The PyCon US Blog

Another year, another PyCon US, another opportunity for early-stage startups to show off how they use Python on Startup Row. Every PyCon since 2011, the Python Software Foundation has given qualifying early-stage startups complimentary access to the best of what PyCon has to offer. If you’re one of those “apply first and read things later” sorts of folks, first create an account and then click here to get started ! It should only take a few minutes to register and confirm your user account, and then to fill out the form. Applications are due by January 17, 2020! Startup Row at PyCon US is the PSF’s way of giving back to the startup ecosystem, and your opportunity to connect with the thousands of developers, data scientists, researchers, students, and enthusiasts who come to PyCon US each year. Does your startup qualify? Here are the criteria: You use Python somewhere in your tech or business stack (open source, proprietary, data science, machine learning, orchestration, marke...

The PyCon US Hatchery Program has become a fundamental part of how PyCon as a conference adapts to best serve the Python community as it grows and changes with time. Initially we wanted to gauge community interest for this type of program, and since launching in 2018 we have learned more about what kind of events the community might propose. At the end of the inaugural program, we accepted the PyCon Charlas as our first Hatchery event which has grown into a permanent track offered at PyCon US. PyCon US 2019 presented 3 new hatchery programs, Mentored Sprints, the Maintainers Summit, and the Art of Python. This year we are hoping to continue that growth, and are encouraging more organizers to propose their event ideas. If you are intrigued by the idea of proposing a hatchery event you may also want to look at Sumana Harihareswara's excellent write ups of both the motivation and execution of the Art of Python. The long-term goals of this program are to support and grow sus...

PyCon US 2020 is opening applications for Financial Aid today, and we’ll be accepting them through January 31, 2020. To apply, first set up an account on the site, and then you will be able to fill out the application through your dashboard . The financial aid program aims to bring many folks to PyCon by limiting the maximum grant amount per person; in that way, we can offer support to more people based on individual need. The financial aid program reimburses direct travel costs including transportation, hotel, and childcare, as well as offering discounted or waived registration tickets. For complete details, see our FAQ , and contact pycon-aid@python.org with further questions. The Python Software Foundation & PyLadies make Financial Aid possible. This year, the Python Software Foundation is contributing $130,000 USD towards financial aid and PyLadies will contribute as much as they can based on the contributions they get throughout 2019. For more information about...

The time is upon us again! PyCon 2020’s Call for Proposals has officially opened for talks, tutorials, posters, education summit, and charlas. PyCon is made by you, so we need you to share what you’re working on, how you’re working on it, what you’ve learned, what you’re learning, and so much more. Please make note of important deadlines for submissions: Tutorial proposals are due November 22, 2019. Talk, Charlas, Poster, and Education Summit proposals are due December 20, 2019. We need beginner, intermediate, and advanced proposals on all sorts of topics as well as beginner, intermediate, and advanced speakers to present talks. You don’t need to be a 20-year veteran who has spoken at dozens of conferences. On all fronts, we need all types of people. That’s what this community is comprised of, so that’s what this conference’s schedule should be made from. Who can help you with your proposal Outside of our program committee, a great source ...

After 2 successful years in Cleveland, OH, PyCon 2020 and PyCon 2021 will be moving to Pittsburgh, PA! Head over to us.pycon.org/2020 to check out the look for PyCon 2020. Our bold design includes the Roberto Clemente Bridge, also known as the Sixth Street Bridge, which spans the Allegheny River in downtown Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Steelmark, was originally created for United States Steel Corporation to promote the attributes of steel: yellow lightens your work; orange brightens your leisure; and blue widens your world. The PPG Building, is a complex in downtown Pittsburgh, consisting of six buildings within three city blocks and five and a half acres. Named for its anchor tenant, PPG Industries, who initiated the project for its headquarters, the buildings are all of matching glass design consisting of 19,750 pieces of glass. Also included in the design are a fun snake, terminal window, and hardware related items. Sponsor Opportunities Sponsors help keep PyCon affordab...

PyCon 2019 Transparency Report The PyCon Code of Conduct sets standards for how our community interacts with others during the conference. 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. In our efforts to continue to improve how PyCon handles CoC incidents, staff, volunteers and community members participated in a CoC training prior to PyCon 2019. In having more people trained we provided a more thorough process for reporting and responses. With that in mind, we have prepared the following to help the community understand what kind of incidents we received reports about and how the PyCon staff responded. Overview Reports This year, PyCon Staff and Incident Responders were notified of 11 incidents. For summary purposes we categorized e...

PyCon is here and so are the PyCon Sprints (May 6 - 9). For those who have not heard of OR attended the Sprints, we want to invite you to attend! The PyCon Sprints are a time set aside for you and the developers of your favorite tools to work TOGETHER to make those tools better: fix bugs, add features, and improve documentation. It is also a place for you to invite others to work on your project. There are a number of initiatives at PyCon every year to help ensure that the Sprints go off without a hitch. Sat : Mentored Sprints ( New this year, registration required, currently sold out ) Sun : Sprint Leader presentations/ project descriptions Sun : "Intro to Sprints" workshop Mon-Thu : the Sprints ! What can you expect at each of these events? Mentored Sprints (Saturday) : These are new this year and are a chance for attendees from groups traditionally underrepresented in the open source community to have hands-on support in a welcoming environment during their...

