The PyCon US Blog

While the majority of the greater PyCon schedule consists of events that we've had calls for proposals for, there are two other big pieces to the weekend that are organized on-site in Montréal: Lightning Talks and Open Spaces. Lightning Talks are five minute talks that take place at the beginning and/or end of the day in 30 or 60 minute blocks. We've had some amazing talks packed into such a small slot, either by people who planned them ahead, or even some that were conceived at lunch that day. The Django project was first introduced to the public in a lightning talk at PyCon 2004. Docker was first demoed in a lightning talk at PyCon 2013. It's definitely an event you don't want to miss, and there are five sessions worth of them: one Friday, and two each Saturday and Sunday. If you're interested in giving a Lightning Talk, be on the lookout for the signup boards near the registration desks that you'll need to get your name onto. Unlike last year, we're...

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 ...

Each July, the launch of the upcoming year's conference website is a huge moment for the PyCon team and community. It's a beacon to everyone that another PyCon is on the way, and a sign that the various teams that shape the event are already hard at work to prepare for it. For yet another year, we have a beautiful site in front of us: https://us.pycon.org/2015 , designed and implemented by long time sponsor Caktus Group . As with years past, the site is built on Django and Symposion, a conference management framework in use by several conferences in the Python community and otherwise. Caktus' prior involvement with that combination of technologies meant "we were able to concentrate on bug fixes and small features that make a big difference to the conference organizers," according to Rebecca Muraya, Caktus' lead developer on the PyCon 2015 site. Having been around the block with that stack has resulted in a higher quality site, and left more time to spend on ...

The wait is over: PyCon 2015's schedule is available! The tutorial schedule has been available for several weeks now, and we made poster selections a while back as well, but we've completed the biggest part: scheduling 95 talks across three days in five rooms. https://us.pycon.org/2015/schedule/ It takes a lot of people to come up with this schedule, starting with those of you who submitted the 542 talk proposals we received. PyCon has always been a "what you make of it" sort of event, with so many people to talk to and things to do that it'd be hard to replicate the same experience twice, and that starts with these proposals. Thank you to everyone who submitted proposals this year. Another huge year for submissions means another great crew of volunteers gave a lot of their time to evaluate them. As with all things PyCon, a mixture of returning veterans worked with a set of first-timers, giving a lot of different viewpoints to bring us to this schedule. L...

While PyCon has some of the more affordable ticket prices around, at rates that haven't changed in a million years, a lot of other expenses go into conferences. For a lot of our attendees, travel and hotel costs add up. For that reason, we offer financial aid! When we include all types of attendees - tutorial, conference, and expo - there were 2660 people registered for something at PyCon 2014. Around 715 of them registered at the hobbyist rate and 185 at student rate, together comprising a third of our delegation as people paying their own way. Even some at our corporate rate end up footing the bill beyond their entry ticket. While some of them may be local, a significant majority of our attendees have to travel and stay in a hotel. When you look at where everyone's coming from, 10% of our attendees are from one of 50 countries outside of the US and Canada. Last year, 14 people came from literally the other side of the world: Australia. That's not a cheap flight. If...

Tutorials Schedule After a busy few months of competitive reviews, the tutorials team within our program committee has completed their process and have come up with an awesome schedule… ta da!  https://us.pycon.org/2015/schedule/tutorials/ Led by Stuart Williams and Ruben Orduz, a fantastic team came together to shape this schedule, including Carol Willing, Ian Cordasco, Harry Percival, Allen Downey, Richard Jones, and Kenneth Love. Thanks to everyone for their efforts, both in reviewing and in submitting! Register for Tutorials On April 8 & 9, the two days preceding the conference talk dates, attendees have an opportunity to attend up to four different tutorials. Each day offers both a morning and afternoon session, each providing three hours of learning split by a snack break, with lunch in between the sessions. Our instructors come from a variety of backgrounds, including full time educators or trainers, authors, domain experts, and in a lot of cases, they've cre...

Some people love the stuff that goes on before PyCon, and with good reason. The tutorials are probably the best tech training value around, the language summit and education summit (my baby!) are amazing chances to connect with the movers and shakers, and the young coder sessions are exploding with energy and learning. So if you find yourself showing up at PyCon earlier and earlier each year, who could blame you? But as cool as the pre-conference stuff is, we all know the main conference is even better. So many quality talks that everyone wants to be in at least two places at once the entire time, the keynotes, the lightning talks, the expo hall, the posters, not to mention the open spaces, hallway track, parties, dinners, and lunches. It just goes on and on. So it's no wonder that by the time Sunday afternoon rolls around everyone is a bit overloaded. People start filtering out, to catch planes, drive home, etc., and by Sunday evening things are definitely much sparser, and on M...

