The PyCon US Blog

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...

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...

We're pleased to announce that we've opened our Financial Aid program for PyCon 2014! The conference takes place April 9-17 in Montréal, 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 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 Montréal. 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...

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...