CASCON 2026: 36th IEEE International Conference on Collaborative Advances in Software and Computing Second Student Center - York University Toronto, Canada, November 9-12, 2026

Conference website	https://conf.research.org/home/cascon-2026
Submission link	https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cascon2026
Abstract registration deadline	June 22, 2026
Submission deadline	June 29, 2026

CASCON 2026 will be held at York University’s Keele campus, which is centrally located in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada. The conference will feature world-class keynote speakers, inspiring technical paper presentations, stimulating panels, workforce-building tutorials, community-building workshops, dynamic poster sessions, and terrific networking opportunities.

CASCON is a premier academic and industrial conference where attendees can explore cutting-edge research, trailblazing practices, and collaboration opportunities in software and computing.

Over the years, CASCON has fostered a thriving community of software practitioners, developers, researchers, industry leaders, and policymakers who share knowledge, explore new technologies, exchange insights, investigate emerging trends, and showcase next-generation prototypes and solutions.

CASCON 2026 will focus on the dynamic and rapidly evolving modern computing landscape, including the convergence of generative AI, advanced automation, hybrid cloud computing, high-performance computing, quantum computing, and responsible & sustainable computing. This landscape is exciting and disruptive, with unparalleled opportunities as well as ethical and regulatory challenges with your contributions and participation.

Submission Guidelines

We solicit research papers, posters, and workshop proposals

All research papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. 

Submission Types

CASCON 2026 calls for the following types of  submissions:

1. Regular Papers: Novel and mature research work (up to 10 pages including references).
2. Short Papers: Work in progress with some validation results, experience reports, new ideas and visionary papers based on supporting theory or evidence, and application papers (up to 6 pages including references).
3. Applications/Industrial Papers: Practical case studies, benchmark tools, and empirical studies addressing real-world industrial challenges (up to 6 pages, including references).
4. Workshop Proposals: Proposals for technical workshops to be held within CASCON 2026

Paper Instructions

Each technical paper must conform at the time of submission to the IEEE Formatting Instructions (i.e., title in 24pt font and full text in 10pt type, LaTEX users must use \documentclass[10pt,conference] {IEEEtran} without including the compsoc nor the compsocconf options).

CASCON 2026 will not accept submissions that have been previously published, are in press, or have been submitted elsewhere. Any article that includes AI-generated content (e.g., text, figures or algorithms) must disclose this in the acknowledgements section. The paper sections containing AI-generated content must include a citation to the used AI system for its generation. Additional submission guidelines are available at Submission Policies - IEEE Author Center Conferences.

Accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings published in IEEE Xplore. One of the authors of the accepted papers must register and present the paper at the conference. Failure to attend and present the paper at the conference will result in the withdrawal of the paper from the IEEE Xplore proceedings.

Best Paper Awards

Best Paper and Best Student Paper awards will be given to recognize the best technical contributions of the event in terms of originality, clarity, and potential impact. To be eligible for the Best Student Paper award, the primary author(s) of the paper and contributor(s) of the work must have been a student(s) at the time the work was done.

Important Dates

• Technical paper abstract submission: June 22, 2026
• Full technical paper submission: June 29, 2026
• Acceptance notification: Aug, 10, 2026
• Technical paper presentation dates: Nov 9-12, 2026

Initial Manuscript Submission Instructions

Submissions are made via EasyChair and must be in the double-column standard IEEE format for conference proceedings. All types of papers should strictly follow the page limit constraint to be considered as eligible for review. The defined page limit should include the paper, figures, tables, and references. The steps for submitting a paper are as follows:

• Visit EasyChair at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cascon2026
• After logging in, click on make a new submission to submit your paper
• All authors should use the IEEE Formatting Instructions, which can be obtained from the IEEE Proceedings Template pages

CASCON 2026 will employ a double-anonymous review process. Therefore, submissions may not reveal the identity of their authors. The authors must make every effort to honour the double-anonymous review process. In particular:

• Authors’ names must be omitted from the submission.
• All references to the author’s prior work should be in the third person.
• While authors can upload preprints on ArXiV or similar sites, they should avoid specifying that the manuscript was submitted to CASCON.
• Authors should not publicly use the submission title during the review (e.g., in social media posts).

