It is my pleasure to announce that PyCon 2013 has dropped the price of student registration from the price it has been since 2008 - we have lowered it to $100 (USD).
Part of PyCon has always been community - and outreach. One of the greatest things PyCon, the Python Software Foundation and the community can do is to always strive to lower the cost of attendance for the next generation of Python programmers. PyCon US 2012 was the biggest Python conference in the history of the language - we had more students, a more diverse attendance and more sponsors and attendees than ever.
Most of all - PyCon is about the community. From it's volunteers who pour hundreds of man hours to make PyCon happen, to the speakers, tutorial instructors and poster presenters without whom, PyCon would not be possible. To the myriad of sponsors whose contributions help PyCon happen, and keep it affordable - PyCon is first and foremost a community conference.
This is why I am happy to make this change - if you've read previous posts, you know that PyCon intentionally loses money on attendee registrations to keep the cost of attendance as low as we can for everyone. Students represent a large component of the future of our community and language, and anything we can do to further encourage their attendance is money and time well spent.
This, combined with our continued robust Financial Aid program should make PyCon 2013 even more accessible and attainable to more people than ever. We plan on further partnerships to increase our outreach and conference diversity this year as well - CodeChix, PyLadies, and many other groups are already joining us in this push.
PyCon would not be what it is without you, the community and the sponsors.
We have more surprises, and more plans coming - stay tuned.
-Jesse Noller, Chair PyCon 2013
P.S: As always; we're looking for more sponsors to participate to help make all this happen. We've updated the prospectus, added new benefits and expanded quite a bit. Check out "Why Sponsor PyCon" and the Prospectus for more information.
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