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What is ESUG?
ESUG is the European Smalltalk User Group, a non-profit user organization that supports initiatives around the Smalltalk programming language. Its stated focus is connecting individual and corporate users of Smalltalk dialects and environments in Europe, promoting teaching and learning, supporting books and local user groups, and encouraging exchange among students, researchers, and practitioners. It also organizes an annual conference, school, and workshop.
What ESUG does
- Community connection: Brings together Smalltalk users across Europe, including individuals and companies.
- Education and outreach: Promotes teaching, learning, and use of Smalltalk.
- Publishing and sharing: Supports books and other materials that benefit the community.
- Local groups: Helps existing user groups and new ones get established.
- Events: Runs a yearly conference plus a school and workshop, and sponsors other Smalltalk events.
Who it is for
ESUG is relevant if you use, teach, research, or are curious about Smalltalk. That includes developers working with Smalltalk dialects and environments, students and academics, and companies that rely on Smalltalk systems. The conference and summer school in particular serve people who want to learn from practitioners and meet others in the ecosystem.
A practical next step
If you are deciding whether to get involved, look at the most recent conference program and talk videos first. They show the actual range of topics and the kind of people who attend, which is often more useful than a general description. From there, you can decide whether to join, attend an event, or support a specific initiative such as a local user group or summer school.
What are the benefits of becoming an ESUG member?
Membership in ESUG (the European Smalltalk User Group) is best understood as joining a community organization rather than buying a product. According to the group's own site, ESUG is a non-profit user organization that supports initiatives around the Smalltalk programming language, with a particular emphasis on free and open-source work that benefits the whole Smalltalk community.
What membership connects you to
The stated purpose of ESUG is to:
- Connect individual and corporate users of Smalltalk dialects and environments across Europe
- Promote teaching, learning and use of Smalltalk
- Support publishing and sharing of books
- Support local user groups and help new ones get established
- Encourage exchange and collaboration between students, researchers, innovators and practitioners
- Organize a yearly conference, school and workshop
- Sponsor other Smalltalk events
So the practical benefit is access to a network and a calendar of events, plus the sense that your participation helps fund community-wide activities.
Who gets the most out of it
- Students and researchers looking for a community around a specific language and its dialects
- Practitioners who want to meet other Smalltalk developers, especially in Europe
- Companies using Smalltalk that want visibility, recruiting contacts or sponsorship opportunities
- Local group organizers who want backing to start or sustain a user group
A concrete example
If you are a developer in, say, Gdańsk or Plovdiv, membership gives you a reason and a channel to attend the annual conference and the co-located summer school, present a project, and meet people working in the same niche. The site notes past conferences in Gdansk (2025), Lille (2024) and Lyon (2023), with ESUG 2027 announced for Brussels, Belgium.
Trade-offs to weigh
- The value is largely social and community-based, so it depends on your willingness to attend events and participate.
- If you only want technical documentation or a library, a user group is not the right tool.
- The site lists donation and sponsorship routes (including PayPal and HelloAsso) alongside membership, so decide whether you want to give money, time, or both.
Next step
Look at the conference and summer school pages first, then check the membership and sponsorship pages to see which level matches your situation. If you are unsure, attending one event before committing is a reasonable way to test the fit. You can start at ESUG.
How can I attend or present at the annual ESUG conference?
Attend by registering for the annual ESUG conference, then submit a talk or project demo if you want to present. ESUG (the European Smalltalk User Group) runs a yearly conference plus a co-located summer school and the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies (IWST); its site lists past programs, slide archives and videos so you can see the format before committing. Start at ESUG and look for the current conference page and program.
Attending
- Watch the ESUG site for the next conference announcement and program; recent editions were held in Plovdiv (2026), Gdansk (2025) and Lille (2024), and ESUG 2027 is announced for Brussels, Belgium.
- Register through the conference page once registration opens. ESUG is a non-profit user organization, so fees typically fund the event rather than a commercial conference business.
- Book travel and accommodation early: host cities change each year, and the summer school often runs immediately before the main conference, which can extend your stay.
- If cost is a barrier, check whether you qualify for a student rate or a sponsored place; the site mentions sponsoring actions such as summer schools and user groups.
Presenting
- Submit a talk, experience report or project demo through the call for participation for the main track, or a paper to IWST if your work is more research-oriented.
- The "Show us your Project" slot is a low-barrier option for practitioners who want to demo working software rather than give a formal lecture.
- Expect a mixed audience of students, researchers, innovators and practitioners, so pitch at the level of "what problem does this solve and how do I use it" rather than assuming deep dialect knowledge.
- Rehearse to the session length and bring slides in a portable format; past talks are archived on Slideshare and in the ESUG Archive, and videos appear on YouTube, so your material will likely outlive the room.
Choosing your track
| If you want to... | Aim for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Meet the community and see the ecosystem | Main conference | Broadest audience; includes project demos |
| Present peer-reviewed research | IWST | Workshop format, more academic |
| Learn Smalltalk hands-on | Summer school | Often co-located just before the conference |
| Get feedback on early work | Show us your Project | Informal, practitioner-friendly |
Next step: open the ESUG conference page for the upcoming edition, note the submission deadline and registration dates in your calendar, and draft a one-paragraph abstract describing the problem, your approach and what attendees will take away.
