Financial Aid

<div align="center"> PyCon 2018 Financial Aid is closed. <br><br> </div> ## Philosophy/Outreach Financial assistance is provided so those who might otherwise not be able to attend can. 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 (which can include travel, hotel, registration, and childcare) paid for with the PyCon budget. We actively encourage people to apply for financial aid. The PSF welcomes and encourages applications from students. While we wish we could give grants to everyone who applies, we do not have the funds to do that. Our goal is to get the most people to PyCon by optimizing the funds we have. 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 who 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 aligned with these goals. We are happy to say that most years, we end up exceeding our official 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. Timeline ----------------- - 2017 October 19: Financial aid application opens. - 2018 February 15: Financial aid application close on [23:59:59 on Feb 15th AoE](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20180216T115900&p1=tz_aoe&p2=33&p3=64&p4=136&p5=44&p6=224&p7=235) - 2018 March 2: Financial aid grants awarded. - 2018 March 16: deadline to respond to accept / decline financial aid Disbursement ----------------------- Disbursement of funds will be onsite during the conference in USD. You can choose between receiving a physical check on-site, or a Paypal transfer. No funds will be disbursed prior to the event. Only those that have filed their disbursements (with receipts) will be reimbursed. Financial Aid FAQ ------------------------- <span class="label label-note">Questions?</span> Check out our <a href="https://us.pycon.org/2018/financial-assistance/faq/">FAQ page</a> and our blog post about <a href="http://pycon.blogspot.com/2017/02/financial-aid-deadline-is-february-15.html">International Travel</a>. Please don't hesitate to email: [pycon-aid@python.org](mailto:pycon-aid@python.org "pycon-aid@python.org")