Last week we wrapped up another great call for talks and tutorials , leading to a ton of excellent proposals for our Program Committee to work through in order to shape the PyCon 2015 schedule. I can already tell that it's going to be a great one; another one of those years where we could make several full conference schedules out of this body of proposals. Tutorials Tutorials saw a 40% increase in proposals, up to 99 submissions. This is the biggest jump I've seen, as tutorial proposal numbers have been relatively steady over the years, with small rises or falls here or there. This shouldn't come as a surprise given the growth of Python's use in education, both institutionally and otherwise. We've always gotten a bunch of full-time educators interested in sharing their knowledge with the Python community, and we're getting more. The majority of instructors, however, come from outside of academia, with everything from book authors to project creators being ...

Today is the day! As long as a clock tells you it's Monday September 15 somewhere on earth, submissions for PyCon 2015 talks and tutorials will be accepted. If you're submitting a poster, that deadline is November 1. CFP details:  https://us.pycon.org/2015/speaking/cfp/ Dashboard (where you submit):  https://us.pycon.org/2015/dashboard/ CFP announcement post:  http://pycon.blogspot.com/2014/08/pycon-2015-call-for-proposals-is-open.html Go for it!

Last chance! This weekend is your last chance to submit a  talk  or  tutorial  proposal for  PyCon 2015 ! The deadline is end of day  September 15, 2014 . To submit a proposal,  create an account , head to your  PyCon dashboard , fill out a  speaker bio , and then  submit your proposal . We've put together  proposal resources ,  advice , and a  sample proposal  to help answer some common topics surrounding our  call for proposals . Submit a Proposal  Financial Aid PyCon gives out over $100,000 in  financial aid  each year, with preference given to those speaking at PyCon, so please don't let money stop you from submitting a proposal! Apply for Financial Aid  Childcare PyCon is also proud to be offering subsidized  childcare  for the second year in the row! High staff ratios have been arranged so that all children will get exceptional personalized care. ...

It's that time again: registration for PyCon is now open! Here are some quick details: The last three PyCons have sold out. We expect the same for 2015.  The same low rates we've had for years are in effect, including the 50% discounted student tickets. Early bird rates are in effect for the first 800 tickets sold. Financial Aid is available! We accept applications through January 1, 2015. While the event takes place in Canada, ticket prices are in USD. Click here to register! PyCon is simply a tremendous value. The conference takes place over three days and includes a total of 95 talks, a set of great keynotes, and includes breakfast and lunch. Add in all of the Open Spaces and Birds of a Feather sessions and the fact that over 2,000 Python users are in the same place and the deal gets even sweeter. If you buy your tickets early, you can save 15-25%! On top of that, it's led by two days offering 32 tutorials at a cost of $150 each, with morning and after...

The PyCon organizers are thrilled to announce the opening of PyCon 2015's Call for Proposals for talks, tutorials, and posters! We've seen a lot of growth in response to our CFP over the years, and our program committee is expecting a ton of proposals this time around. In 2012, you put us to work with 374 talk proposals and followed up the next year with 458. For 2014, 107 more talk submissions came in, for a jump to 565. We'll be accepting proposals through September 15 for talks and tutorials, and posters are accepted through November 1 . We want everyone to be a part of making PyCon what it is, which is why we invite everyone to submit proposals, and we invite everyone to be a part of the program committee. It's your PyCon, not mine. Whether you started with Python yesterday or you've been writing it since the 90s, everyone has different experiences, different knowledge, and a different story to tell. This is why we aim to strike a balance between beginner,...

The PyCon organizers are thrilled to announce the launch of PyCon 2015 ! Following up a wildly successful 2014 event - the first major PyCon held outside of the US - Montréal again plays host to the Python community's annual gathering April 8-16. As with the previous three years, 2015 is sure to be a sell out show, with this fall's ticket sales expected to move quickly. A new year brings a new website, with Caktus Group creating yet another beautiful site for the Python Software Foundation. This year's site takes some visual cues from the conference venue, the Palais de Congrès de Montréal , featuring a colorful glass exterior reflected in the strands and highlights found around the site. PyCon simply would not be possible without the generosity of its sponsors , especially those signed on early for today's launch. Sponsorship allows PyCon to do the types of things it does with financial aid and children's programs, and allows for affordable conference rate...

Following an amazing PyCon 2014 , the first of two years in Montréal, we're well underway with the planning efforts for PyCon 2015. The website is being prepped and as we get that going, we also begin the search for sponsors. The 2014 launch day began with 17 sponsors, and quickly grew to 128. Are you or your organization interested in being a part of an even bigger launch for the best PyCon yet? Sponsorship is what allows PyCon to do what it does. It enables us to fund programs like Financial Aid and subsidized child care , bringing more people to PyCon who otherwise may not have made it. It also allows us to run events like the Young Coders tutorials, bringing Python to children. Sponsorship brings great benefits to its supporters. What better place to hire Python developers than at the largest collection of them around the world? Our expo hall and job fair are a great place to make connections with over 2,000 Python developers. For more thoughts on sponsorship benefit...