The PyCon US Blog

It seems like  PyCon 2018  was just last week, but the 2019 edition will be here before we know it. We want to say thanks to all our sponsors who helped make the conference a huge success. This year, we welcomed 3,260 attendees from 48 different countries around the world, strengthening the connection in our beloved community even more.  The invaluable and generous support of our PyCon sponsors enables the Python Software Foundation to help and improve the Python community worldwide by promoting sprints, meetups, events, projects, fiscal sponsorships, software development, open source projects and the Python Ambassador Program – which helps the creation of communities where Python is not well known.  PyCon sponsorship enabled us to award $118,543 USD in financial aid to 143 attendees in 2018. It also generates 80% of the PSF's revenue, making financial aid, conferences, workshops, and training support possible.  As a result, in 2017 $271,138 was awarded to...

The PyCon Code of Conduct sets standards for how our community interacts with others during the conference. For 2018 the Code of Conduct underwent an extensive overhaul, our procedures for reporting and responding to incidents were improved, and our on-site methods were improved. You can read more about the updates for 2018  here . Cumulatively these changes were meant to improve the safety, welcoming nature, and overall inclusivity of PyCon. Based on initial responses, feedback, and incidents reported this year we feel that we made progress on those goals. A Code of Conduct without appropriate reporting and response procedures is difficult to enforce transparently, and furthermore a lack of transparency in the outcomes of Code of Conduct incidents leaves the community without knowledge of how or if the organizers worked to resolve incidents. With that in mind, we have prepared the following to help the community understand what kind of incidents we received reports about a...

These meetup-like events are a great way to learn something new or connect with others who share similar interests. Due to their self-organized nature and the breadth of topics, there is bound to be an Open Space event that can enrich your conference experience. In the past, Open Spaces have included a wide range of topics such as natural language processing, web frameworks, yoga, and playing board games. Any topic that two or more attendees are interested in could be a good candidate for an Open Space. Open Spaces are held during the three main conference days in meeting rooms reserved for these events. Any attendee can create an Open Space event and reserve a room by adding a card to the Open Spaces boards found near the registration desk. Checking these boards regularly during the conference, subscribing to the hashtag #PyConOpenSpace, and following @openspacesbot on Twitter are ways to keep informed about upcoming Open Spaces. Promoting your Open Space  If you decide to h...

With PyCon 2018 approaching, I’m excited to share some work that the PyCon staff, volunteers, and Python Software Foundation have undertaken in preparation! The Python community and thus the PyCon community is always evolving and growing. In light of this it is crucial that we periodically reconsider and adjust the way that we interact within these communities. In 2012 PyCon adopted a Code of Conduct to foster a more welcoming environment at the conference and provide policies and procedures for addressing violations. Each year since, changes have been adopted to work towards our goal of an enjoyable and fulfilling conference for all attendees. For 2018, we took a larger step and worked with a third party expert from   Otter Tech   to reevaluate and improve our Code of Conduct, reporting procedures, and staff response procedures. Sage from   Otter Tech   came with a resounding recommendation from   North Bay Python   organizers. In this post, I’d l...

Foreword from the Chair: The PyCon staff, volunteers, tutorial presenters, speakers, poster presenters, and community members have been hard at work preparing for PyCon 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio. Along the way, we’ve gotten a chance to have some solid discussions about what makes PyCon good as well as where it can improve. In February one of those discussions was around the dates when PyCon 2018 will be occurring, specifically the conflict with Mother’s Day 2018. The outcome of that discussion was a commitment by the PyCon staff to better communicate what decisions and compromises were made along the way and how they were considered. PyCon is run by the Python Software Foundation, which is a grant giving non-profit. Many misunderstand or are unaware of this relationship, but the Python Software Foundation relies on maintaining a strict budget for the operation of PyCon in order to continue its grants programs and other financial responsibilities. The PyCon staff and Python Softwa...

International travel to the United States has become a greater risk for many in our community. In light of current conditions, PyCon is providing additional support for international travelers. If you are travelling internationally to PyCon, take note of the following information. Financial Aid applicants should take note of additional information specific to that process in the second section. For All International Travellers to PyCon In order to better assist our international community, we have extended the following clauses from the 2017 refund policy for Financial Aid recipients to our refund policy for all attendees of PyCon:  If despite holding a visa you are denied entry upon arrival to the United States, then after you pursue and receive whatever refund your airline might be able to offer, PyCon wants to send you enough money to cover the rest of the cost of your airfare. You will need to document that you indeed arrived in the United States and were denied entry...

Nos alegra anunciar el primer programa de la "Hatchery" (incubadora) en la historia de la PyCon: “PyCon Charlas”. PyCon Charlas será un día entero con un track de charlas en español abierto a toda la comunidad que tendrá lugar en la PyCon US. Click here to scroll to English version ¿Por qué estamos tan emocionados? Porque será el primer evento dentro del nuevo  programa de "Hatchery"(incubación)  que ha sido creado para apoyar y dar un espacio a la comunidad para presentar nuevos eventos dentro de la PyCon. Además será el primer track de charlas de la PyCon US que se dará en un lenguaje diferente al inglés. Un porcentaje significativo de la población estadounidense, más del 12%, habla español y las comunidades hispanohablantes de python en America Latina y Europa están creciendo rápidamente con una gran aceptación en conferencias y reuniones. PyCon Charlas dará visibilidad a los pythonistas hispanohablantes dándoles un espacio en la PyCon más grande del ...

