The PyCon US Blog

While the cost of PyCon includes breakfast and lunch as well as coffee and snacks, dinner is on your own, and for good reason. It's Montréal! Get out and enjoy the city, find some good food and drink, and hang out with new groups of people. To make it even easier, this year we've organized another series of PyCon Dinners , one led by Jessica McKellar and one by Brandon Rhodes. These events are a great way to wrap up the first day of PyCon, taking place Friday April 10 at 6 PM, with a great three course meal with new and old friends. As 60% of attendees surveyed last year stated it was their first PyCon, these dinners are a great way to kick off the weekend and make new connections and setup plans for more dinners or other late night festivities. Jessica is a director of the Python Software Foundation and has been instrumental in outreach efforts around the Python community, especially when it comes to PyCon. She's also a contributor to Twisted and has worked a lot with

We are pleased to announce the speakers/talks for the   2015 Python Education Summit , held during   PyCon  on Thursday   April 9th, 2015 , is a gathering of teachers and educators focused on bringing coding literacy, through Python, to as broad a group of audiences as possible.  We invite educators from all venues to consider joining the discussion, share insights, learn new techniques and tools and generally share their passion for education. We are looking for educators from many venues: authors; schools, colleges, universities; community-based workshops; online programs; and government. Talk Schedule Please take a look at the full list of talks .   If you are interested in joining us please visit our  registration page . We hope to see you there! Note:   All Scheduled Speakers are eligible for 'Early Bird pricing' for attendance at PyCon.  Two Rounds of Lightning Talks In addition to the scheduled talks, we will have two rounds of Lightning Talks (morning and af

Never tried sprinting at PyCon? Try it this year! As long as there has a been a PyCon, the sprints have been part of it. This year the grand tradition of sprinting will continue with an ever growing list of projects taking advantage of the venue and the right-after-PyCon timing to come together and write some serious code. Sprints have always welcomed newcomers, because both sides benefit - the projects gain from fresh eyes and brains, and the new sprinters usually find that they gain enormous insights into a particular problem or library, into Python, and even into coding in general. While sprinting has always been a great thing to try, this year we're adding some features to make it an even better experience for first time sprinters. First of all, we'll be holding an "Intro to Sprinting" workshop on Sunday night before the sprints start. Presented by the folks from Open Hatch, this session will help bring you up to speed on what to expect while sprint

We're once again excited to offer our free tutorials for kids! Called " The Young Coder: Let's Learn Python ", we invite kids 12 and over to join us for a day of learning how to program using Python.  We first offered the Young Coders tutorial at PyCon 2013 in Santa Clara and it was an immediate hit. The followup blog post from that event is the most popular post in our blog's history. Kids came from all over to attend it. One flew from South Africa and helped teach other kids. I gave my laptop to a girl who took the tutorial and wanted to attend Richard Jones' PyGame tutorial the next day. Overall, it was so awesome to see kids so excited about learning, about computers, and about Python. Last year, our second year offering the tutorial and our first year in Montréal, the tutorial was offered both in French and English. We're going to be offering the same this year: a French version of the tutorial will take place on Saturday April 11 , and an Englis

A guest post by  Geek Girls Carrots . Django Carrots – PyCon Edition  is a one-day, intensive, free programming workshop for anyone who wants to learn how to code. When:  Monday April 13th , at  PyCon 2015 Where:  Palais de Congres  in Montreal More information:  Workshop description Cost: Free! Organized by  Geek Girls Carrots  (GGC), the Django Carrots curriculum emphasizes individual contact between the student and mentor (before, during and after the workshop), a horizontal structure (students learn from mentors but also from each other), and sharing general knowledge about communities, organization and internet resources to help our participants after the workshop. How can I sign up? ​Please fill out this  registration form .  Registration is open from February 2nd to March 1st . Everyone who registered should get a response before March 5th. You do not need a ticket for PyCon to attend the Django Carrots workshop during PyCon, but we strongly encourage you to