The PyCon US Blog

Talk selections for PyCon 2013 were intense. We had a ton of submissions to wade through, and our three levels of review were jam packed with some really great proposals. Our expansion from 95 talks to 114 allowed us to take a few more that past years, but it couldn't include everyone. Of the 458 proposals we received, the batch was so good that we could be running two or three PyCons in parallel if that was possible. The community put out their best work and made it really hard for us on the program committee. It was a great problem to have, and we hope to see all of these talks given in some way throughout the year. As the conference season kicks off, consider proposing some of those awesome submissions to conferences around the world. Two CFPs were recently announced for summer conferences: EuroPython is taking place in Florence, Italy from July 1st through the 7th, and their call was opened a few weeks ago. They'll be accepting proposals through March 5th at  https://...

PyCon Australia 2013 is pleased to announce that its Call for Proposals is now open! The conference this year will be held on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 July 2013 in Hobart, Tasmania. We'll also be featuring a day of miniconfs on Friday 5 July. The deadline for proposal submission is Friday April 5, 2013, and more information can be found at  http://pycon-au.org/cfp PyCon Australia attracts professional developers from all walks of life, including industry, government, and science, as well as enthusiast and student developers. We’re looking for proposals for presentations and tutorials on any aspect of Python programming, at all skill levels from novice to advanced. Presentation subjects may range from reports on open source, academic or commercial projects; or even tutorials and case studies. If a presentation is interesting and useful to the Python community, it will be considered for inclusion in the program. We're especially interested in short presentations that will ...

Volunteering Once again, the volunteer staff of PyCon is in search of... more volunteer staff !  Please check out the Volunteer page and see if there is anything that sounds interesting to you. Even if there is nothing specific you would like to help out with, and you just want to help out in general, fill out our Volunteer Form and join the on-site volunteer mailing list; which you can opt out of if yet more e-mail is not your thing. Registration and Swag Handout The Registration Desk and the Swag Handout are in need of some extra help during the peak registration times. This is a great way to help out and not miss any of the core talks. Any time you can give to help out the other attendees would be greatly appreciated. Just add your name to the open slots for the Registration Desk and/or Swag Handout . Please also fill out the Volunteer Form . Session Staff We are in desperate need of people willing to be a part of the PyCon Session Staff , being Session Chairs, an...

PyCon US 2013 is just 19 days away  - scary! It feels like only yesterday we were in Santa Clara with 2300+ other Python Hackers from all over the world! Just a few announcements: PyData Registration still open We want to make sure everyone knows that PyData , which is happening during our sprints, is still open for registration. PyData is an excellent event that lets users and developers of Python tools share ideas and learn from each other how data challenges are being solved. See the PyData talk and tutorial schedule and register for the conference at pydata.org. Follow them on Twitter @pydataconf . Tutorial Registration still open That's right! Our main conference may be sold out - but the  stunning line up of tutorials  we have from seasoned instructor are far from full! You can still join us an expand your mind with this awesome lineup -  register now . Young Coders Tutorial still open Somehow, we haven't run out of tickets for " The Young Coder: L...

Last year was a busy one for PyCon tutorial and talk presenter Brandon Rhodes . His conference trips took him from Santa Clara to his home state of Ohio and up to Toronto, with talks at all of them. PyCon was particularly busy with two tutorials as well as two talks, going with single talks at PyOhio and PyCon Canada later in the year. He also made a busy 2011 for himself with three talks at PyOhio in 2011 after his PyCon tutorial, and gave great dictionary talk the year before at PyCon 2010 with the tutorial that started it all. Save for the tutorials, you can check out those presentations on pyvideo . He’s kicking 2013 off right with a redux of his well received “ Documenting Your Project in Sphinx ” tutorial, giving its fourth run on Thursday March 14 at 9 AM. Started at PyCon 2010 in Atlanta, the tutorial introduces the widely used Sphinx documentation framework, a staple of the Python community. Sphinx lets you focus on writing great documentation rather than inundating the write...

Back in December we announced the opening of applications for inclusion in our Startup Row event in the Expo Hall at PyCon . It's a great chance for your Python-using startup company to get some exposure and meet the community. We're accepting applications to the event through February 28th . The original blog post incorrectly said February 10th, and the actual application said February 29th, which doesn't exist this year. Sorry for any confusion on that. Here are the rules: Seed stage only. For purposes of startup row, that means less than $350K in outside funding or, if self-funded, less than 18 months old. You must use Python somewhere in your startup. Backend, frontend, testing, wherever. No repeats. If you were on startup row last year, your startup is not eligible. We want to give a chance to as many startups as possible. If you are accepted, you must guarantee your attendance for at least the Expo Hall hours on your appointed day. We will work with you as...

