PWX 2025
August 17-20, 2025
Chicago, IL
Deadline for proposals: Friday, November 1, 2024
Questions? Email us at cfpquestions@apwa.org for further assistance.
Three Easy Steps to Submitting Your Proposal
- Read this page for information and instructions.
- Click the “Submit Proposal” button below.
- Complete the Call for Presentations form.
Share Your Knowledge, Experience, and Vision for the Future
The American Public Works Association provides education, advocacy, and solutions for public works and infrastructure professionals worldwide. More than 5,000 public works professionals—from both the public and private sectors—converge each year at APWA’s premier Public Works Expo (PWX). This highly anticipated annual event features 140+ education sessions, keynote addresses, and networking. PWX also attracts more than 300 exhibitors providing information about state-of-the-art technologies, products, and services.
The education program provides a dynamic forum for information exchange, problem-solving, and collaboration. Speakers are public works professionals, just like you, eager to help their colleagues take advantage of emerging technologies, understand and prepare for upcoming challenges, and provide better service to their communities.
What Are We Looking For?
We are looking for speakers with new perspectives, solid best practices, and/or innovative twists to topics surrounding the public works sector. At PWX, participants attend sessions from 18 specific topic tracks. Each year attendees provide feedback on what they would like to learn more about.
Please review the requested topics below and be sure that your presentation closely aligns before submitting.
Requested Topics for 2025
Education Session Formats
Please review the options below for the type and length of format you may select. APWA offers four different formats to ensure dynamic education sessions.
- Traditional Session: 50 minutes
- Traditional Session: 75 minutes
- Education Session: 20 minutes each presenter
- Jam Session: 50 minutes
Learn more about education session formats.
How Are Education Sessions Selected?
Review criteria: All submissions are reviewed and evaluated by the PWX Program Review Committee.
Your success in the selection process depends on how well your proposal supports these primary criteria:
- Practical application: Provides information that can be used by participants in their day-to-day work settings; offers lessons-learned, and how-to-do-it strategies, and offers solutions for sustainability and resiliency of public works operations.
- Leading-edge: Addresses emerging trends and technologies, innovative concepts and approaches, and solutions that provide improvements to the provision of public works services.
- Relevance and clarity: Content is interesting and useful to a significant number of expected attendees. Participant takeaways are clearly stated using active verbs that indicate how they will benefit from the information presented.
- Participant takeaways: All proposals must include three (3) takeaways that indicate how the attendee will benefit from the presentation. The participant takeaways must be worded in response to the phrase: “At the conclusion of this session, participants will be better able to ________.”
Get tips on writing a compelling session description.
View instructions on how to write appropriate participant takeaways.
What Are the Rules?
No sales pitches! Direct promotion of a speaker’s/company’s products, services, or monetary self-interest is not appropriate for education sessions. The public works audience appreciates learning about technologies, services, concepts, and new approaches but is sensitive to the sales promotion approach. We recommend that you describe in your proposal how the public works/end-user perspective will be featured in your presentation.
Speaker registration and travel expenses: APWA does not pay speakers of concurrent technical and professional education sessions. Speakers are responsible for making arrangements and paying for travel and other expenses associated with attending the conference. Speakers may qualify for a complimentary single-day registration. Speakers attending the full conference are expected to register and pay the appropriate member or non-member PWX registration fee.
When Will I Know?
Submitters will be notified via email of their proposal's accept/decline status by Friday, February 14, 2025.
How Do I Apply?
Please read the following before clicking the button.
Important FYI: All correspondence sent to you about your submission(s) will be to the email address you list on the form. Please consider using a personal email address if you have a highly restrictive work email account or add pwxspeakerinfo@apwa.org as a trusted email address in your account. You will receive notification of submission via email.