NDF26 SPEAKER INFO

On this page, you’ll find:

  • Key dates at a glance

  • Speaker registration

  • Presentation registration

  • Speaker social pack

  • Slides and tech

  • On the day

  • Acknowledgements of indigenous communities and land

  • The NDF26 themes in detail

  • General presentation tips

  • Slide design tips

  • Examples of past NDF presentations

KEY DATES AT A GLANCE

  • Early May: Submissions open

  • Sunday 31 May Friday 5 June, 11:59pm NZT: Submissions close

  • Late June: Accepted presenters notified via email

  • July 31: Confirmed presentation title, abstract, and presenter photos due

  • September 30: Presenter registrations due

  • November 16: Slides due

  • November 23-24, 2026: NDF26 Conference

  • November 25, 2026: NDF Workshops

PRESENTER REGISTRATION

The deadline for presenter registrations is 30 September 2026. Please check your emails for the presenter registration code. This gives you the member price of $795 for a two day ticket or $495 for a one day ticket.

A note on costs: We run a small conference, often with close to 40 speakers. This represents a large portion of the available tickets, meaning that unfortunately we cannot afford to offer free speaker tickets. We have kept prices the same as NDF25 and do our best to keep costs low.

SPEAKER SOCIAL PACK

We've put together a little speaker sharing pack which you can use to let people know that you're speaking at NDF26. You'll find posting guidance and easy-to-use NDF26 graphic templates.

SLIDES & TECH

Slides are due by MONDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2026. Please share your slides with us using the dropbox upload link we sent via email.

**IMPORTANT: Please save the file as Date “23 Nov OR 24 Nov - Full Name” e.g. 23 Nov - Kathy Smith

You will have an opportunity to test and/or make minor updates to your slides in the break before your talk begins at the conference.

Tech Setup

Slides will run off of a Windows laptop available in the room on the day, using Microsoft Powerpoint.

As you talk, you will be able to see the preview of your next slide, plus any slide notes you may have.

Use of media

You can include video and audio in your presentation. Remember to embed all video and audio content (this is done automatically in all recent versions of PowerPoint).

If you’d like to show a video online e.g. Youtube, please let us know.

Presentation requirements

Check your email for confirmation of your presentation format, including talk and Q&A length.

Please note that to keep the whole conference on schedule, it is important that you stick within your allocated presentation time.

For the best visual experience, please use the slide template size 16:9. This is standard. Check out the slide design tips at the bottom of this pag

If you have a presentation that is not a PowerPoint, please contact conference@ndf.org.nz and we can assist you. Please ensure there are no special fonts, password-protected presentations, or external content.

Backup your presentation

Please back-up your presentation, either on a USB or emailed to yourself.

AV Equipment

The following AV equipment will be provided:

  • Projector screen & data projector

  • Microphone attached to lectern or handheld microphone for panels

  • Presentation clicker

  • Foldback (a screen/computer showing your presentation & if applicable notes)

  • Foldback (a screen/computer showing your time remaining)

If you are not familiar with AV equipment, please feel free to visit the AV area in the break ahead of your presentation.

A technician will be available to handle any problems that may arise.

ON THE DAY

When you arrive at NDF26, we strongly suggest finding our speaker liaison team to introduce yourself. They’ll also be on the lookout for you! We’ll introduce you to our speaker liaisons via email the week before the conference, so you know who to look for. 

On the day, the speaker liasons will introduce you to the AV team, where you can check your presentation and see how the tech set up works. We’ll also ask how much you’d like to be introduced by our moderator i.e. they could read your entire bio out, or leave it for you to introduce yourself.

Our moderator will also be the one to give you a reminder if you are going overtime. We strongly encourage you to practice your presentation and ensure that you are on time, so that there is plenty of time for Q&A!

Room set-up

The room will all be set up theatre style with the stage/presenter area in the front of the room.

If you have any additional needs or accessibility requirements, please let us know as soon as possible.

Q&A functionality

Questions will all be sent through the Sli.do app. People can use sli.do to record their questions at any time during your presentation. Questions will be held at the end of the talk, or at the end of your group of talks.

People will be able to scan a QR code or click a link from the conference website to access Sli.do for each talk. People can type in their question, and other audience members can upvote questions.

This ensures that the most popular questions rise to the top, and also helps to prevent “questions that are actually a comment”.

As a speaker, you do not need to monitor questions. Our MC will monitor then read out the questions from Sli.do for you to answer.

Live polling

Sli.do also comes with the opportunity to do live-polls. Learn more about this functionality here. If you’d like to use the live polling functionality in your talk, please let us know in detail by FRIDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2026 at the latest.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES & LAND

We encourage speakers to acknowledge the local iwi (tribes) at the beginning of your presentation.

The main local iwi for the Wellington area are Ngāti Toa and Taranaki Whānui ki te Upoko o te Ika a Maui.

For help with pronunciation, see this Te Reo Māori pronunciation guide, or feel free to ask an NDF board member on the day.

You might also hear people refer to local iwi as mana whenua (people with authority/rights over the land). A few more useful te reo Māori words will be added to the conference website (coming soon), as well as a section on Tikanga or etiquette. We will also add a few resources in there about doing a pepeha, which is a short introduction to yourself - this is if you want to go to the next level.

