Financial Assistance

Financial Assistance -------- **To submit a financial aid application**, sign up or log in to your account and proceed to the submit a financial aid application! Submit a financial aid application Questions? Please don't hesitate to email: [pycon-aid@python.org](mailto:pycon-aid@python.org "pycon-aid@python.org") Timeline ----------------- - September 1st, 2014: Financial aid application opens. - December 20th, 2014: Financial aid grants awarded (for speakers). - January 1st, 2015: Financial aid applications close. - January 15th, 2015: Financial aid grants awarded. ## Philosophy/Outreach Everyone - even the conference chair - pays for PyCon registration. That way, we can assist those who might otherwise not be able to attend. This includes major diversity and outreach programs through [PyLadies](http://www.pyladies.com/), and [Python User Groups](http://wiki.python.org/moin/LocalUserGroups) to attract new speakers, students, and attendees. PyCon has a large financial aid program, providing funds to help people attend PyCon. Financial aid recipients have some part of their expenses (including travel, hotel, registration, and childcare) paid for with the PyCon bud­get. We actively encourage people to apply for financial aid: while we can't cover all expenses for everyone, we try our hardest to optimally allocate our budget. Optimal is, of course, an ambiguous property. Since PyCon is the largest Python conference in the world, it's a meeting place for Python developers from all around the globe. Therefore, the process is particularly designed to benefit people that we believe make PyCon better, particularly speakers and tutorial presenters, as well as notable open source contributors. Additionally, the process attempts to promote a more diverse PyCon. While encouraging diversity is a broad effort, we're happy to say that the financial aid program has been a important factor in our results so far. Finally, the process tries to help people with relatively lower incomes, be it because of their location (lower income countries) or their profession (such as students, or the unemployed). In short, we use the financial aid bud­get to help individuals that would otherwise not be able to attend the conference. The financial aid program is about the community nurturing itself by making itself more accessible at PyCon. It is true to the spirit of PyCon, by helping to make the information and interactions available to everyone. The mission of the Python Software Foundation is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a [diverse](http://www.python.org/psf/diversity/) and international community of Python programmers. We believe that the financial aid program is clearly perfectly aligned with these goals. We are happy to say that most years, we end up breaking the financial aid bud­get. If it looks like it will reasonably make for a better conference, we will gladly over­spend on financial aid and take less “profit” for the conference. **To submit a financial aid application**, sign up or log in to your account and proceed to the **Financial Aid** section of your account dashboard! Questions? Please don't hesitate to email: [pycon-aid@python.org](mailto:pycon-aid@python.org "pycon-aid@python.org")