EvoStar 2026 opened today in Toulouse, bringing together the European evolutionary computation community for three days of talks, posters, and keynotes. This year’s edition is held at the Rempart building of UT Capitole, organized by SPECIES in partnership with UT Capitole and ISAE-SUPAERO. The programme featured keynotes from Simon Lucas on LLMs and simulation-based AI, Jean-Baptiste Mouret on the origins of MAP-Elites, and Guy Theraulaz on collective intelligence. I was honored to co-organize this event with Sylvain Cussat-Blanc and the Toulouse local team.