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Financial Aid Applications Due!

Just a quick reminder: Applications for our Financial Aid program are due on January 1, 2014. As long as it's the first of the year somewhere in the world, we'll be accepting applications! Check out our previous post about how the application works and what financial aid is for. We're looking forward to evaluating all of the applications and notifying recipients by January 15, 2014. Happy New Year from the PyCon organizers!

Startup Row is back

Startup Row is back – our offer to showcase the most promising Python startups out there! The concept is very simple: if you convince us that your young company is the next big thing, we are going to give you a free booth for one day in our Expo Hall and two free passes to the conference. Startup Row gives you a unique opportunity to connect with a global, highly technical crowd.  Among the 2000+ PyCon attendees, could be a new co-founder, your next investor, a future business partner, or even hundreds of new users, depending on who your target market is.  These are stories we’ve heard from previous Startup Row nominees. The technological landscape of tomorrow is yours to make.  Come and show us that it's one where Python shines. The rules are simple: You must have less than 15 employees, including founders, and be less than two years old. You must use Python somewhere in your startup. Backend, frontend, testing, wherever. If selected, you have to come and st

Financial Aid Applications Due January 1

With the announcements of the tutorial , talk , poster , and several lightning talk selections, registration for PyCon 2014 is really on the rise. Before the announcements, we were just shy of 800 tickets sold, and our early bird registration rates were valid for those first 800. We're now on to the regular rates through the start of the conference, and sales are moving along nicely. As we've mentioned before, PyCon's ticket price hasn't changed in quite some time. We think this conference provides a great value at a great price, but we're cognizant of the total cost of attending an event like this. That's why we've been setting aside a budget to make the conference more affordable for our attendees by way of our Financial Aid program . Applications have been open since August, and will close on January 1, 2014. We're aiming to have grant awards decided by January 15, 2014. Coming to PyCon isn't just the $350 ticket cost, unless you live in Mont

Talks, Tutorials, and Poster selections announced!

The wait is over: selections for PyCon 2014's talks, tutorials, and posters are now available! It took a lot of effort from a lot of people to review another record breaking year of submissions, but once again, the result is a stunning set of presentations. Both the tutorial list and schedule are now available, with tutorial registration expected to be available later this week (we'll post/tweet when it's up). The 36 slots available on the schedule were filled from 71 proposals, making up yet another set of courses to get beginners started, and to help each type of Python user level up their skill set. The tutorials take place Wednesday April 9 through 10, and the schedule is comprised of morning and afternoon sessions over those two days. Each tutorial costs $150 and gets you three-hours of teaching and includes a 20 minute snack break. The list of accepted posters is also available. Taking place on Sunday April 13, the poster session is a great event for both pres

Travel Grants for Australians and New Zealanders to PyCon in Montréal, April 2014

By Chris  Neugebauer: PyCon Australia and Linux Australia are very pleased to announce that  we're contributing to the travel assistance scheme of PyCon US , the  biggest Python event in the world. PyCon US is next being held in  MontrĂ©al, Canada in April. This means that PyCon will be able to help fund the attendance of more  members of the Python community from Australia and New Zealand. Financial assistance for PyCon is offered to help people who otherwise  couldn't afford to attend the conference, and is offered in the form  of travel subsidies, discounted or free registration, and  accommodation. Basically, if you'll benefit from being at PyCon, or the Python  community will benefit from your attendance, then we want to make sure  you can make it. For further details about the programme, and to apply for funding,  visit  https://us.pycon.org/2014/ assistance/ There's no extra process for qualifying for the extra funding that  we're putting up -- just note t

You should submit a poster! Nov 1 Deadline

While reviewers are hard at work putting together the schedule of talks and tutorials, and we recently closed the window for early submission of lightning talks, there's still another way for you to present at PyCon: the poster session ! The poster session got its start at PyCon 2010 in Atlanta and quickly grew into a very popular event that we're happy to have on the schedule once again for PyCon 2014 in Montreal. We're accepting poster proposals through November 1, so put yours together soon! On Sunday April 13, the last day of the conference, the poster session takes over the expo hall area and offers a great way for people to share their latest projects and ideas via poster. While the presentation medium is low tech, the presentations have been anything but low tech. We've seen some really interesting projects presented over the years, and the makeup of the event has lead to some great conversations that we're still thinking about. Chad Cooper wrote a n

