Unconference
Unconference Call for Submissions
The Organising Committee of the South African Conference for Artificial Intelligence Research (SACAIR) invites the submission of short papers, work-in-progress papers and short and extended abstracts for presentation as a talk and/or as a poster at the Southern African Conference for Artificial Intelligence SACAIR2025, hosted by the University of the Western Cape. The conference will be held from 1 – 5 December 2025 at the Cape Town Marriott Hotel Crystal Towers, in the Western Cape, South Africa.
The 2025 conference, with the theme AI at the Edge: Pushing Boundaries, Powering Possibilities, is the seventh in a series of conferences held since 2019, aims to promote multi- and interdisciplinary studies in Artificial Intelligence. It also provides a platform for researchers and practitioners from both Academia and Industry to meet and discuss cutting-edge developments in the field.
Conference Structure
The conference will be held in person and will be structured as follows:
1 December 2025: Student Unconference
2 December 2025: Tutorials
3 – 5 December 2025: Conference
The SACAIR 2025 Unconference, to be held on Monday, 1 December 2025, is designed for young, up-and-coming researchers who wish to experience a research conference and network with like-minded future professionals. It is also designed to share and discuss ideas for future research and will consist of student and industry presentations, panel discussions, a poster session, and social events.
Due to the multi-disciplinary nature the Conference, the Unconference will also be organised around the following five tracks:
- Algorithmic and Data-Driven AI (Computer Science)
- Symbolic AI (Knowledge Representation and Reasoning)
- Socio-technical and human-centred AI (Information Systems)
- Responsible and Ethical AI (Philosophy and Law / Humanities)
- Inter- and transdisciplinary AI research
Additionally, as the Unconference is less formal than the main Conference, submissions not mentioned above but within the AI scope will also be considered.
Important dates
- Submission deadline: 24 October 2025 (SAST)
- Acceptance notification: 3 November 2025 (SAST)
All submissions must be in English and must be formatted using Springer Style Files and Templates in Word or LaTeX. Only submissions made in these formats will be considered for review.
Submission Format
All submissions must be in English and must be formatted using Springer Style Files and Templates in Word or LaTeX. Only submissions made in these formats will be considered for review.
The following submissions will be considered:
- Short papers up to 4 pages in length (excluding references)
- Abstracts
Authors, whose papers were not accepted for the main conference proceedings, are highly encouraged to submit to the Unconference.
Some authors will also have the option to present their submissions as posters during the poster session and will be notified after the review process.
The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.
Proceedings
Papers will undergo a light review process by the Organising Committee. Accepted Unconference submissions will not be published in the formal Conference proceedings, but will be collated and uploaded to the SACAIR 2025 website.
Unconference Organising Committee
- Oluwakorede Oluyide (Unconference Co-chairperson)
- Clayton Baker (Unconference Co-chairperson)
- Sibonelo Dlamini
- Mluleki Bryan Sinqadu
- Yuvika Singh
- Tevin Moodley
Contact
For enquiries, please send an email to sacair2025unconference@gmail.com
