
• Visual Studio Tips & Tricks
• Improving Performance in .NET Applications

Programming Languages and Fundamentals
The Programming Languages and Fundamentals track focuses on languages and the runtimes that support them. We want talks on C# and the newest language features, the .NET runtime and how it actually executes your code, the base class libraries and the NuGet ecosystem, and any language or runtime in and around the Microsoft ecosphere, including VB, F#, Python, TypeScript, and JavaScript.

We are especially looking for sessions that build durable skills rather than chase a single release: asynchronous programming and threading, memory management, spans and allocation-free code, generics and type system depth, source generators and reflection, interop and native AOT, algorithms and data structures, testable and idiomatic code, and profiling and benchmarking to know whether a change actually helped. Language comparisons and "X for Y developers" talks are welcome, as are fundamentals sessions that give newer developers a solid foundation and give experienced developers a clearer mental model of what the runtime is doing underneath.

Here are examples of topics that have been selected in past shows for this track:

• What’s New in C# 13
• Advanced Threading in .NET
• TypeScript for C# Developers

For questions or to be added to our call for presentations notification list, please contact:
Danielle Potts
Sr. Event Manager
[email protected]
925.207.0468

For questions regarding exhibit or sponsorship sales, please contact:
Brent Sutton
VP, Events
[email protected]   
415.518.1962

Visual Studio Live! is committed to fostering diverse perspectives and inclusive participation. We especially encourage submissions from underrepresented groups in development, software engineering, and technology.