The PyCon US Blog

We are glad to announce that the registration for PyCon Japan is open . You can now buy tickets for the conference/party before the date in case we reach the fixed number. Don't miss the opportunity to meet us. The PyCon Japan 2012 will be in Tokyo from September 15(Sat) to 16(Sun) (2days). There is an English track for foreign developers and keynote speaker is Armin Ronacher . Also, PyCon JP Party will be held at night of Day 1 (September 15). One more opportunity, Sprint Day is September 17(Mon, National holiday) . Everyone can join with no fee the Sprint even if you're not able to attend the conference/party. We're looking forward to seeing all of you in Tokyo!

We are pleased to announce the keynote speaker for PyCon Japan 2012 - Armin Ronacher of Pocoo Team . Armin Ronacher is one of the founding members of the Pocoo Team, a group of enthusiastic Python developers responsible for the Sphinx Documentation Tool, the Jinja2 template engine and more. Recently he developed the Flask micro-framework. He is currently working for Fireteam , a game services company in London. Currently, we are accepting your Call for Proposals until 30 June . There is an English track in PyCon Japan and we are willing to communicate with foreign developers. Send your proposal and join us on this opportunity!

The second PyCon JP 2012 in Japan, will be held at Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology University in Tokyo, 15(Sat.), 16(Sun) September . It will be for 2 days and feature 3 tracks. Also, 17(Mon.) September will be for the Sprint day. Now, we're accepting your proposal. If you would like to participate, visit the PyCon JP 2012 CFP page for more information. Submission deadline is 30 June . Main sessions will be in Japanese in order to increase accessibility of local audience, however any proposal in English are equally accepted. (This conference can be a good chance for local developers to communicate with developers in the world.) For more information on http://2012.pycon.jp/en/index.html . Any questions and comments are welcome, email to us (contact at pycon dot jp). WE ARE WAITING YOUR PROPOSAL NOW!

tl;dr: PyCon Australia early bird registrations are now open! Find out more at http://2012.pycon-au.org/register/prices , including details of our accommodation programme. PyCon Australia is excited to announce that early bird conference registrations are now available for our 2012 conference, to be held on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 August in Hobart, Tasmania. Early bird registration will be extended to the first 60 confirmed conference registrations, or until Friday 1 June, whichever comes first. PyCon Australia is the national conference for students, enthusiasts and professionals working with the Python programming language; it represents a unique opportunity for Python developers to meet fellow developers, and gain knowledge from experts and core Python developers from around Australia and the world. Securing your registration during the early bird period ensures your place at all of the events that PyCon Australia has to offer. Early bird registration comes with a substa...

Just a quick note: If you ordered business cards through our partnership with MOO - they can be picked up at the registration desk!

We're pleased to announce that PyCon 2012 is offering a charging valet - need your phone, laptop, or tablet charged? Swing by registration and talk to Mary Rush or another volunteer - we have an array of adapters, etc. We will keep your items safe behind the registration desk, and give you tickets to get only your item back! While this is a free service - the PSF, who hosts PyCon, is taking donations via Square or at the registration desk if you drop off your device.

PyCon is a great place to network with fellow developers, but there’s another network you’ll want to interact with: the wireless network. Unlike years past, we’re not running our own networks, instead having the conference center manage it. This year, the duties will be handled by Smart City Networks , a telecom services provider to trade shows around the US, including the Santa Clara Convention Center where PyCon will be hosted. Here are some pieces of information that you should be aware of: 1. We have 50mbps dedicated to our own wireless network. 2. All connections are throttled to 512kbps up and down outside of the local LAN. 3. Networking for sprints is being handled separately, and we will follow up with those details either at the sprints or during the sprint kickoff. Because of the increased attendance of PyCon, these connection restrictions had to be put in to ensure the conference could remain affordable to all. We, and all other conference goers, would appreciate you...

Chris Boesch (right) handing Dmitrii (left) his 1st prize MacBook Air at PyCon 2011 We are very proud to once again have Chris Boesch running a SingPath python coding tournament at PyCon. This is a rapid fire python problem solving competition. You don't need to be a python expert to solve the problems, just a sharp mind and a love of coding. The event will be held Saturday, March 10th in the main ballroom at 7:00 PM. The tournament will have 2 rounds consisting of approximately 10 problems per round. The first round typically consist of easier problems in order to encourage less experienced software developers to play and to enable new SingPath players to become more comfortable with the interface. As players solve problems, a live ranking screen is displayed for spectators to watch and for commentators to provide commentary. Usually, the top 20-30 players from the first round are declared eligible to compete for prizes in the second round. During the second r...

