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Announcements

Thank you, Python community, for a wonderful PyCon 2016!

Aug. 2, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

With PyCon 2016 now over and complete, we want to thank everyone who made the conference possible — speakers, teachers, sponsors, volunteers, and each of the attendees who made up the conference’s wide array of persons and personalities.

Childcare spots are still available for PyCon 2016!

May 19, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

A venue as exciting as the city of Montréal in 2014–15 and now Portland in 2016–17 often tempts attendees with children to want to go ahead and bring them along, turning what could have been simply a business trip into a full family vacation to a new city. Other attendees are in circumstances that make it impossible to leave their children at home, threatening to rule out PyCon entirely unless children can be accommodated.

Introducing our 2016 Keystone Sponsor: Heroku!

May 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

We organizers of PyCon 2016 are grateful that, amidst a roiling stock market and uncertain economy, so many sponsors have stepped forward to assert that their relationship with the Python community is worth investing in. And we are particularly happy to announce that our highest level of sponsorship has been filled.

That’s right — a Keystone sponsor has stepped forward: Heroku is our Keystone sponsor for PyCon 2016!

Sign up now to volunteer at PyCon 2016!

April 19, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

While commercial programming languages often enjoy large and spectacular conferences from their beginning — think of the elaborate JavaOne conference, staged barely a year after Java’s first release — languages without corporate backing tend to accrete their community more slowly and organically. The first conference often takes place without dozens of paid staff to dash back and forth behind the scenes and make sure that the event happens.

Instead, that first event is possible because of volunteers.

Startup Row: UtilityAPI won the SF Python pitch event

April 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

A post by Don Sheu, one of our Startup Row Coordinators

PyCon 2016’s Startup Row got our campaign on the road on March 9th in San Francisco, meeting with the local SF Python user group at Yelp headquarters. Six early-stage companies that use Python gave their pitches, competing for an opportunity to exhibit in the PyCon Expo Hall on Startup Row. The roster of candidate startups included Alpaca, Bauxy, Beansprock, Opsulutely, Watt Time, and UtilityAPI.

UtilityAPI won! They convinced the judges that its services for the new energy economy held the most promise, edging out their high quality competitors. Founded by Daniel Roesler and Elena Lucas, UtilityAPI provides easy access to usage data for customers like PG&E, ConEdison, and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power.

Only a few sponsor booths are left

April 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

We are nearly out of booths! While PyCon does continue to accept new sponsors once we run out of Expo Hall booths, and those final sponsors enjoy almost every benefit of their sponsorship level, they are placed on a waiting list for a booth and can miss out on one of the most exciting ways to connect with attendees at PyCon.

Call for PyCon Charity Auction Donations

April 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

By Jackie Kazil

One of the privileges of becoming a PyCon sponsor is that you have the chance to contribute to one of the most creative events at the conference — the PyCon charity auction!

Why not join the sprints this year at PyCon?

April 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

A guest post by Naomi Ceder, one of our 2016 Sprint Coordinators.

Sprinting has always been one of the hidden gems of PyCon, a part of every PyCon from the beginning, back in 2003. Hundreds of programmers stay one or more extra days after the conference to collaborate on open source projects large and small. The people who’ve done it treasure the experience. Not only do the projects that participate benefit from fresh eyes and ideas, but the sprinters usually find that they gain enormous insights into a particular problem or library, into the Python language, and even into coding in general. This year will be no exception, with many established projects sprinting and new projects joining.

2016 Python Education Summit

April 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

by Chalmer Lowe

We are pleased to announce the speakers/talks for the 2016 Python Education Summit. Held during PyCon on Sunday May 29th, 2016, the summit is a gathering of teachers and educators focused on bringing coding literacy, through Python, to as broad a group of audiences as possible. We invite educators from all venues to consider joining the discussion, share insights, learn new techniques and tools and generally share their passion for education. We are looking for educators from many venues: authors; schools, colleges, universities; community-based workshops; online programs; and government.

Full schedule is up — and Financial Aid closes tomorrow!

April 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

Everything is ready!

You can now register for tutorials.
You can sign up for free sponsor workshops.
The list of accepted posters is now available.

