Lindsey Kuper

This year, I have the honor of serving as the program chair for the Haskell Symposium, co-located with the 2026 International Conference on Functional Programming, or ICFP to its friends1, on August 28-29 in Indianapolis, Indiana! The Haskell Symposium has existed in some form or another since 1995, and I’m proud to be part of this long tradition, now in its thirtieth iteration this year (wow!). It’s also a homecoming for me, since I did my PhD in Indiana back in my callow youth.

I’m excited to share that we have a great program lined up, as well as keynote talks from two illustrious Haskellers, Stephanie Weirich and Ravi Chugh. But the real purpose of this post is to announce that our call for lightning talks is now open! Lightning talks have been an occasional feature of the Haskell Symposium since at least 2015, and they’re returning to the program this year. A lightning talk is an informal, 5-to-10-minute talk on any topic that you think would be of interest to (some part of) the Haskell Symposium audience. Lightning talks do not appear in the published proceedings (though we will publish a video of your talk if you consent to that, and won’t if you don’t), and they aren’t subject to a rigorous review process. Talks from students and industry developers are particularly welcome.

If you’re doing something that you think might be of interest to some part of the Haskell community, I hope you’ll consider giving a lightning talk, especially if you’re already coming to ICFP and/or to the Haskell Symposium anyway.2 As someone who spent years running a conference that consisted entirely of lightning talks, I urge you to not worry for even a second about whether what you have to share is going to be of broad interest. Instead, think of a lightning talk as a chance to delight in the niche.3 As my friend Sumana Harihareswara put it in “Toward a !!Con Aesthetic”: “every attendee has the capability of being curious about everything, at least for ten minutes.”

To sign up, you just need a name and talk title; abstracts and other details are optional. You can also register your preference for speaking on either the 28th or the 29th, as you see fit. We hope to be able to make room for all lightning talks, but we may do some light vetting of submissions for suitability.

See you in Indianapolis!

  1. I’m also giving a keynote talk at ICFP! But this post isn’t about that. ↩

  2. And if you’re on the fence, you still have a few days left to get in on the early bird registration rate! ↩

  3. Or the cursed. Especially the cursed. ↩

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