Wrap up the second day of the conference, Saturday March 10, with an evening of food, drinks, and hanging out at David’s Restaurant with the PyLadies group . Conference sponsor SurveyMonkey is sponsoring the party, and it’s sure to be a good time. The restaurant is around a half-mile from the convention center and Hyatt Regency, so take a quick walk and join the fun! Stop by booth #400 in the expo hall during the conference and say hi to the PyLadies team. Space at the party is limited so be sure you stop by the booth, introduce yourself and learn about the latest activities and initiatives the ladies are up to, and pick up your tickets. If you’re interested and have an account on Meetup, join the event !

This post by Jessica McKellar originally appeared at the OpenHatch blog Python practice at PyStar Philly 2 I want to share an e-mail I received recently from a woman named Pam. It is a response to an e-mail I sent to the DevChix mailing list , calling on DevChixen to attend PyCon , the largest annual Python conference, and submit posters for the PyCon poster session :   Holy wow. I've had your email starred since you sent it, and only just now realized that you're the Jess who was at PyStar Philly.   Because of this email: I decided to try to go to PyCon I submitted a poster Said poster was accepted I applied for money with PyLadies to go I'll hopefully be going, and it will be awesome   This is an amazing e-mail. It is a response to an e-mail to the DevChix mailing list , which is "an international group of female programmers working to make the tech community a better place for everyone." Pam attended the first PyStar Philly , an intro to Pyt...

Monday begins four excellent days of sprints. Most projects, teams, or individuals use the days to sit down and hack. A lot of people use the sprints to get acquainted with contribution to a new project. Some spend time planning out redesigns, releases, etc. You can use the sprint days to do whatever you want to -- they're just open rooms with tables, power plugins, and Wi-Fi. Development sprints are a key part of PyCon, a chance for the contributors to open-source projects to get together face-to-face for up to four days of intensive learning, development and camaraderie. Newbies sit with gurus, go out for lunch and dinner together, and have a great time while advancing their project. What's a sprint? PyCon Development Sprints are four days of intensive learning and development on an open source project of your choice, in a team environment. It's a time to come together with colleagues, old and new, to share what you've learned and apply it to an open source...

Sunday is usually a wind down day at most conferences, but not PyCon. We kick things into high gear! We may only have two sessions of talks, but that is because we have filled the rest of the time with pure awesome. Sponsor Raffle Our sponsors are very generous and have provided a large amount of items to be given away to attendees. We have streamlined the processes this year, but you will not want to miss the morning announcements for an extra special giveaway! Guido van Rossum The creator of the Python programming language will be giving the final Keynote ; one you will not want to miss. What better way to start the final day of the conference than hearing from the man who started it all? Guido is even asking the community what they'd like to him to talk about at his Google+ page . Jobs Fair Our sponsors are hiring . In fact they are having a very hard time finding talented Python programmers. Luckily PyCon is chock full of exceptionally talented Python programmer...

Inaugural PyCon 5K This year we have the inaugural PyCon 5K , a charity run supporting the Autism Speaks , the American Cancer Society , and the Epilepsy Foundation charities. The run starts at 7:00AM Saturday Morning. Registration for this run is still open (but you will miss out on t-shirts), but and if you don't want to run, you can still show your support by volunteering to hand out water or just cheer the runners on. Power Valet Have many electronic devices which need charging? Having a hard time finding an open outlet around the conference space? Stop by the registration desk's Power Valet station. For a free will donation to the PSF we will watch your electronic device while it charges at our secure registration desk. We have USB chargers, but a limited number of cables. As such it is recommended that you supply your own USB charging cable or wall charger. Lightning talks As we mentioned yesterday , these PyCon favorites are 5 minute talks, presented in ra...

The day does not end with the talk schedule at PyCon. Yelp Dining Transportation We have mentioned this before , but it bears repeating. PyCon sponsor Yelp will help you find a dining destination, and provide you the means of getting there. Yelp will have a bus service set up to manage transportation between the conference venue to a select number of areas. Each bus will have a Yelp developer to help with venue selection. The bus service will start at 6:30 PM Friday and Saturday evening. Birds of a Feather Sessions Birds of a feather ( BoF ) sessions are where attendees gather to discuss a common topic, much like Open Space talks discussed earlier but with more of a jovial atmosphere. These informal sessions are sometimes held in the Open Space rooms, but more often they take place over dinner. The 2010 Django BoF took place at a restaurant of the same name for instance. To find out what off-site BoF sessions are taking place, and where to meet up, check the announcement board...