With these final three releases, the PyCon 2016 schedule is now complete — thanks to the long hours worked by the program committee chairs and co-chairs and reviewers. The tutorial chairs particularly wish to thank Allen Downey, Carol Willing, Jake Vanderplas, and Harry Percival for their help in selecting this year’s slate of tutorials.

Startups will soon be pitching to join 2016’s Startup Row!

April 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

PyCon’s Startup Row kicks off our 2016 season with a pitch event March 9th, hosted by SF Python at Yelp! HQ. This continues a tradition started for PyCon Montreal 2014, where Startup Row held pitch events around North America to select participants. A benefit of this approach is to guarantee geographic diversity in our featured startups.

On March 9th, early-stage startups will present at SF Python’s audience of over 200 for a chance to connect with the global Python community at PyCon Portland. Joining on the judging panel are Bebe Chueh Chief Marketing Officer of Legalzoom Local, bethanye McKinney Blount founder of Cathy Labs, Christine Spang founder of Startup Row alumnus Nylas, Jessica Scorpio founder of Getaround, and Kat Manalac partner at Y Combinator.

Announcing the Keynote Speakers for PyCon 2016

April 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

We are excited to announce our keynote speakers for PyCon 2016!

Each speaker will be featured at one of our plenary sessions, of which there are four — a plenary session that opens each of the three main conference days at PyCon, and a final plenary session at the close of the main conference at the end of the third day.

All of the following details are also available on our main conference web site on the Keynotes page, if you want to reference them there:
https://us.pycon.org/2016/events/keynotes/

Announcing the PyCon 2016 Talks Schedule

April 3, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

The Talks committee has been hard at work since the Call For Proposals closed 5 weeks ago, and today we are thrilled to present the result — here are the talks that the committee has chosen for PyCon 2016 in Portland, Oregon!

https://us.pycon.org/2016/schedule/

Now accepting Financial Aid applications

Jan. 21, 2016 by Brandon Rhodes

If you compare the ticket prices that we charged at PyCon 2011 in Atlanta a half-decade ago to our prices today, you will notice something remarkable — that not only have we kept our Individual and Corporate prices stable as the conference has moved into larger and more expensive venues, but we have slashed our Student ticket prices by more than 40% over five years! The Python Software Foundation works to make PyCon affordable for as many users of the Python language as possible.

Tutorial proposals are due two weeks from today

Nov. 16, 2015 by Brandon Rhodes

There are only two weeks left before PyCon tutorial proposals are due! If you have ever dreamed about delivering a valuable 3-hour tutorial in front of dozens of fellow PyCon attendees, you can read more about the proposal process here:

https://us.pycon.org/2016/speaking/tutorials/

You might have been pondering a question as you finished reading my post last week.

Why proposals are due so many months before PyCon

Nov. 12, 2015 by Brandon Rhodes

“Why does PyCon make us submit proposals six whole months before the conference? They expect us to start thinking of topics for PyCon 2016 while it is still 2015!”

To be honest, I used to ask the same question about PyCon myself. Now that I am the conference chair, I have the privilege of working directly with the volunteers who make the conference possible! They have been generous with their time in bringing me up to speed on how each of their committees operate, helping me see the big picture of how the conference schedule is negotiated each year.

Registration and Financial Aid are now open!

Oct. 29, 2015 by Brandon Rhodes

PyCon’s Registration and Financial Aid forms are now open! Their soft launch a few days ago revealed a form formatting problem on some Firefox versions, but the issue is now resolved and registration should work for everyone. Key facts:

PyCon has sold out 4 times in a row.
We expect PyCon 2016 in Portland to sell out as well!
The first 800 tickets sell with an Early Bird discount, and go fast.
If you need financial support to be able to attend PyCon, apply for financial aid.

Our Call For Proposals

Sept. 28, 2015 by Brandon Rhodes

Have you ever dreamed of speaking in front of a conference crowd? Or of teaching a several-hour PyCon tutorial, that gives you the opportunity to lead an audience deep into the details of a technology so that they emerge with new and useful skills?

Then know that the PyCon 2016 conference has issued its official Call For Proposals!

Thank you to our launch-day sponsors

Sept. 23, 2015 by Brandon Rhodes

The new PyCon 2016 website is now live! The conference volunteers have worked hard to include all of the essential details about the schedule, venue, and hotels ahead of the Call for Proposals next week and the opening of Registration in mid-October.