We look forward to your submissions that push the boundaries of research and tackle today’s most pressing technology challenges and trends. Join us at CASCON 2026 to drive innovation, foster knowledge exchange, and bridge the gap between groundbreaking research and industrial application.

Camera-ready Submission Instructions

• Instructions for camera-ready manuscript submission will be sent to accepted contribution authors with the notification messages.
• Submission of camera-ready manuscripts will be through IEEE Publication Services. 

Workshop Proposals

We solicit high quality workshop proposals that will provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to discuss emerging topics, research and practice in computing and digital systems. These workshops aim to foster the exchange of innovative ideas and early-stage developments that may later evolve into conference or journal publications.

Workshops can focus on specific research themes, education, or industrial projects and may run for a full day or half day. Proposals will be evaluated based on originality, relevance to CASCON 2026, expected interest, and the organizers’ experience.

Workshop organizers are responsible for creating a dedicated webpage, coordinating with CASCON 2026 workshop chairs, and ensuring proceedings are published through IEEE.

• Proposal Submission Deadline: July 6, 2026
• Notification: July 27, 2026
• Submission Link: TBA
• Template: IEEE Conference Proceedings Format

List of Topics

Submissions should address challenges and opportunities spanning the full spectrum of computing and software, including but not limited to:

Software Engineering - Area Chairs: Foutse Khomh (Polytechnique De Montreal), Marios Fokaefs (York University)

• AI-Driven Development: Generative AI, automated code generation, intelligent debugging, and machine learning-powered quality assurance.
• Agentic Software & Intelligent Agents: Investigations into self-governing, context-aware software that autonomously adapts to changing environments and user needs.
• Modern DevOps & Continuous Delivery: Innovations in microservices, containerization, and rapid deployment strategies, genAI-driven and agent-driven automation and toolchains.
• Software Analytics: Mining software repositories, software supply chains, and data-driven decision-making in software engineering.
• Secure Software Lifecycle: Integrating security best practices into agile and DevOps pipelines, including zero trust architectures.
• Innovations in Compiler Design: Novel compiler optimizations, domain-specific languages, just-in-time compilation techniques, and tools that enhance developer productivity and system performance.
• Compile-time and Run-time Software Quality Assurance: Software vulnerabilities, software testing, and verification.
• Open Source Engineering: Innovation and policies to enable and nourish open source for large-scale projects and initiatives like open source LLMs as well as best practices for establishing open source program offices.

Generative AI - Area Chairs: Ljiljana Stojanovic (Fraunhofer IOSB, Germany), Gabriella Pasi (University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy)

• Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Large Language Models (LLMs): Exploring prompt engineering, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) techniques, and novel applications of AI.
• Next-Generation AI Techniques: Advances in deep learning, reinforcement learning, diffusion models, and beyond.
• Explainable & Responsible AI: Research for ensuring transparency, ethical considerations, fairness, and societal accountability.
• Federated and Edge AI: Distributed AI approaches that preserve data privacy while harnessing edge computing capabilities.
• AI for Social Impact: Applications addressing environmental sustainability, disaster response, public health, and social equity.

Quantum Computing - Area Chair (Ulrike Stege, U. Victoria, Canada)

• Hybrid quantum-classical approaches, distributed quantum computing
• Quantum Algorithms and Computational Advantage
• Quantum Programming Languages, Compilers, and Toolchains
• Quantum Hardware, Architectures, and Error Correction
• Quantum Communication, Cryptography, and Security
• Quantum Data, Machine Learning, and Hybrid Intelligence
• Quantum Systems Engineering and Practical Applications

Computer Systems and Infrastructure - Area Chairs Nawal Guermouche (INSA de Toulouse, France), Luiz Fernando Bittencourt (Unicamp, Brazil)

