The Perl and Raku Conference 2027 / Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Thu, 01-Oct-2026 by
D Ruth Holloway
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The Perl and Raku Foundation (TPRF) is pleased to announce that the next Perl and Raku Conference will be held June 21-23, 2027, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Kitchener, Ontario [1, 2]. Early Bird registration price is $275 USD, and the regular price is $350 USD. Registration is free for approved speakers.
We will be following the schedule that's been in place for the last two years: we'll have a single track of talks over a three day schedule. Both Perl and Raku talks will be presented. Lunch won't be provided, but there are many restaurants nearby, and we'll have 90 minutes for lunch. We'll have a banquet with some entertainment on Tuesday night -- more details to come. Conference registration and the Call For Papers will open soon on the perlfoundation.org website.
There will be a Hackathon at the hotel on the day before the conference starts (June 20, 2027), to be organized by Bruce Gray (util). The course following the conference (June 24, 2027) will be “Write Production-Quality Code with AI”, presented by Curtis “Ovid” Poe (see below for his bio). Curtis is well-known in the Perl community, and was a keynote speaker at the Toronto conference in 2023. The price for this course will be $225 USD, and is limited to twelve (12) spaces. A registration link will be available soon, and all proceeds of the course will go to support the conference.
The Conference Chair is Alex Beamish (talexb). Alex is currently the Speaker Wrangler for the Toronto Perl Mongers, and also organized the 2023 conference held in Toronto, Ontario. As conference organizer, He hosts the weekly organizational meetings for the conference on Wednesdays at 5pm ET -- visit the #tprc-planning channel on the Perl Foundation's Slack instance to learn more, or to attend meetings.
Kitchener-Waterloo is located about 100km (between 60-90 minutes) West of Toronto's Pearson airport (YYZ). There are regular passenger buses that travel between Pearson airport and the K-W area for about $25 CAD one way. K-W is also served by train and by bus, and the bus station is quite close to the Crowne Plaza hotel.
International visitors may need an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA). For passport holders, the usual rules apply: your passport can't be less than six months from expiring. For example, based on the Canadian government website [3], a German national would need an ETA -- the cost is $7 CAD, and is good for five years.
Background on the course instructor:
Curtis “Ovid” Poe helps organizations adopt AI without losing control of their software. He advises CTOs, CIOs, and executive teams on AI strategy, governance, and responsible AI, including in heavily regulated industries, and trains engineering teams to turn that strategy into working practice. He created PAAD, a methodology for bringing engineering discipline to AI coding agents, and Corinna, the object system now shipping in core Perl. A long-time Perl developer and international speaker, he brings deep expertise in software testing and building reliable systems to every engagement.
Footnotes:
1. The Crowne Plaza Kitchener-Waterloo by IHG is at 105 King St E, Kitchener, ON N2G 2K8 CANADA
2. https://www.ihg.com/redirect?path=asearch&brandCode=CP&localeCode=en®ionCode=1&hotelCode=YKFCP&checkInDate=20&checkInMonthYear=052027&checkOutDate=25&checkOutMonthYear=052027&rateCode=6CBARC&PMID=99801505&GPC=TPR&cn=no&adjustMonth=false&showApp=true&monthIndex=00
3. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/visit-canada/entry-requirements-country.html
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Comments (1)
Hotel: Booked.
Flight: Expensive. AI says come back in February.
Registration: Need a link
Ovid's course: Need a link before it's sold out.
