Find the right speaker for your community event.
Kithara is a free, neutral directory of tech speakers built for meetups, workshops and small local events — where finding the right voice is still harder than it should be.
Big conferences are covered. Local communities aren't.
For large conferences, CfP platforms already do the job. But for a user-group evening, a hands-on workshop or a local meetup, finding a speaker still means digging through LinkedIn, Telegram chats, email threads and word of mouth. You rarely know upfront who's available, what they talk about, whether they travel, or how much notice they need. Smaller and newer communities feel this most — and new speakers struggle to be discovered at all.
A directory built for grassroots events.
Kithara gives community organizers one place to discover speakers and reach out directly — no agency, no middleman, no commercial gatekeeping. Speakers publish what they talk about, the formats they offer, where and how far they'll travel, and when they're available. Organizers filter, find a match, and make contact. That's it.
How it works
Create your profile
Sign in with GitHub or Google and publish your topics, talk formats, languages, availability and travel preferences. Import from GitHub and Sessionize to start in minutes.
Get discovered
Organizers filter the directory by topic, technology, format, language, location and travel policy — and find speakers that fit their event and their budget.
Connect directly
Organizers reach out through a privacy-protected first contact. Your email stays hidden until you choose to share it. From there, you talk directly.
What makes Kithara different
Direct contact, no intermediary
Kithara is a directory, not an agency. It connects you; the conversation is yours.
Privacy by design
Personal emails are never exposed. First contact runs through a secure proxy, GDPR-first, worldwide.
Truly neutral
Vendor-agnostic and non-profit. Every ecosystem is treated equally — no sponsored listings, no pay-to-rank.
Logistics upfront
Travel radius, notice period, reimbursement and honorarium expectations — all clear before anyone writes.
A path for new voices
Experienced speakers can offer themselves as mentors, helping emerging talent take the stage.
Open source
Released under the MIT license, with open data and APIs. Yours to use, inspect and build on.
More than a directory — a way to grow the next generation.
Great communities are built by the speakers they grow, not just the ones they book. Experienced members can flag themselves as mentors and support newcomers preparing their first talk — online or in person. Kithara makes that willingness visible.
For organizers
Stop chasing speakers across five platforms. Search by what actually matters for your event — topic, format, language, location, travel policy, lead time — and send a structured request with all the details in one go. Track your outreach from a simple dashboard, and confirm when an event actually happened.
Find a speakerFor speakers
Be found by the communities that want exactly what you offer. Set your topics, formats and availability once, make your travel and reimbursement expectations clear, and only hear from organizers whose events fit. Your contact details stay private until you decide otherwise.
Create your profileBuilt in the open, for everyone.
Kithara is stewarded by Associazione Culturale PLUG APS, a non-profit cultural association. That means no monetization, no paywalled profiles, no sponsored visibility — ever. The default ordering is neutral, and the only trust signals we show are plain facts, never an opaque score.