Call for Lightning Talks

Lightning Talks Track

ICDE 2026 will also feature a mini-track with lightning talks: a few minutes talks presented sequentially without interruption. The point of a lightning talk is not to give a detailed talk but rather to present briefly the main point. They cover a single topic, start with the good stuff, and end making a point. If there’s one technique or technology you wish everyone knew, one little known fact that should be well known, one tool that makes your life easier every day, or a collection of little things that you can fit into few minutes, you can propose a lighting talk.

Lightning Talk proposals can be submitted only through the online submission site TBD and must be received by the abstract submission date indicated below. By submitting an abstract, the presenting author is indicating that they will be available during any of the possible time slots.

Due to time constraints, only one presenter is permitted for each lightning talk presentation. The talks will be selected by the track committee and announced on the notification date indicated below. Lightning talk speakers are required to register for the conference.

Important Dates

General Guidelines

Abstracts that are incomplete or received after the deadline will not be considered. All abstracts must be submitted through the submission system in order to be considered. We will not accept abstracts received by email. Please read and follow the abstract guidelines carefully. They are provided here as a guide to help you plan in advance.

Abstract Guidelines

We invite abstracts that promote visionary ideas, report on challenging problems and share recent results and lessons learned. The body of the abstract is up to 400 words, split between the two sections (up to 200 words each): Background/Question/Methods, in which the objective of the study is clearly identified and the methods are described; and Results/Conclusions, in which specific results of the study are explicitly reported and their implications are briefly discussed. The abstract must report specific results. The results may be preliminary but they may not be vague. Abstracts without explicitly stated results will be rejected. It is understandable that abstracts describing non-traditional work may lack quantitative data; however, it is still expected that the abstract will address some question and have a “take-home message” describing specific findings.

Any author can be designated as the presenting author. The presenting author’s name will appear in bold text. The presenting author is also the corresponding author. In order to receive notifications from us, it is important to make sure the correct person is indicated and that their email is entered correctly. During abstract submission, you will rank a few themes to guide the grouping of your presentation into a session with similar presentations. We will use these themes as a general guide for sorting abstracts into sessions.

All submissions should follow ICDE 2026 Research Track guidelines on Inclusion and Diversity in Writing, and Conflicts of Interest.

One Presentation Rule

Lightning talk presentations, like all formal presentations, are limited to one per speaker. This means that each person is allowed to submit only one abstract where they are listed as presenting author. This rule is enforced in order to encourage broad participation. Co-authors are not included in this rule. A person may serve as a co-author on any number of abstracts.

Lightning Talks Chair

Program Committee