Building the PSF: the Q2 2019 Fundraiser Thank you to everyone who has donated to our past fundraisers! Donations, memberships, and sponsorships support sprints, meetups, community events, Python documentation, fiscal sponsorships, software development, and community projects. We can’t do any of this without your financial contributions. We’ve just launched a new fundraiser for 2019! Please donate today and help us meet our goal of $60,000 by May 22nd! Your donations have IMPACT! The PSF awarded $118,543 in financial aid to 143 PyCon attendees in 2018 $324,000 was paid in grants in 2018 to recipients in 51 different countries Donations and fundraisers resulted in $489,152 of revenue. This represents 15% of our total 2018 revenue.  PSF and PyCon sponsors contributed over $1,071K in revenue! We understand the need for transparency and hope to help our community and stakeholders find necessary information about the PSF in a single place. We’re proud to launch our first...

Introducing Facebook and Instagram PyCon 2019 Principal Sponsors! Facebook and Instagram have been big supporters of the Python language through sponsored development of PyTorch and Pyre. This year the PSF is proud to have Facebook and Instagram as Principal Sponsors of our foundation and PyCon 2019 in Cleveland. They want to share the variety of ways they're not only using Python but how they’ve implemented it in creating, teaching, and developing their programs. We spoke with them to find out more about their recent efforts in the Python community, and here’s what they had to share regarding the integration of Python in their systems by team. Facebook Production Engineering

 There are engineers within Facebook that are 100% focused on maintaining the Python infrastructure of the other developers that use Python. There's a whole category of software written at Facebook that's basically like the glue that holds all the other software together. The vast majority o...

The PyCon staff is saddened to hear that one of our sponsors, DataCamp, had an incident where one of their employees was sexually harassed. We were also distressed to find it was unclear if Datacamp had addressed this incident with the seriousness it requires. PyCon and the Python Software Foundation take this issue seriously and we want to emphasize---for Datacamp and everyone---that such behavior is not tolerated at PyCon or any Python Software Foundation affiliated event. The Python community must hold itself to a higher standard. We would like to reemphasize our values of inclusiveness and a willingness to act on behalf of the vulnerable members of our community as written in the Python Software Foundation code of conduct , and our guidelines, as written up in the PyCon code of conduct . The Python Software Foundation Board, Python Software Foundation Executive Director, and myself have taken time to discuss the situation taking into account the concerns of our community, pub...

A big welcome and thank you to Capital One for joining the PSF as a Principal sponsor! Capital One is also a PyCon 2019 Principal sponsor and is excited to share a few things with attendees, including a deeper look at their intelligent virtual assistant, Eno. Eno’s NLP models were built in-house with Python. Eno is a key component of the customer experience at Capital One, proactively looking out for customers and their money. Eno notifies customers about unusual transactions or duplicate charges, helping to spot fraud in its tracks. It also sends bill reminders and makes paying your bill as easy as sending a text or emoji; plus, its new virtual card capabilities let customers shop online without using their real credit card number. The benefits they’ve seen by developing Eno with Python are numerous: fast time to market, the ability to prototype and iterate quickly, ease of integration with machine learning frameworks, and extensive support for everything we need (like Kafka an...

Introducing our 2019 Keystone Sponsor: Microsoft! Our top sponsors — companies who step forward to make the biggest investment in PyCon and its community — not only use Python for their own development but also offer Python as a crucial tool for their own customers. That is certainly true of PyCon’s Keystone Sponsor this year. I recently caught up with the Python Team at Microsoft to talk about how they're using Python and was excited to hear what they had to say. Q: Is your organization using Python in any surprising ways? Yes, and in many surprising ways! To mention just three examples: We have large swaths of data scientists whose jobs rely around Jupyter Notebooks. This includes our security analysis team , which is constantly working to identify new security threats and protecting literally billions of users of Windows, Office, and our cloud services for consumers and businesses—every day. Python is an important part of the CI/CD pipelines that are executed thousand...

We are all very excited that, once again, PyCon will sell out.  Time is running out so act fast if you are planning to attend, there are 60 tickets left as of April 12th at 11:00am central time. Time is moving fast! Things to remember: Hotels: PyCon Hotel Blocks are sold out, we suggest using online hotel booking sites to search for the best options near the Huntington Convention Center Hotel changes and cancellations should be made by contacting the hotels directly.   Hotel cancellations should be made directly with the individual properties 48 hours prior to arrival to avoid a one night cancellation charge Dietary Restrictions: If you indicated 'dietary allergy' when registering and have not provided specifics, please email pycon-reg@python.org with your dietary restrictions. Registration Cancellation Deadline: April 19th is the final date to submit an email requesting a conference registration cancellation for the $50.00 ($25.00 for students) can...