• Cloud, Edge, Accelerated Computing: Advances in cloud-native architectures, microservices, and serverless paradigms, especially in modern accelerated and heterogeneous hardware architectures like GPU, NPU, and DPU.
• Software-Enabled Healthcare & Bioinformatics: AI-driven diagnostics, remote monitoring, and personalized medicine applications.
• Internet of Things (IoT) & Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS): Smart cities, Industry 4.0 innovations, and connected ecosystems.
• Immersive & Extended Reality: Advances in augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality for next-gen user experiences.
• Next-Gen User Interfaces: Designing intuitive, multimodal interfaces for smart devices, wearables, and mobile ecosystems.
• Digital Collaboration & Social Media Analytics: Enhancing interaction and productivity in hybrid work environments, enhancing understanding of online engagement.

Big Data and Databases - Area Chair Verena Kantere (UOttawa, Canada)

• Big Data & Real-Time Analytics: Next-generation platforms for processing and deriving insights from massive and/or real-time datasets.
• Novel Programming Models for Data-Oriented Accelerated Computing: Emerging programming models to cope with the end of Moore’s Law as well as high-performance computing in the context of embedded, AI and classic scientific computing.
• AI-Augmented Data Management and Autonomous Databases
• Scalable Data Systems and Cloud-Native Architectures
• Knowledge Graphs, Semantic Data, and Data Integration
• Data Governance, Privacy, and Trustworthy Data Systems
• Real-Time Analytics, Streaming, and Event-Driven Systems
• Data Quality, Curation, and Responsible Data Engineering

Cyber Security - Area Chair Marwa Elsayed (Western University, Canada)

• Zero Trust Security Models: Novel frameworks and strategies for threat detection, intrusion prevention, and risk mitigation.
• Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: Innovations in differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, and secure multi-party computation.
• Blockchain & Decentralized Systems: Emerging trends in decentralized finance (DeFi), trustless systems, and secure distributed ledgers.

Robotics and Autonomous Systems - Area Chair Zubair Fadlullah (Western University, Canada)

• Autonomous and Adaptive Systems: Digital twins, self-healing networks, and systems that learn and evolve in real time and over extended periods.
• Autonomous Perception and Multi-Modal Sensing
• Planning, Control, and Decision-Making under Uncertainty
• Human–Robot Interaction and Collaborative Autonomy
• Multi-Robot Systems and Swarm Intelligence
• Robotics Systems Engineering, Middleware, and Digital Twins
• Safety, Security, and Ethical Autonomous Systems

Ethics, Sustainabiluty and Societal Issues - Area Chair Laleh Behjat (University of Calgary, Canada)

• Green Computing & Sustainability: Energy-efficient algorithms, sustainable system designs, and eco-friendly computing practices.
• Responsible AI: low resource models, energy-efficient training strategies and practices that reduce the energy footprint of Foundation Models like Large Language Models (LLMs).
• Digital Transformation for Smart Ecosystems: Leveraging technology to build sustainable smart cities and transformative digital platforms.

Committees

Program Committee

• TBA

Organizing committee

• General Co-Chairs
  • Prof. Shiva Nejati, University of Ottawa, Canada
  • Prof. Kostas Kontogiannis, York Universtity, Canada
• Program co-Chairs
  • Prof. Miriam Capretz, Western University, Canada
  • Prof. Elisabetta Di Nitto, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Publication

CASCON is now co-sponsored by IEEE Computer Society and CS-CAN/INFO-CAN, and the proceedings will be published in IEEE Xplore.

Venue

Second Student Centre,, York University, 15 Library Lane, Toronto, ON, Canada

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to 

• Kostas Kontogiannis <kkontog@yorku.ca>
• Shiva Nejati <snejati@uottawa.ca>
• Miriam Capretz <mcapretz@uwo.ca>
• Elisabetta Di Nitto <elisabetta.dinitto@polimi.it>

Sponsors