DC-Area Python BarCamp

Goals

• 2-day event, held on a weekend in October or November 2008.
• Held in the DC or Baltimore area.
• Will feature 1 track of self-scheduled talks on one day, and at least 3-4 sprints, up to as many as we have room for.
• ~50 attendees maximum.

• Free admission, or admission <$10.

• Do we want to have swag, in the form of a T-shirt or tote bag?

Possible venues

DC:

• [http://www.washingtonparks.net/parkscenter.html Josephine Butler Parks Center], near U Street.

• U. of Maryland College Park
• GWU (CS dept, or Cafritz Center)
• Another DC-area university?
• Look for a hotel (downtown; near Courthouse or Ballston?)
• Strayer University
• Gallaudet

• Clark & Parsia's offices

Arlington:

• [http://www.marymount.edu/academic/business/it/ Marymount]

• [http://www.ncr.vt.edu/programs/CS.html VA Tech] at West Falls Church

• Arlington schools (but the usual location is probably not good -- too far from Metro)

Baltimore:

• JHU CS dept.

Current tasks

E-mail possible CS department contacts

• JHU: Michael Droettboom

• GWU: [http://seas.gwu.edu/~simha/ Rahul Simha] (supervised a project called $ython).

• U. of MD: Bijan Parsia?

• Howard: [http://www.scs.howard.edu/faculty_staff.aspx faculty listing]

• U. of DC: [http://www.udc.edu/academics/soe/faculty.htm faculty listing]

Research hotel prices in the fall: Baltimore vs. DC; is one city much cheaper?

What to do about wireless, which is critical? Bring it in? Rely on the venue's wireless? What if it fails, which would cripple us?

Budget notes

Assuming 50 attendees:

 1500? Venue
  500? Projector rental
 1500  Food for 50 attendees ($15 x 50 attendees x 2 days)
  250  Contingency 
  250  Equipment (power strips, etc.)
  250  Printing
---------------------------
 4250  Total

Charging $10 admission to 50 people only brings in $500; we'd need to charge at least $80 to break even. Maybe we should just forget about charging admission and look for sponsorship instead.

The Chicago BarCamp cut costs by borrowing projectors and other equipment from techies and businesses who wanted a mention; it cut out the food cost by borrowing microwaves and finding a venue near restaurants. Do it on the cheap!