Creators of Go, SQLite, Tor, VLC and MySQL Headline Nerdearla 2026, Free and Streaming Worldwide in English

U.S. developers can attend Latin America's largest technology conference from their desks September 22–26 at no cost, with the headline sessions delivered in English.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Sept. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Nerdearla (Nerd•ear•la), the largest free technology conference in the Spanish-speaking world, holds its 13th Buenos Aires edition September 22–26, and every session streams live to anyone who registers. All international headliners present in English, including Rob Pike, D. Richard Hipp, Monty Widenius, Jean-Baptiste Kempf and Roger Dingledine. Attendees in the U.S. and elsewhere can register at tickets.nerdearla.com and watch online.

Free since 2014
Free admission has been the rule since Nerdearla began in 2014 with roughly 60 people in a Buenos Aires basement. The conference now draws more than 50,000 participants a year across editions in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Spain. In 2025, the Argentina and Spain editions together brought over 12,000 people on site and more than 35,000 online from upward of 50 countries. Every talk is published afterward at the conference's "Nerdflix" public archive, which contains more than 1,300 recorded sessions. In 2023, Argentina's Ministry of Culture declared the event of cultural interest.

Who's on the 2026 program
The lineup is dense with the people who built and maintain core infrastructure. Following are a sample of presenters; the full schedule can be found at https://nerdearla.com/en/argentina/schedule/:

Open source founders and maintainers

• Monty Widenius, creator of MySQL and MariaDB, gives the opening keynote on September 24
• D. Richard Hipp, creator of SQLite
• Jean-Baptiste Kempf, creator of VLC
• Madelyn Olson, Valkey project maintainer
• Robin Bender Ginn, executive director of the OpenJS Foundation

Systems, security and languages

• Rob Pike, co-creator of Go and UTF-8, in an interview opening the conference September 22
• Roger Dingledine, creator of Tor, closing the security track September 26

AI and the web

• Merve Noyan, machine learning engineer at Hugging Face, on the local AI ecosystem
• Omar Sanseviero, lead AI developer experience at Google DeepMind
• Kent C. Dodds, on "The Last Software Engineer"
• Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, technology journalist and analyst, in an on-stage interview

Past editions have hosted Donald Knuth, Ken Thompson, Vint Cerf, Radia Perlman, Alan Kay, Bjarne Stroustrup, Bruce Schneier, Tony Fadell, Werner Vogels and Matt Mullenweg, among others.

Attending from the U.S.
The conference website, agenda and registration flow are all published in English at nerdearla.com/en. Members of the media interested in attending virtually can register on the press page at nerdearla.com/en/press. Buenos Aires runs one hour ahead of Eastern time in September, putting the opening keynotes around 9:00 a.m. in New York and 6:00 a.m. on the West Coast, with closing talks in the early Eastern evening.

Format and tracks
The event runs five days across a dozen tracks: development, data science and AI, infrastructure, security, open source, product, UX, management, soft skills, maker and retro computing, general science, and a kids program.

About 70 percent of the Nerdearla audience reads or works in English daily, and roughly a fifth are decision makers at the lead, manager or founder level.

"Nerdearla exists to put technical knowledge within reach of anyone who wants it, whatever their budget," said Ariel Jolo, founder of Nerdearla and Sysarmy. "We have kept the conference free for twelve years, and we will keep it free as we expand into new markets, including the United States. Every talk, workshop and recording stays open at no cost, and we would welcome U.S. participants this September."

Future plans, including the United States
After the 13th edition in Buenos Aires, Nerdearla has one more stop in 2026, on November 18-20, for the second edition in Mexico City. The 2027 event calendar includes Santiago, Chile on April 14–16; Buenos Aires again in September; and Madrid on November 3–5. The organization is also in early planning for its first U.S. edition, targeting Austin, Texas, in 2028, with details to be announced. Sponsorship inquiries go through nerdearla.com/en/sponsors. While the 2026 calls for papers have closed,  prospective speakers can subscribe at nerdearla.com/en/cfp to be notified when the next ones open.

Attending and covering the event
Registration is free at tickets.nerdearla.com. The full schedule is at https://nerdearla.com/en/argentina/schedule/?lang=en. Journalists have a special registration and can request accreditation, interviews or media kit materials through the press room at nerdearla.com/en/press, which also hosts downloadable logos and event photography.

About Nerdearla
Nerdearla is the largest free technology, science and nerd culture event in the Spanish-speaking world. Founded in 2014 by the IT community Sysarmy, it has grown from a 60-person gathering in Buenos Aires into an international conference with editions in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Spain, drawing more than 50,000 participants a year in person and online. Each year the program features over 400 speakers, from computing pioneers to CTOs of the world's largest technology companies. Admission has been free since the first edition, with no paid tiers and no paywalled content. More at nerdearla.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Cristin Connelly
Cathey.co for Nerdearla
[email protected]

SOURCE Nerdearla