It's the day we've all been waiting for: the beginning of the best talk schedule we've ever put together ! Registration Registration opens at 7:00 AM every day. Due to the record attendance, it is highly recommended you arrive early to register if you were not able to do so on Wednesday or Thursday. After you pick up your badge, head over to the Swag Bag location and pick up a very nice PyCon tote filled with goodies, and most importantly, the PyCon Program Guide. It's a must have resource to everything the conference. Breakfast In past years, one of the most consistent pieces of feedback was requests for better food in the morning. Coffee and a bagel is not everyone's ideal powerup meal. We have been listening, and this year we have finally been able to provide a much larger selection of hot food and new beverage options. How many other conferences provide you with breakfast, lunch, and two snack breaks at this price? Talks and Keynotes After a warm we...

As we mentioned in Wednesday's post , there are plenty of volunteer opportunities at PyCon. Thursday is both a setup and a teardown day, being the last day of tutorials and the night before the main conference activities begin. As always, we can always use help if you have the time! As we approach the opening of conference talks, did you know that even the speakers are volunteers whom pay their own way? When you take into account that speakers wrote and submitted their proposals by mid-October and have been researching, writing, and practicing their presentations the last few months, they've donated a lot of their time to make this conference so great. If you get the chance, and we hope you do, thank your speakers! Session Staff and Speaker Orientation If you signed up as a session chair or a session runner , join us at 7:30 in the Great American Ballroom (Tutorial Track IV a.k.a. F1) room for a quick meeting. We'll go over your responsibilities, walk through the pr...

As we mentioned in Tuesday's post , volunteering is a just as big a need on Wednesday as registration opens and the first of the activities begin: tutorials ! If you're signed up for a tutorial, obviously go to and enjoy your tutorial, but if you have some time to spare before or after your tutorial, we could use it. Registration Desk The registration desk , as with everything else at PyCon, is staffed by volunteers. If you're looking to help out, make some connections, and meet new people from around the world, why not go where everyone has to go ? Starting Wednesday and running through the weekend, everyone that shows up, all 1800+ attendees, will need to stop by the registration desk and pick up their badge. When working the registration desk all you need to do is ask for the attendee's name, find it in the system, then get them setup with a badge. While you're at it, introduce yourself and welcome them to the conference. It's a builtin ice breaker for when...

Part of the fun of PyCon is Startup Row, where we highlight the most promising Python-using startups and give them time and space at PyCon to show their stuff. After a massive response last year, we decided to bring back Startup Row and make it a tradition. Well, like everything else this year at PyCon, Startup Row was packed. We received several times as many applicants as we had slots - and all were strong contenders. It was hard to pick, but our panel was able to winnow the field down to just twelve winners - and two of these stood out to become the judge's picks for 2012. The winners for PyCon 2012 Startup Row are: Exhibiting Friday GetCloak (Judge's Pick - Friday): We were immediately impressed with Cloak. Security is hard because it involves tradeoffs; making things more secure frequently makes them less convenient. Cloak is the Dropbox of VPNs: it just works. It installs on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad and keeps you safe from prying eyes on public wi-fi. Cloak raced up t...

Tuesday March 6 is a huge day for PyCon. It's the day a lot of people fly into town, it's the day before tutorials start and registration opens, and it's a big day of setup. Besides the rows of chairs and the stages, a lot of the setup is left to the organizers. As you may already know, PyCon is a organized by volunteers, and we could always use a hand by a volunteer such as yourself. Of course this need isn't limited to Tuesday - we could use help all week! It's hard to forecast exactly what areas will need what coverage this far in advance, but we can assure you help will be needed. In fact, the only thing we have scheduled for the day is "help needed, everywhere". If you're available on Tuesday, head to the conference area and find someone doing work and ask them what they're up to and if they need help. Us organizers are a friendly bunch and would be more than happy to help you find an area you can make an impact on. From setting up projecto...

It's almost here! In two weeks over 1500 of you will be descending upon Santa Clara, CA and taking the area by storm with what amounts to a 24-hour-a-day conference for over a week. We think you all know about the talks and tutorials , but there is so much more to the conference. There's stuff to do in the morning, there's stuff to do during the day, there's stuff to do during the night. There's volunteer opportunities , there's off-site events, there's a lot to consider. Believe us, you will be conflicted at times because there's just too much good stuff going on. That's why we're putting together a series of posts this week to outline what's going on each day and how to tackle the opportunities. As you know, the conference talks begin on Friday March 9 and the tutorials begin two days earlier on Wednesday March 7, but a lot of people come in on Tuesday March 6. Tomorrow we will begin the series by introducing you to what's happening ...