Teachers, educators, and Python users: come and share your projects, experiences, and tools of the trade you use to teach coding and Python to your students. The Annual Python Education Summit is held in conjunction with PyCon 2018, taking place on Thursday May 10. Our Call for Proposals is open until January 3rd, and we want to hear from you! See  https://us.pycon.org/2018/speaking/education-summit/  for more details. What we look for in Education Summit talks are ideas, experiences, and best practices on how teachers and programmers have implemented instruction in their schools, communities, books, tutorials, and other places of learning by using Python. Have you implemented a program that you've been dying to talk about? Have you tried something that failed but learned some great lessons that you can share? Have you been successful implementing a particular program? We urge anyone in this space to submit a talk! We’re looking for people who want to share their kno...

Tutorial Deadline Approaching! We’re only a few days away from the deadline for PyCon tutorials—November 24—so be sure to get your submissions in by the end of the day Friday! We’re looking for all sorts of tutorials to help our community learn and level up, so be sure to check out our Call for Proposals for more details and enter your proposal in your dashboard soon! Talk, Poster, and Education Summit proposals are due January 3. See https://us.pycon.org/2018/speaking  for all of your proposal needs. Registration We opened our registration a few weeks ago and are 40% of the way through our Early Bird pricing, which gives discounted rates to the first 800 tickets sold. For corporate tickets, you’ll save over 20% by buying early, and individuals save over 12%. The regular $125 student tickets are dropped to $100 during early sales. Click here  for more details and to register! If our Financial Aid program can help you attend PyCon, we encourage your application. We’...

Startup Row provides free booth space in PyCon’s expo hall to early-stage startups building products and services with Python. In our first year, Solomon Hykes—founder of Docker—joined. Famous Pythonistas previously featured on Startup Row include Wes McKinney, Andrew Godwin, Audrey Roy Greenfeld, and Danny Roy Greenfeld. This year, Startup Row launches our road show with pitch events in both Chicago and London. On November 13th, Braintree hosts PyCon Startup Row at their Chicago headquarters. Joining as special guests are Naomi Ceder, chair of the Python Software Foundation, and Ewa Jodlowska, the PSF’s Director of Operations and an Officer Director of the PSF Board. For Chicago, we are featuring the following companies: 4Degrees – A data-driven, contextually-aware discovery and management platform for professional relationships. Monument – A secure, connected hard drive for personal photo storage and backups, with AI-powered tagging and search. NextHealthChoice – Reducing ...

We’re thrilled to announce the opening of registration for PyCon 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio! The prior six PyCons have sold out, so prepare for another one and get your tickets early. The first 800 tickets sold are priced at an early bird discount , saving over 20% on corporate tickets and over 12% on individual tickets. Students save $25 if they purchase early! To get started, create an account and head to https://us.pycon.org/2018/registration/ to get your tickets! You get a package that is hard to beat when you register for PyCon. The conference itself is three days worth of our community’s 95 best talks, amazing keynote speakers each morning, and our famed lightning talks to close out each day, but it’s much more than that. It’s having over 3,000 people in one place to learn from and share with. It’s joining a conversation in the hallway with the creators of open source projects. It’s taking yourself from beginner to intermediate, or intermediate to advanced. For some, it’s get...

PyCon is known around the world as the Python community’s premier event, attracting people from 39 countries. Outside of the main track of talks, PyCon is home to a growing number of additional events such as Young Coders, the Education Summit, Language Summit, Poster Session, among others. The conference strives to be globally representative by promoting diversity and inclusion through these additional events and outreach programs. Our community works to meet these goals year on year. In the past, we have received requests to add events to PyCon but have not had the resources to make them work. Although we are still limited on staff resources, we are proposing a stepping point that may lead us in the right direction. What is the end goal? We want to support our community and enable them to add events to PyCon that are important to our community. The long-term goals of this program are to support and grow sustainable events that will become a recurring part of PyCon itself or f...

Even though PyCon prides itself on being an affordable conference, registration is one of several expenses an attendee must incur, and it’s likely the smallest one. Flying, whether halfway around the world or from a few hundred miles away, is more expensive. Staying in a hotel for a few days is also more expensive. All together, the cost of attending a conference can become prohibitively expensive. That’s where our Financial Aid program comes in. We’re opening applications for Financial Aid today, and we’ll be accepting them through February 15, 2018. Once you have an account on the site, you can apply here or through your dashboard . We offer need-based grants to enable people from across our community to attend PyCon. The criteria for evaluating requests takes into account several things, such as whether the applicant is a student, unemployed, or underemployed; their geographic location; and their involvement in both the conference and the greater Python community. Those ...