SpotlightSIGCSE Virtual 2026

Spotlight Sessions celebrate voices across the computing education community, including researchers, practitioners, educators, and innovators who want to share a single compelling idea, insight, or call to action in a concise, high-impact format. Each spotlight talk is 5 minutes long and offers a chance to amplify lessons learned, highlight emerging challenges, or inspire new directions for our field.

Speakers are encouraged to focus on one or more of the following:

• A motivating insight or idea that reframes a familiar challenge.
• A novel practice, tool, or framework with demonstrated or potential impact.
• An important lesson learned from teaching, research, or leadership experience.
• A call for attention to an underexplored issue or opportunity for the community.
• A visionary perspective on the future of computing education.

Accepted speakers will form a virtual spotlight showcase, featuring 10–12 lightning talks delivered live in a single session. The format is fast, engaging, and highly visual.

If you have questions about the Spotlight Sessions, please contact sigcsevirtual2026-spotlight@sigcse.org.

Proposals

Each proposal should include:

• Title (< 12 words)
• Speaker name(s), affiliation, and email
• Speaker short bio (< 100 words)
• Abstract (< 250 words) briefly describing the message to be shared
• Keywords (3–5) summarizing the focus of the talk

Submissions will be evaluated for clarity, originality, community relevance, and potential to engage the audience. We particularly encourage proposals from diverse voices, institutional types, and global regions.

Single Anonymized Review

Submissions of spotlights are reviewed with a single-anonymous review process. Submissions should include author names and affiliations. Thus, the author’s identity is known to reviewers, but reviewers are anonymous to each other and to the authors.

The SIGCSE Virtual review process does not have a rebuttal period for authors to respond to comments, and all acceptance decisions are final.

ACM Policies

By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.

ORCID ID

ACM has committed to collecting ORCiD IDs from all published authors (https://authors.acm.org/author-resources/orcid-faqs). All authors on each submission must have an ORCiD ID (https://orcid.org/register) to complete the submission process. Please make sure to get your ORCID ID in advance of submitting your work.

Accepted Spotlight

Each spotlight will receive a 5-minute presentation slot in the program schedule. Accepted speakers will form a virtual spotlight showcase, featuring 10–12 lightning talks delivered live in a single session. The format is fast, engaging, and highly visual.

If you have questions about the Spotlight Sessions, please contact sigcsevirtual2026-spotlight@sigcse.org.