Designed by the community for the community, Manchester Tech Festival is Manchester’s only year-long celebration of our city’s tech ecosystem. With over 40 events through the year culminating in a week-long festival, we aim to connect every aspect of the tech community to facilitate recruitment, learning and growth.

Bigger than ever, this year’s core festival will take place between the 30th October and the 3rd November across a number of venues in Manchester including Brooklyn Heights, Friends Meeting House, The People’s History Museum, Barclays Digital Security Hub (DiSH) and the iconic Victoria Warehouse.

From panels to presentations, we have over 100 speaking opportunities across 20 different tech topics including StartUp ScaleUp, Cyber Security, Tech 4 Good, Pathways into Tech, Cyber, Software Engineering, Tech Quality and more!

So, whether you’re a seasoned speaker or its your first time, we are looking for a diverse range of speakers to bring our festival to life. We are proud of our truly inclusive and vibrant community and look forward to receiving your application.

Talk Topics

Manchester Tech Festival is split into several different tracks, that are showcased across the entire week. We are looking for presentations in the following core areas:

Leadership, Pathways into Tech, Product, Tech Quality, Software Engineering, UX, Women in Tech, Tech for Good, Diversity & Inclusion, Neurodiversity in Tech, Start Up Scale Up, Cyber, Data and Cloud & DevOps.

In addition, we welcome applications that cover:

AI, AR, Blockchain & Cyrpto, Digital Transformation, Ecommerce, FinTech, Infosec, Innovation, Machine Learning, Mobile, Pathways into Tech, Product, Recruitment, Retail, Sustainability.



Who can apply?

Manchester Tech Festival is all about inclusion, whether you have spoken publicly before or attended a panel makes no difference to us. We encourage you to submit your ideas if there is something you feel passionate about, you’ve made a discovery or want to share your experience in the tech industry. No Idea is a bad idea!

All we ask is that you are available to speak any day between the 30th October and the 3rd November.

Key Dates

April 4th Applications Open
June 16th Applications Close
June 23rd Selection Panel
June 30th Speakers informed of outcome
July 7th Speaker Confirmation Deadline 1
July 14th Speaker Confirmation Deadline 2
October 6th Speaker Workshops
October 11th Speaker Workshops
October 20th Speaker Presentation Deadline
October 30th Your Time to Shine at MTF


Our Judging Process

Once you have submitted your application, a minimum of three expert judges will score your application in four main areas:

Relevance. Is your talk relevant to the categories you have chosen and the attendees of the festival
Creativity. Is your talk something new? Is it interesting and will it engage the audience?
Accuracy. Is your talk factually correct and can the content be substantiated if challenged?
Easy to understand. Is your talk easy for our audience to understand or is it just too tech heavy?
We will also take into consideration any previous speaking experience, but don’t let this put you off applying if you are new to speaking, we will simply use this to gauge where you would be best placed within the festival if you are selected!

Once your applications are scored, they will be compared with other applications by our entire judging panel on the 23rd June. If selected you will receive an email with an offer to speak at the festival and must confirm this offer to us by the deadline given.