Where can I find videos and slides from past ESUG conferences?
Past ESUG conference videos and slides are published through the ESUG website itself, usually from each year's conference page. The pattern is consistent: every recent conference page links to slides on Slideshare and in the ESUG Archive, and videos on YouTube.
Where to look on the site
- Conference pages by year — Open the page for the edition you want (2023, 2024, 2025, 2026) and look for the media links listed under that conference. Recent pages list "Slides on Slideshare and in the ESUG Archive" and "Videos on Youtube".
- ESUG Archive — The archive is the more durable option for slides, since it is maintained by the organization rather than a third-party platform.
- Program pages — Individual conference programs and the IWST (International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies) programs help you identify a specific talk before hunting for its recording.
- "Show us your Project" — Some conference pages include this track separately, so project demos may sit alongside the main conference material.
Practical notes
Slides and videos are not always complete or perfectly aligned: a talk may have slides but no recording, and recordings occasionally cover only the main track. If you know the speaker or title, searching the archive by author is usually faster than browsing year by year.
For context on the organization behind the material, see ESUG. If your interest is Smalltalk generally rather than these proceedings, the same site covers user groups, books and summer schools.
How can I get support for a local Smalltalk user group from ESUG?
ESUG is built for exactly this: it is a non-profit user organization that supports local Smalltalk groups, including help with establishing new ones. If you run a regional Smalltalk meetup, its practical support falls into a few buckets — visibility through ESUG's promotion channels, sponsorship of your events, and connection to a wider European network of users, researchers and companies.
What to ask for, concretely
- Sponsorship of an event: ESUG lists sponsoring actions that include user groups, alongside labs, books and summer schools. Ask about covering a venue, refreshments, travel for a speaker, or streaming costs.
- Promotion: ESUG publishes articles, projects and publications from the community. A short write-up about your group and its next meeting is a realistic request.
- Connections: ESUG's stated aim is linking students, researchers, innovators and practitioners across Smalltalk dialects and environments. Ask to be introduced to nearby groups, university courses or companies that might host or fund you.
- Speakers and material: Conference and summer-school content — including recorded talks and slide archives — can supply remote or recorded sessions if your group is small.
How to approach it
Write a one-page request stating your group's city, how often you meet, typical attendance, what the money or help would be used for, and what you can offer back (a talk, a report, hosting a Camp Smalltalk). ESUG also accepts donations through HelloAsso, so if you are asked to contribute rather than receive, that is the route. Note that ESUG's own conference moves around Europe — recent and upcoming editions include Plovdiv, Gdańsk, Lille and Brussels — so a local group near a host city can sometimes piggyback on visiting speakers.
Decision criteria
Ask for sponsorship if you have a dated event and a specific cost. Ask for promotion if your problem is awareness, not budget. Ask for introductions if your problem is finding people at all. If your group is not yet formed, say so — supporting the establishment of new groups is explicitly part of ESUG's remit, and that is the strongest case you can make.
What are the Innovation Technology Awards and how can I participate?
The Innovation Technology Awards are a recurring competition run alongside ESUG's annual conference, where developers present Smalltalk-based projects and have them judged for their technical contribution. The ESUG site lists the 20th edition as part of the 2025 conference in Gdańsk, and shows awards submissions and winners for 2024 in Lille, so the format has run for two decades and is a fixture of the conference program.
What participation involves
Based on how the awards appear in past conference programs, a typical path looks like this:
- Build something demonstrable. Past editions are tied to conference talks and "Show us your Project" sessions, so judges and attendees expect a working project or a clear demonstration, not just an idea.
- Submit before the conference. The 2024 page separates "Submissions & Winners," which suggests a submission step with a deadline ahead of the event.
- Present at the conference. Winners and entrants appear in the main track program, so expect to explain your work to a live audience of Smalltalk practitioners, researchers and students.
- Watch for the current call. The site points to ESUG 2027 in Brussels, so the next award cycle will be announced with that conference's program.
Who it suits
- Tool and library authors who want visibility for a framework, IDE extension or runtime improvement.
- Researchers and students presenting work that overlaps with the IWST workshop, which is co-located with the conference.
- Small teams or individuals who cannot fund a large marketing push but can show a strong working demo.
The trade-off is time: preparing a conference-grade demo and talk is real work, and the payoff is recognition within the Smalltalk community rather than a cash prize you can count on. If your goal is commercial leads, a sponsor booth may fit better; if your goal is credibility with Smalltalk developers, the awards are a direct route.
Next step
Check the most recent conference page for the submission form and deadline before planning your entry, then look at past winners to calibrate the level of polish expected. The ESUG site itself is the primary hub: ESUG. For broader context on the language and its community, the Smalltalk industry site Cincom Smalltalk publishes news and technical articles, though it is vendor-run and not the award organizer.
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