For overseas speakers: Specifically acknowledging country, or "land" more broadly is not generally done in Aotearoa New Zealand - the acknowledgement of local iwi fills this role. But it's certainly not a problem if you wish to make additional acknowledgements, especially if you are referencing indigenous communities in your presentation and/or wish to talk about or introduce the land you are coming from, which is also good practice.

Feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

CONFERENCE THEME:
HONONGA \ CONNECTIONS

The National Digital Forum (NDF) 2026 Conference provides a space for learning, connection, inspiration, and to encourage collaboration across Aotearoa’s cultural landscape. NDF provides a unique opportunity to connect with colleagues across the GLAMMIR (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums, Marae, Iwi, Records) sector in Aotearoa and beyond. Starting in 2026, the conference is biennial - meaning the next occurrence will be in 2028.

NDF was born back in 2001, when the internet was considered an information superhighway. Billions of hyperlinks later, we are more connected than ever, yet at the same time social cohesion and trust in information is decreasing. Cultural organisations are needed now more than ever in the digital realm - to go beyond our walls, into our communities, and to connect with our users where they are.

We are sharing, creating content, designing digital experiences, and reading the comments. We are the subject of our visitors’ gaze, touch, cameras, reels, and Google reviews. In a world where attention spans are shrinking, technology is hallucinating, and the information superhighway is littered with slop, how do we stay relevant for our communities?

It turns out that digital is more than a screen or technology. It’s a mode, an increasingly inescapable way of doing things. Sometimes, it can feel like magic. To be digital is to be connected: on multiple levels and in many directions, with individuals, communities, states, and multinational platforms. These connections aren’t neutral, they’re ethically and technically complicated, and they’re not always accessible to everyone.

Whether we like it or not, this is our hyperconnected world, and cultural organisations are in it. We’re here. What do we do now?  

NDF26 Hononga \ Connections is our time to meet, share, and figure it out together.

CONFERENCE POU \ TOPICS

WHIRIA TE KAHA TUATINI \
WEAVING COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

How are digital tools and storytelling being used to build meaningful relationships, foster community collaboration, bridge cultural gaps, and support engagement and learning?

  • How have you used digital to create meaningful spaces and experiences that help audiences feel connected to their history and to each other?

  • What connections are you building or facilitating to help strengthen and ground your community, and what role do digital tools play? 

  • How is your organisation working in partnership with communities to preserve and share indigenous knowledge and heritage?

  • What role does digital play in creating an accessible and inclusive experience?

  • When working with communities, which digital connections are you choosing not to make? How are you embedding data sovereignty in your digital practice?

WHAKAIROHIA TE RĀKAU TAUMATUA \
CRAFTING COLLABORATION AND INNOVATION

How are we working together to build capability, shared practice, and innovative responses in a changing environment?

  • How is your organisation approaching the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI)? What use cases are being proven or disproven?

  • Have you pooled resources or created shared projects with other cultural organisations to enhance your capability and impact? 

  • How have you collaborated with partners and other industries to deliver innovative projects?

  • How have you evolved your design and use of digital technologies to enhance visitor experiences, both online and onsite?

  • Have you found innovative digital methods or created effective digital experiences on a low budget? 

  • What have you learned from a project that didn't go as planned? How has "successful failure" helped you or your team build a more experimental mindset?

OKEA URUROATIA \
CONFRONTING CHALLENGES

How are cultural organisations advocating for the collective good, navigating ethical complexities, and managing limited resources in an environment of uncertainty and change?  

  • How are you advocating for the value of the GLAMMIR sector in a challenging political and economic climate?

  • How are you developing strategy and sustaining a shared vision for the future when the technological ground is constantly shifting beneath us?

  • How are your digital choices influenced by the realities of climate change and the ethical questions around emerging technologies and platforms - especially with regard to AI?

  • Have you successfully or unsuccessfully challenged the status quo within your organisation to change your digital practice?

  • How are you finding ways to connect with your audience in an increasingly saturated and confusing information space? 

  • How are you managing limited resources while still meeting audience expectations? What role does digital technology play?

If you have an idea that doesn't quite fit under these topics, but you believe it would be valuable for the conference, please submit it!

GENERAL PRESENTATION TIPS

  • Tell us how you’ve done things, what you’ve learnt, and why you made your decisions.

  • Specific details are great! e.g. which technique or tool you used, the audience insight that informed a design decision

  • Avoid selling! If you are vendor, or worked with one, sales pitches are a fast way to make the audience stop paying attention.

  • People want to know what didn’t work as well. Let us know the problems and challenges you faced!

  • Think about what other organisations could take away from your experiences. Would you do anything differently next time? How might you advise someone starting out a similar project?

SLIDE DESIGN TIPS

Everyone processes information differently; however, we encourage you to convert text-heavy slides into a visual format, because:

  • 90% of the information processed by the brain is visual

  • The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text

  • Your audience is six times more likely to recall what you have presented

80% of people will remember what they see as opposed to 10% of what they hear and 20% of what they read

You can do this by creating diagrams, using a graph, including infographics, using photography and icons, or using a hero image with a statement, quote, or idea.

GET INSPIRED BY PAST NDF PRESENTATIONS

View all past presentations on our YouTube channel.