Announcing Keynotes: Van Lindberg, Jessica McKellar, and Fernando Perez

On Monday , we announced the first two keynote speakers for PyCon 2014: Python's creator Guido van Rossum and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, John Perry Barlow. We're happy to announce that Van Lindberg, Jessica McKellar, and Fernando Perez will be joining them in the morning keynote slots! Van Lindberg Van brings a unique background to the keynote stage, being both a technologist and a lawyer. He currently serves  as the Python Software Foundation's chairman , and he's Vice President of Intellectual Property at Rackspace. In 2008 he authored Intellectual Property and Open Source:  A Practical Guide to Protecting Code , and in 2010-11 he served as the chairman of the Atlanta PyCons. He'll be giving the chairman's address, talking about the Python Software Foundation and Python community as a whole. Jessica McKellar Jessica serves on the PSF's board of directors with Van, is an entrepreneur and open source developer, and leads th

Announcing Keynotes: Guido van Rossum and John Perry Barlow

As our early bird sales hum along, about to pass 300 tickets sold, we've got some great news for you: keynotes! We kick off each morning of the Friday through Sunday conference with a few select speakers who address the entire conference in our main ballroom. In recent years we've had speakers like Eben Upton (Raspberry Pi), Stormy Peters (Mozilla), Paul Graham (Y Combinator), Hilary Mason (bit.ly), and Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu). The keynote speakers have been a great way to kick off the day, and they've always brought good topics, good thoughts, and got the community thinking. Our first keynote speaker is none other than Guido van Rossum , Python's creator and Benevolent Dictator for Life. He oversees the development of Python, contributing code and decision making to the project. From its beginnings in the late 80's as a successor to the ABC language, with an initial source offering in 1991, Guido has been there every step of the way. He's currently an en

Lightning Talks Proposals Due October 15th!

PyCon 2014 us.pycon.org/2014 For the first time at PyCon, you can submit a proposal to give a Lightning Talk!  If you missed the earlier call for proposals for the longer talks, you still have a chance to present your beloved subject in front of a large audience. The deadline is coming soon, so hurry up! You have until October 15th, 2013 to propose your 5-minute presentation. If your Lightning Talk is pre-accepted, you will have a reserved slot on the lightning talk schedule. For those who enjoy spontaneity, don’t worry!  We will embrace our tradition of accepting Lightning Talk proposals on site. For more information on submission guidelines, check out our How to Submit a Lightning Proposal , or get inspired by looking through previous year’s lightning talks .

PyConZA starts Thursday!

South Africa’s second PyConZA kicks-off in just three days time in Cape Town! Opening the speaking is Simon Ratcliffe from the Square Kilometre Array talking about constructing a completely Pythonic high-performance data processing chain for the world’s largest radio telescope whose construction is scheduled to start in 2016. The program continues with notable speakers such as Larry Hastings (speaking on Python’s bytecode), Armin Rigo (giving an introduction to STM), Stefan van der Walt (introducing image processing with scikit-image) and Stefano Rivera (explaining how to package Python applications for Debian and Ubuntu). We’re very please this year to have more speakers from elsewhere in Africa including Kisitu Augustine (from Uganda) and Goddy Akpojotor (from Nigeria). Of course a PyCon wouldn’t be a PyCon without lightning talks and open spaces . Lightning talks are happening on Thursday while this year open spaces are running in their own parallel track on b

Registration is Now Open!

The PyCon 2014 organizers are thrilled to announce the opening of registration for the April 9-17 conference, taking place at the Palais des congrès de Montréal in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. This event represents the first of two annual PyCons to take place in Montréal, following a hugely successful two-year run in Santa Clara, California. As with years past, ticket prices remain unchanged, and value is ever increasing. At the close of talk and tutorial proposals last week, a record 565 talks were submitted -- over 100 more than for PyCon 2013. Reviewers have been hard at work to begin shaping the 2014 schedule, which is expected in December. Quantity-based early bird rates are back for 2014, with the cap set at the first 800 tickets receiving the discounted rates. Total sales are initially being kept to 2,000 tickets. For an individual buyer, the regular $350 USD rate is cut 15% for during the early bird period to $300 USD. The $600 USD corporate rate is dropped to $450 USD during

Talk and Tutorial Call Closes, Reviews Begin

As the September 15 deadline for talk and tutorial proposals approached, the Python community contributed yet another record setting group of submissions. Going from PyCon 2012 to 2013, we saw an increase of 80 submissions, bringing 458 proposals through the review system. It made for a lot of work by our volunteer program committee last year, but they did a great job in putting together a fantastic schedule, and our speakers did an amazing job on stage to make the best PyCon yet. For PyCon 2014, you, the community, topped last year by 107, bringing us to a total of 565 talk proposals ! This is simply incredible, especially as we've seen proposals from a wider range of people than ever. We've gotten a lot of proposals from first-timers, including more students than past years. Several user groups got together over the last few months to run brainstorming sessions, and they've produced some excellent proposals. The outreach groups in our community have done the same, and

Talk and Tutorial Proposals Due September 15!

