Next FediForum: 6–7 October 2026. Keynote by Anil Dash!
Registration is open. Propose sessions. Suggest cool demos.Registration is open. Propose sessions. Suggest cool demos. FediForum Fall 2026 is now over
What and when
The next FediForum online unconference will take place:
- 6–7 October 2026, online
- 15:00 to 20:00 UTC — that is 8am to 1pm US Pacific and 17:00 to 22:00 Central European — so people from many time zones can participate.
As always, most of FediForum will be an unconference. That means that you, the attendee, will help determine what subjects are discussed. So bring your session ideas! You can mention some during registration, but you can change your mind until the very morning of FediForum when we together make the agenda.
We will also again see speed demos of cool Open Social Web software using open protocols such as ActivityPub and ATProtocol. If you have a suggestion who we should invite to demo, please let us know.
Keynote
Our keynote speaker Anil Dash is a technologist, writer, and activist best known for advocating for ethical, inclusive technology. A Webby Awards Lifetime Achievement honoree, he was CEO of Glitch, a creative community for developers acquired in 2022, and is now principal and cofounder of Antitech, which helps organizations build thoughtful technology.
As a writer, Dash was a monthly columnist for Wired and has contributed to publications including The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, and Businessweek; the New Yorker called him a “blogging pioneer” for his personal blog, which has been running continuously since 1999. As an advocate, Dash advised the Obama White House on digital strategy, and led a MacArthur-backed research project on social media’s impact on policymaking. While CEO of Glitch, the company was the first tech startup to voluntarily recognize its workers’ union.
Follow Anil: @anildash@me.dm, @anildash.com.
Schedule
All times given in Pacific Daylight Savings Time (UTC-7).
Tuesday, October 6
| 8:00am | Welcome and opening. |
|---|---|
| Keynote by Anil Dash. | |
| Collaborative agenda making: all. | |
| 9:30am | Unconference sessions: 3 time slots, several concurrent tracks. |
| 12:30pm | Closing |
| 1:00pm | End of day 1 |
Wednesday, October 7
| 8:00am | Welcome and opening. |
|---|---|
| Speed demos: developers show off their creation. | |
| Collaborative agenda making: all. | |
| 9:30am | Unconference sessions: 3 time slots, several concurrent tracks. |
| 12:30pm | Closing |
| 1:00pm | End of day 2 |
Why you should come to FediForum
Here are some reasons why you might want to come to this FediForum:
You’ve heard about the Fediverse or the ATmosphere or the Open Social Web, are intrigued, and would like to learn more. At FediForum, you certainly will!
You want to meet people who have moved from the closed commercial social media platforms onto the Open Social Web, and love it! Lots of people like this at FediForum, and the unconference format makes it possible to have good conversations with them.
You are thinking of, or are already developing software that supports any of these open social standard protocols. You want to connect to others who do. At FediForum, you can meet and engage with plenty of other developers.
You like to hang out with people who actually want to make a positive difference in the world with technology. Not just money. They exist! And at FediForum you can meet many of them. And make friends.
So many things are changing. Age verification. Social media bans for minors. The press is now talking about “Big Social = Big Tobacco”. How do we participate in this discussion and steer it in a better direction?
And many more! Join us in October, we again have tickets for all wallet sizes, starting at almost free.
Attendee-Proposed Topics
When people register for FediForum, we ask them which topics they’d like to discuss. Here is some of what they said we could publish:
- Name withheld:
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Learn what the Open Social Web is all about
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Tommaso Marmo (@xpub@post.lurk.org, @tommi@pan.rent)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Learn what the Open Social Web is all about
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Run a session (or several)
- Other
- Wants to learn more about:
- As a course, XPUB is all about questioning the tools we use, and research the way they shape our practice, and vice versa. We are participating to FediForum because we want to understand the power dynamics behind social media, and discover collective, situated, participatory ways to reclaim them.
- Name withheld:
- Wants to learn more about:
- The slow but inexorable march of the Fediverse toward total domination of the internet.
- Jaz-Michael King (@iftas@mastodon.iftas.org)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- 2026 IFTAS Annual Survey
- Bjorn W (@bjornw@mastodon.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- I’d like to run a session about “DoeiDag” our initiative in The Netherlands to bring people together who would like to become less dependent on bigtech.
- Each first Sunday of the month we gather, either online and/or physically and inspire each other with our experiences in using all the awesome tech available outside of bigtech. We help each other to become more digitally independent and have fun at the same time!
- DoeiDag is inspired by the German DiDay initiative.
- Wants to learn more about:
- I’d like to hear more about research into cross-posting and bridging different protocols from a social perspective. Technically it is possible to bridge & cross-post between for instance AtProto and ActivityPub, but what is needed to bridge and cross the social norms and cultures of the different protocols?
