Propose
a tutorial.
Take
the bench.
Teach
a day.
Tutorials Day runs on the Monday before the conference proper — four small benches, twenty to thirty seats each, in the same building. We are looking for maintainers, integrators, hardware folk, protocol authors and anyone who can take a tight group through a hands-on Monday. Half-day or full-day. One form. Ten minutes.
A bench without an instructor is just a table.
If you have a session you've taught before and want to teach again, a tool whose internals deserve a guided tour, a piece of hardware you can put in the room — send it. The committee reads every proposal. Travel grants are available for accepted tutors who can't otherwise come.
Four kinds of tutor — and the work they teach.
A tutorial proposal lands strongest when the proposer is one of these four. If you are more than one — that is itself a recommendation.
-
§ Elevation — The codex-keeper at work Drg № 01.I
The maintainer
You ship a cryptographic library, a protocol, a CA toolchain, a hardware token, an FFI binding. You know its internals because you wrote them. A tutorial from you is a walking tour of the codebase by the person who put the rooms in.
§ Sheet II / I§ Scale 1 : 25§ Drawn OSSL · MMXXVI§ Class. Sodalitas Cryptographica -
§ Elevation — The field engineer on site Drg № 01.II
The integrator
You ship the library inside a product that runs at scale — an OS, a browser, a payments stack, a regulated medical device, a satellite. Your tutorial is the field report: what we learned the hard way, in production.
§ Sheet II / II§ Scale 1 : 50§ Drawn OSSL · MMXXVI§ Class. Fabricae -
§ Elevation — The bench-worker at station Drg № 01.III
The hardware bench
You bring kit. HSMs, smartcards, secure elements, dev boards, oscilloscopes. The session is hands-on because there is something to hold. We provide the room and the power; you provide the silicon.
§ Sheet II / III§ Scale 1 : 20§ Drawn OSSL · MMXXVI§ Class. Lapidarium -
§ Elevation — The standards-reader at lectern Drg № 01.IV
The auditor & the regulator
You read the standards, you sit on the committees, you write the conformance suite. A tutorial from you is the room where engineers learn what the standard actually requires — and where the inspectors learn what implementers actually do.
§ Sheet II / IV§ Scale 1 : 30§ Drawn OSSL · MMXXVI§ Class. Censorium
Three formats · one common thread.
Whatever the topic, a tutorial earns its place by being something the room does, not something the room watches. Three room types map to three shapes of work.
two breaks · lunch
morning or afternoon
morning or afternoon
Tutors don't walk in cold.
-
§ Inventory · I I
The room, fully fitted
Screen, AV, microphone, sound, projection, a recording rig if you want one. Climate, water, fast Wi-Fi. The same building as the main conference.
-
§ Inventory · II II
Twenty hands
Sessions cap at twenty seats; thirty for the code-along horseshoe. Attendees self-select for your topic and are pre-briefed on prerequisites.
-
§ Inventory · III III
A producer in the room
A volunteer from the OpenSSL team is present to handle hand-outs, A/V issues, splitting groups, and the parts of the day that aren't you teaching.
-
§ Inventory · IV IV
An honorarium & travel
Tutors are paid an honorarium proportional to format. Travel grants are available for accepted proposers who otherwise can't make Prague.
-
§ Inventory · V V
The tutor's pin
A small Křižík plate — a brass-and-enamel pin you wear for the rest of the conference. The hallway then comes to you.
-
§ Inventory · VI VI
The OpenSSL Corporation's thanks
An open bar at the hotel on the Monday evening — light refreshments, the maintainers, and the people who taught the day.
Rolling review · decisions in July.
-
Mar–Jun 2026
The window is open
Submit any time. Earlier proposals get earlier feedback. The form takes about ten minutes if you've taught the session before, ~twenty if you're shaping it for the first time.
-
15 Jul 2026
Window closed
23:59 CEST. After this, the committee meets weekly to finalise the four benches. Strong proposals received late may still land — please send a note if you need an extension.
-
Late Jun 2026
Replies go out
Each proposer hears back — accepted, waitlisted, or declined with notes. Accepted tutors get a brief and a producer contact within the week.
-
Early Jul 2026
Final schedule locks
The final tutorial line-up publishes on the tutorials page — with seat counts, durations, and pricing — so attendees can buy tickets with the full programme in hand. Tutors are billed for their honorarium & travel after publication.
-
12 Oct 2026
The bench day
Four rooms in Prague. Some full day, some split into morning and afternoon halves. You arrive, the room is ready, the producer hands you a microphone. The conference proper starts the next morning.
A handful of honest answers.
- Can I submit more than one tutorial?
- Yes — up to three. The committee won't pick more than one from the same proposer, but submitting variants helps us find the best fit for the room shape.
- I've never taught a tutorial before. Should I still apply?
- Yes. The form has a field for prior teaching, and "first time leading a session" is not a disqualifier — a clear plan and a topic you know cold weigh more.
- Can two of us co-teach?
- Yes, and we encourage it for the full-day code-along — having a second pair of hands in the room when something goes red is the difference between a great day and a hard one.
- What if my topic needs special hardware?
- Tell us in the form. We have a budget for tutorial-specific kit — secure elements, dev boards, oscilloscopes, even a small Faraday tent. We'll work back from your needs.
- Will the session be recorded?
- By default, opening remarks and any slide-based portion only. Hands-on segments are not recorded, by default, to keep the room candid. Tutors can opt-in to full recording.
- What if I can't make it to Prague?
- Tutorials are in-person. We don't run remote tutorials. If a travel grant would unblock you, mention it in the form — we have a fund for exactly this case.
The benches.
Now being set.
Four rooms in Prague. Half-day or full-day. The window closed on 15 July 2026 — the committee is finalising the four benches.