Newcomers are very important to our community. Every year we welcome student volunteers to our conference, while student volunteers can be any newcomer to the community - NO RESTRICTIONS on age, gender, experience in programming, etc.
While student volunteers help running the conference smoothly, we provide them with a highly reduced conference registration fee (30 EUR instead of 1000 EUR) and a free accommodation for the entire duration of isLoop summer school (July 4-6, 2026) and ESUG (July 7-10, 2026). Even though volunteers have their tasks during the conference, these tasks are focused on conference activities allowing them to completely enjoy the conference.
Volunteering tasks include welcoming participants at the registration desk, being present at an information desk to answer questions, managing coffee and lunch breaks, collecting presentation slides from the speakers right after the presentation is given, arranging the microphone distribution during the discussion sessions, and generally being helpful. Student volunteering makes the conference better, takes a fairly amount of time and doesn't significantly interfere with enjoying and learning from the conference.
Note: this role requires discipline and constant attention to all attendees.
Furthermore, to enable our volunteers to better integrate the community, we organize the isLoop Summer School before the conference starts for all student volunteers. It is mandatory to assist. The school is organized during the weekend before the conference for volunteers to learn Pharo language (Smalltalk dialect) and ecosystem, the technology, the development style and approach, the main concepts of object design, principles of open-source contributions, etc. However, during this weekend volunteers will meet each others, have some fun together, and bond to build up the real organizing team. Monday is reserved for final fun at the school and some preparations of the conference.
Note: All volunteers are expected to attend the isLoop Summer School.
Since participation in the isLoop summer school is mandatory for all volunteers, you can apply by filling the isLoop application form before May 15, 2026.
You must also register for the conference using the ESUG registration form and pay the reduced registration fee of 30 EUR. If you are in a difficult financial situation (for example, if you come from a low-income country), send us an email at volunteers@esug.org explaining the situation, and we will reduce the registraton fee even further or cancel it altogether (in exceptional cases).
Important: the places are limited so do not wait till the last minute to apply.
Students will be hosted in student dormitory close to the conference venue. For example, there are dormitories no. 1 to no. 4 right next to the venue, but the final decision depends of the number of volunteers accepted and the rooms availability.
ESUG additionally covers the lunches during the week and one dinner.