- Name withheld:
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Samir Al-Battran (@samir@m.fedica.com)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Paul Fuxjäger (@cypherhippie.bsky.social, @cypherhippie@chaos.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Run a session (or several)
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- AP-AT bridging concepts - beyond standalone services like bridgyfed
- Wants to learn more about:
- Other bridging projects
- Samuel Brinkmann (@sabrinkmann@hachyderm.io)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Run a session (or several)
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- Economic Services in the Fediverse. I’m currently building the economiverse and hope to connect to other people. I would love to talk about FEP-0837: Federated Marketplace https://codeberg.org/54GradSoftware/economiverse
- Name withheld:
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- James Marshall (@jamesmarshall@sfba.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Philipp Haussleiter
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Learn what the Open Social Web is all about
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Wants to learn more about:
- Get an insight into different other platforms
- Stefan Hayden (@stefan@gardenstate.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Demo your software
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- I would love to run a demo of Fediponics which is a new tool I am launching for moderators with both a saas option and open source option.
- Wants to learn more about:
- I want to talk with moderators and instance owners to learn about their top problems.
- Name withheld:
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Wants to learn more about:
- Policy perspectives
- Daniel Supernault (@dansup@mastodon.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Demo your software
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- Making on-boarding frictionless and discovery a priority, like we did for Loops with Sign in with Apple and Starter Kits
- @dariusdunlap.bsky.social
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Alexis Bushnell (@alexisbushnell@toot.wales)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Mark Wilson (@mcorbettwilson.bsky.social)
- Wants to learn more about:
- Federation protocols
- Stephen Downes (@downes@mastodon.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- I am developing a decentralized personal learning environment called CList (see clist.mooc.ca ) and could show it and talk about federated concepts behind it
- Wants to learn more about:
- Core issues - federated identity, etc
- Anthony Zone (@ozoned@btfree.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Wants to learn more about:
- Learn more about social software. New things folks are working on, new challenges, etc. Make new contacts.
- William Maggos (@wjmaggos@liberal.city)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Run a session (or several)
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- Why we must “federate with everyone except trolls” if we want a big fedi and hope to play a helpful role in improving society.
- Julian Lam (@julian@activitypub.space)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Run a session (or several)
- Demo your software
- Wants to learn more about:
- RFC 9421, content warnings, trust/safety
- Vardon Hamdiu (@vardon.bsky.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Ryan B (@snarfed.org)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Run a session (or several)
- Wants to learn more about:
- Private and semi-private groups
- Name withheld:
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Run a session (or several)
- Philipp Riederle (@phipz.com, @phipz@mastodon.online)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Run a session (or several)
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- Why Users Switch Mastodon Instances: Some Data and Broader Lessons for Social Network Interoperability
- Wants to learn more about:
- Where interoperable social networks are heading towards
- Thommy Webb (@pinkboi@thecave.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Wants to learn more about:
- How to get friends and local community to join the fediverse
- Tom Brown (@tom@herestomwiththeweather.com)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Wants to learn more about:
- Interoperability
- Julia Kamin
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Ashley Young (@flwrstems.bsky.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Tyler Fisher (@tylerjfisher.com, @tylrfishr@social.tylerjfisher.com)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Demo your software
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- Would love to demo Sill!
- Wants to learn more about:
- ATProto/ActivityPub bridging, healthy social media experiences
- @johannab@cosocial.ca
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- I will consider continuation of the community-implementation or Moderation/Trust&Safety networking sessions that I’ve proposed in the past, if there’s interest and room.
- Wants to learn more about:
- Looking to catch up on the latest innovations outside of the big few (amazing! but we already know those ones) Open Social platforms.
- Ben Werdmuller (@ben@werd.social, @werd.io)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Run a session (or several)
- Other
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- The open social web for journalism: how communities can build trust and loyalty
- Seth Goldstein (@phillycodehound@indieweb.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Learn what the Open Social Web is all about
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Run a session (or several)
- Demo your software
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- Fedideck the Tweetdeck for the Open Web
- Wants to learn more about:
- All things Open Web
- Courtney Rosenthal (@courtney@pdx.social)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Other
- Wants to learn more about:
- Mastodon APIs
- Jayne Samuel-Walker (@tcmuffin@toot.wales)
- Is coming to FediForum mostly to:
- Meet and connect with like-minded people
- Is thinking about running a session on:
- Growing and maintaining membership of, and engagement with, the Fediverse.
- Mastodon moderation: is GenAI (Generative AI) our friend or foe?
- Wants to learn more about:
- Growing and maintaining membership of, and engagement with, the Fediverse