Proposal for PyCon India

PyCon is a global community event. We intend to have an Indian edition of the same, in association with BangPypers. The idea is to have all pythonistas from around the country come together and have a good fun pythonic time. The general outline is something as follows:

• Tutorials
• General Talks
• Workshops
• Lightning Talks
• Programming Sprints

TODO List

• Contact David Goodger of PSF to express the idea for an Indian edition of the conference, and for using the PyCon title. (Ramakrishna Reddy)

• Write formal proposal (Noufal Ibrahim)
• Find venue
• Find Sponsors
• Finalize Date -- 3 days (September)
  • -- I suggest September 4,5,6 (Baiju M)
• Form a planning committee
• Budget ?
• How to do Publicity
  • -- Blog about it -- Buttons for websites/blog sidebars -- Inform in all mailing lists (User Groups) and keep posting reminders -- Publicize using other conferences/unconferences/events

• Create one website with event details and co-ordinating proposals. May be use the same code used by PyCon ?

Community Discussion

Anand B Pillai (abpillai at gmail dot com)

• PyCon India should be a conference, not an unconference.

• We should strive for international participation in planning and content/presentation right from the start.
• I agree September is a good time.
• We should approach big Python users in Bangalore (HP, Google, Dell etc) as possible sponsors.
• Dates for forming a draft formal proposal ? - This is required for even approaching someone for sponsorship. I suggest creating one in 3 months. I can take the lead in this. Let me know who else will be interested in working on the proposal.

Noufal Ibrahim (noufal at nibrahim dot net dot in)

• I can get probably help to get a draft for the 'formal proposal' ready along with someone else. I think it should be possible to create a first draft in a week or so. If anyone has any pointers, please send them to me.
• Going to companies and advertising (including a website) would probably be predicated on the proposal.
• +1 for September but we need to have some milestones set so that we can track it. There should be a point of no return.

Parthan (python dot technofreak at gmail dot com)

• +1 for September, but that means we have to start the publicity measures soon
• We need a dedicated wiki/website up as soon as possible, this will help all information available at one place
• Get international speakers to attract participation, but also give equal opportunity to Indian speakers
• We should also involve all known companies who run as a python shop to increase the awareness within local communities.

Venkat (venkat83 at gmail dot com)

• +1 for a 'dedicated' event.
• Willing to volunteer for proposal, filtering/scheduling the talks.
• Am not sure about September - as it looks very aggressive.

Roshan Mathews (rmathews gmail com)

• Having the conference be a "PyCon" is serious stuff, which can't be a damp squib like one of the local meets.

• I'd be against pitching this as a evangelical/community-building/newbie-oriented event. I'd like something for Python programmers, not people who have just heard of the language. But this is up to the "community" to agree upon.
• Similarly, I'd rather this was a low budget event sans free T-Shirts and the usual swag.
• So, minus the gimmicks, the only draw should be the quality of the talks/speakers in the conference.
• September sounds okay, but the date should be finalized only after you have some sort of list of speakers, events, tracks et al.