We are excited to be finalizing plans for PyCon 2019.  In our continued efforts to provide you as much information ahead of the conference as possible, we would like to inform you of the planned meals. We are excited to share with you some new features, please visit the website using the button below. Introducing the new menu page on the PyCon website! This page lists all menu items being offered for each meal. As we get closer to the conference we will try to list more detailed ingredients, allowing you to be informed prior to each day. Tutorial Days, May 1st and 2nd  Lunch:  will be buffet style providing VGN(Vegan), VEG(Vegetarian), and AVG(Avoid Gluten) options. Kosher and Allergy Needs:  Location details will be posted on the webpage when available. Conference Days, May 3rd and May 4th Breakfast:  buffet style, providing VGN(Vegan), VEG(Vegetarian), and AVG(Avoid Gluten) option.  Lunch:  we are excited to be offering ...

Volunteers are what makes PyCon such a successful event.  There are over 400 volunteer hours for over 15 different events that need to be filled.  This means there are options to fit everyone's interests. Session Staff - an important piece in keeping things running smoothly. Green Room Staff - assist speakers in making sure they are ready to present. Registration Desk - a great way to meet attendees and be their first contact at the conference. Swag Bag - there are lots of people needed to help with Swag Bag stuffing and this is a fun event! Tutorial hosts - need to be onsite May 1st and May 2nd. Language Summit Greeters - need to be onsite May 1st. Young Coders Set-up and Assistance Hatchery sessions   PyLadies Auction - be sure you have a ticket to attend. 5K Fun Run - for all you early risers! Note: All volunteers need to be registered for the conference. Please help and sign up here  as a volunteer!

With great excitement, we're happy to announce the much anticipated (and admittedly delayed) lineups for PyCon 2019's Talks, Charlas, Posters Session, and Education Summit. 2019 Talks and Charlas Schedule 2019 Posters Lineup 2019 Education Summit Schedule This is an excellent moment to recognize the volunteer teams that organize the calls for proposal, review all of the submissions, and construct a schedule! Their hard work provides the foundation for a vibrant conference with something for everyone. PyCon Program Committee Chair: Jason Myers Co-Chairs: Lorena Mesa & Jackie Kazil And the 34 volunteer reviewers! PyCon Charlas Team Chair: Maricela Sánchez Co-Chairs: Mario Corchero and Naomi Ceder PyCon Posters Committee Chair: Rebecca Bilbro Co-Chairs: Kristen McIntyre, Nathan Danielsen, and Natalie Serebryakova Education Summit Committee Chair: Meenal Pant Co-Chairs: Jessica Ingrasselino, Chalmer Lowe, Elizabeth Wickes, and Jeff ...

The highly anticipated PyCon 2019 tutorial schedule is now available! The tutorial schedule for Wednesday May 1, 2019 and Thursday May 2, 2019 can be found here . Registration for tutorials is open! For those who have already registered for the conference and are returning to add tutorials, login to the PyCon dashboard and go to the registration page . There will be an indication that ‘You are registered for PyCon 2019’, just click ‘Add Options/Tutorials' Don’t forget to reserve your hotel room ! Please take advantage of the negotiated rates we have with the surrounding hotels by booking your reservation through the PyCon 2019 hotel reservation system.

The PyCon Hatchery program was introduced last year to allow for the addition to PyCon of new tracks, summits, demos, or any other imaginable events which share and fulfill the mission of the Python Software Foundation. The Hatchery program was first run as a trial in 2018, welcoming the PyCon Charlas as it’s inaugural program. This year we are happy to have built upon that trial and are delighted to have received so many proposals and to have accepted many more events! PyCon Charlas will be returning in 2019, PyCon Charlas ("charla" is the Spanish word for conference "talk") will be a full day track of Python talks en Español and is open to the entire Python community. This track will showcase Spanish speaking Pythonistas from a variety of countries. Their schedule will launch later this week so stay tuned! us.pycon.org/2019/hatchery/charlas. New this year for PyCon 2019! The Art of Python is a miniature arts festival focusing on narrative, performance, and visu...

Now that registration and planning are well underway for PyCon 2019 in Cleveland, the PSF is pleased to announce that the home for PyCon 2020 and 2021 will be Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! The conference will be held in the beautiful David L. Lawrence Convention Center on April 15-23, 2020 and May 12-20, 2021. Photo: David L. Lawrence Convention Center The Steel City is built around the convergence of the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela rivers and offers an understated mix of arts, culture, and technology. Join the Pittsburgh Python User Group for a meetup, eat dinner in a converted train station at the Grand Concourse , take a century-old cable car up the Duquesne Incline to see stunning views of the city, or visit the Robot Hall of Fame at the Carnegie Science Center's roboworld® exhibit . While you're out and about, see if you can count all 446 bridges in the city (that's more than you'll find in Venice, Italy)! In Pittsburgh, you'll find that the residen...