The deadline for PyCon 2014 talk and tutorial proposals is only four days away, with submissions being accepted through Sunday September 15. Once the submission window closes, our volunteer-staffed program committee will begin the process of reviewing each and every proposal, building another great schedule for our April 9-17 conference in MontrĂ©al. Check out our Call for Proposals for the full details on our process. We've also put together a section on proposal resources , and our program committee has come up with a few pieces of  advice that could be helpful when writing up your proposal. Help us create the best PyCon yet by submitting a proposal! To get started, create an account and head to your dashboard , then fill out a speaker bio , then submit your proposal ! Talks and tutorials are due September 15, lightning talks are due October 15, and posters are due November 1.

PyCon Canada 2013 Videos

Thank You! It seems like only yesterday that the first-ever PyCon Canada was announced... And now the second installment has already come and gone! From Aug 9-13th, 400 Pythonistas gathered in Toronto to learn, do, and share with one another. Thanks to the amazing team of volunteers and organizers that donated their time and energy to the cause, everything went off without a hitch! There were many high points throughout the weekend, but perhaps the most consistent praise we heard was how welcomed everyone felt to be there, regardless of background or experience level. Thanks to Google and PyCamp, we were able to greatly increase our diversity grant program this year, and to make PyCon Canada accessible to a large group of attendees who otherwise would have had difficulty attending - many thanks to the both of them! PyCon Canada Videos If you weren't able to make it out to Toronto, but find yourself wishing you could have seen the talks -- never fear! The videos are being

One Month Until Proposals Are Due!

We're now inside the final month of our Call for Proposals for PyCon 2014, with talk and tutorial proposals due on September 15. The conference takes place April 9-17 in Montréal, but we've been hard at work to prepare the event, and we're looking forward to putting together another great schedule. To do this, we need you, the community, to submit your best ideas for talks! We know you're all up to awesome stuff -- we see it all the time. The Python world is as active as ever, with great projects popping up all the time on Hacker News and Reddit, then passed around on Twitter, and making their way to the mailing lists. So not only should you submit a proposal, you should tell your peers to submit them as well! We want to put together not just a schedule we like, but one that you'll like even more, so we can always use help from the audience by bringing us the people and topics you want to see on stage. If you have any topic ideas or speakers you want to se

Financial Aid Program Is Now Open!

We're pleased to announce that we've opened our Financial Aid program for PyCon 2014! The conference takes place April 9-17 in MontrĂ©al, Quebec, Canada, and we're going to be opening up registration this Fall. While we strive to keep PyCon affordable for everyone, the organizers know it's not cheap to spend several days away from home, halfway across the country, continent, or the world. This is a volunteer-led conference where everyone pays, from the attendees up to the chair, so we're all in the same boat. With PyCon's low and long unchanged registration costs, we think it's an incredible value, and with the Python Software Foundation's help, the Financial Aid committee aims to make the experience a possibility for as many people as possible. Take a look at our  assistance philosophy to learn how we go about distributing our budget. In short, we aim to help more individuals over fully funding a smaller amount of individuals, with an edge towards

PyCon 2014 - Summer Update

PyCon 2014 us.pycon.org/2014 Hello, Python Community! I figured it was about time for a PyCon 2014 status update from the chair. It's pretty long, but can be summed up with this call to action:  Please actively encourage all corners of our community and beyond to submit proposals for PyCon 2014 in MontrĂ©al. The deadlines are fast approaching. Do it now! Proposal Deadlines You can submit four different kinds of proposals for PyCon 2014. Please spread the word at your regional user group meetings, at other conferences, during outreach events, on twitter, and in blog posts, etc. 30 & 45 minute  talks  (deadline September 15th ) 5 minute  lightning talks  (deadline October 15th ) 3 hour  tutorials  (deadline September 15th ) posters  (deadline November 1st ) Brian Curtin has written a couple of great blog posts you can link to, more information can be found on the PyCon call for proposals page, and we have new logos you should feel free to use in b

Lightning Talk Proposals - Now Due October 15!

A new thing we're trying for PyCon 2014 is the pre-acceptance of some lightning talks. Lightning talks have been a staple of PyCon since the beginning, and if you're not familiar with them, they're 5 minute talks. We typically have two podiums setup, an emcee coordinating the session, someone with a 5 minute timer (really, it's strict!), and a big list of speakers who jump in, setup their laptop, give their quick talk, jump out, and another one jumps in. It's an awesome way to see a ton of topics shared in a short amount of time. We're not removing the on-site signup that has been ubiquitous with lighting talks at PyCon and elsewhere, because plenty of great spontaneous ideas have been generated at dinner one night, and presented about the next day. Lighting talks have also been a great venue for followups to talks from the previous day. They're also the perfect duration for a ton of other topics, including ones that our community is thinking about right