The PyCon US Blog

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

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

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

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 .