OPEN CALL
Open Call for both Speakers & Workshop Facilitators for BOUNCE 2025-6
BOUNCE is now inviting applications from bold speakers and dynamic workshop facilitators for our upcoming programme. We're seeking engaging voices for our main event on January 16th, 2026 at Trinity College Dublin, and hands-on workshop facilitators to deliver in-person sessions throughout this year into next.
If you’re a designer, creative, educator, technologist, or thinker with something to say—or something to share—we want to hear from you. Whether your passion lies in crafting interactive workshops that spark curiosity, or in delivering thought-provoking talks that challenge the status quo, BOUNCE offers a platform where fresh perspectives, experimental formats, and joyful exploration take centre stage.
Proposals for speakers must connect to our 2026 theme: BEING, which explores the lived, social, and ethical dimensions of design today. While workshops should spark joy and be experimental. If your practice pushes boundaries and inspires critical reflection, now’s your moment to get involved.
“Bounce isn’t just a festival, it’s a creative catalyst, bringing people together in the most inspiring way.”
Tina Touli
FACILITATORS
OPEN CALL
DEADLINE 21ST AUGUST 2025
We’re looking for dynamic, hands-on workshops that push boundaries and spark curiosity within our community of designers.
If you’ve created a workshop that is current, experimental, and joyfully exploratory, we’d love to hear from you.
What we're looking for:
Engaging & Interactive – Workshops that invite participation, exploration, and collaboration.
Process-Driven – A deep dive into methods, tools, and frameworks that designers can apply in their work.
Experimental & Playful – A spirit of inquiry, testing, and discovery that excites and challenges participants.
Relevant & Timely – Addressing current themes, tensions, and evolutions in design practice.
Who should apply?
We welcome designers, creatives, and industry professionals from all disciplines—whether you specialise in communication design, service design, strategic design, technology, or other creative fields.
Apply now“The work Bounce does is very important for the design industry - providing creative and educational spaces for designers of all career levels to meet and work on something fun together.”
Aeron O'Connor
SPEAKERS
OPEN CALL
Are you ready to challenge, inspire, and provoke new ways of thinking?
BOUNCE is calling for bold, engaging speakers to take the stage at our next event. We’re looking for designers, creatives, and thinkers who aren’t just talking about trends but actively shaping the future of design—through experimentation, collaboration, and critical discourse.
Why Apply?
BOUNCE isn’t just another design conference. It’s a space where ideas are tested, perspectives are expanded, and meaningful conversations happen. If you have an insight, process, or approach that will leave our audience thinking, questioning, and creating differently, we want to hear from you.
What We’re Looking For:
Your talk or session must align with BOUNCE 2025’s theme: BEING. This can be explored through:
BEING HUMAN: Identity, inclusion, care, and how design shapes lived experiences.
BEING IN PLACE: The role of design in communities, culture, and communication.
BEYOND BEING: Designing for more-than-human perspectives, ethical futures, and emerging technologies.
Formats
Talks & Keynotes – Inspire with insights, case studies, or provocative perspectives.
Panel Discussions – Thoughtful, dynamic conversations with multidisciplinary voices.
Experimental Sessions – Unexpected formats that challenge traditional conference structures. This could be a performance, live illustration, audio scapes, or more - we are open to your creativity!
Who Should Apply?
We welcome designers, strategists, educators, technologists, artists, and researchers with something compelling to share. Whether you’re an established leader or an emerging voice, if your ideas spark curiosity and conversation, we want you on stage.
Apply nowEvaluation Criteria for Submissions:
RELEVANCE
Your topic must be relevant to this year’s theme of BEING. We are looking for subjects that address the practical applications of leading theory and ideas, and also provide thought leadership on future trends with a focus on the ‘how’ rather than outcomes.
DRAW
It should be specific content that is likely to be of high interest to our diverse participants. It should offer ideas, methodologies or case studies, that inspire or can be applied by our community of innovators and practitioners.
EXPERIENTIAL
Where possible, it should offer active learning and experiential discussions, with tangible, practical information, skills or tools. Or, a collaborative session that will engage participants as solution architects for an interesting, current challenge.
INTERACTIVITY
Sessions that include audience interaction and idea-sharing are welcomed. You may have an idea to engage the audience that is experimental or off-beat. We’d love to support this kind of engagement, tell us more!
PRESENTER (YOU)
We want to hear from those with relevant knowledge and experience, in relation to the proposed topic. Those who live and breathe their practice.Have you been working in this area for years, and want to share your passion? Or have you had tried something without knowing if it would work and want to share your journey? We're here for it!
PRESENTATION SKILLS
We don’t want to restrict the pool of potential presenters, however we need to be confident that you have the skills to hold an audience and deliver an engaging session. If helpful, BOUNCE will provide additional presentation coaching to support you and get you onto the stage.
“We need more festivals like this — ones that genuinely support the community and help move the industry forward.”