A lot of things are selling out around PyCon. We recently sold out conference tickets, and everything else we have left is flying off of the hypothetical shelves. Tutorials are filling up, the first annual sponsor tutorials are going quickly, and we're left with two booths in our Expo Hall. The Expo Hall is a great place for your company to interact with our community. Let them know you're hiring, show off your latest products, whatever makes sense for your organization. It's central to the layout of the conference center, and it's sure to get significant foot traffic with all 2,500 tickets sold. Check out our " Why become a PyCon sponsor? " page for more details. Not only is the Expo Hall great for the company, it's great for PyCon. Sponsorship allows us to "go big" and do some of the things we've introduced this year. We're offering a free kids tutorial , started up the sponsor tutorials , will be running a charity auction , a...

If you’re interested in learning to program, PyCon 2013 is the place to be. Each year the conference draws a wide range of individuals, including those who work on and teach the Python language. The tutorials are an especially great place to be as they’re an affordable way to gain the freshest knowledge from the best in the community. That’s where Jessica McKellar comes in. She’s a PSF board member, Twisted contributor, and organizer of the hugely successful Boston Python Workshop . The group hosts weekend training sessions in Boston, and they’ve been so popular that the methods are being applied around the country. The courses have gotten countless people up and running with Python, and that’s what her PyCon 2013 tutorial aims to do. At 9 AM on Wednesday March 13th, her “ A hands-on introduction to Python for beginning programmers ” gets attendees on their way to loving programming via the Python language. “Thanks to the ‘batteries included’ philosophy and rich package ecosystem, ...

We just hit our capacity of 2,500 attendees for the conference, so registration is now closed! You know what isn't closed? Tutorial registration! We have some excellent tutorials on our schedule this year that you should definitely check out. If you're already registered for the conference, you can add tutorials to your existing account by going to the registration page . If you're not registered for the conference but are interested in coming for the tutorials, you can get started at  https://us.pycon.org/2013/registration/ !

Another new event for PyCon 2013 is our charity auction on Saturday March 16, with the proceeds benefiting PyLadies ! They’ve been a driving force in diversity efforts around the Python community and we’re thankful to have them involved in another PyCon. Their actions have made a significant impact on our call for proposals for tutorials and talks, and their financial aid grants as well as events throughout the conference have made PyCon a better event for everyone. We have a lot of great items lined up for the event, including some from our wonderful friends in the clothing business: Elegant Stitches . They’ve been running a booth for many years at PyCon to sell various Python related items, from t-shirts to laptop bags, and much more. Conference sponsor Eventbrite is also joining the fun with the donation of a two-hour lunch with co-founder and CEO, Kevin Hartz . You never know where this delicious conversation could go! If your company is sponsoring PyCon or you want to donate ite...

If you're planning to join us at PyCon 2013, today would be the day to purchase your ticket. We're down to our last 100 tickets for the March 15-17 conference in Santa Clara, California. https://us.pycon.org/2013/registration/ Take a look at our tutorials , talks , keynote speakers , posters , new sponsor tutorials , Young Coder tutorial for kids , and even a 5K charity race . There's a whole lot more to check out to poke around  https://us.pycon.org/2013/ and sign up before tickets are gone!

Looking for a job? PyCon knows where to find them: the Job Fair. On Sunday March 17th from 10-1:00 PM, we’re hosting our own job fair where you can mingle with the coolest Python-using companies around and see who’s building the next great product, who’s using what tools, and most of all, who’s hiring! Last year’s event was a great success with a lot of traffic and a lot of resumé exchanges. Some companies were even doing mini-interviews at their table. We’re aware of numerous people hired out of the event, so sharpen your skills and take the your newfound knowledge from the previous three days of talks to the table and see who’s hiring. The current list of companies attending the job fair include: Google Eventbrite Walt Disney Animation Studios   Red Hat Spotify Olark Continuum Analytics Counsyl Optimizely TRUECar Enthought Twitter Plivo Lincoln Loop Divio Hearsay Social Guidebook Quantcast Fusionbox ...