Lorena Mesa

New Board Member. (Nominated by Anna Ossowski)

Anna: I nominate Lorena Mesa for the PSF Board of Directors. Lorena’s passion for diversity outreach and education continue to fascinate me. Lorena has a "getting things done“- attitude and is very driven and energetic. Im confident that Lorena’s involvement in the PSF board would bring about positive change.

Lorena about herself, her involvement and goals:

It is my intent to outline my personal conrtibutions to the Python community as well as the merits I would bring as a PSF as a new board member.

I've been using Python for five years, professionally for two. My historical interest in Python lies in it being an ideal language to teach, be the student a brand new coder or simply new to the language.

As a founder and organizer for PyLadies Chicago, increasing the visibility of women in coding as well as offering other avenues for women to become coders are of the utmost concern to me. I believe that Python is a perfect language through which to achieve these goals due largely to the PSF's dedication to diversity. The PSF's efforts to provide diversity scholarships to PyCon as well as include more women speakers at PyCon has been an instrumental reason in why I originally became so involved in the Python community.

2016/2017 Goals as a Board Member

My goals for 2016/2017 as a board member would continue to build upon the work I've done as a PyLadies organizer and as a teacher. Namely my goals as a board member would be to:

• Promote diversity: Diversity without a question is a primary concern for me. I think historically we think of diversity as largely gender and race, but there is so much more to it than that. Namely age, national origin, and class. I think the PSF's support of PyLadies through the Grants Working Group have empowered me to become an active Python community member and has done great working in promoting gender diversity. I want to continue to promote the PSF's diversity initiative by becoming a member of the Grants Working Group and dedicate myself to working on diversity relentlessly and attempt to empower Python's diversity to include even younger coders and those from a broader population of national identities and class backgrounds.
• Broaden education initiatives: I was excited to read a recent thread in the Education Working Group about the PSF potentially expanding it's [outreach to high schools](https://mail.python.org/pipermail/pythonedu-wg/2016-February/000049.html). Youth education is a passion of mine and something I often volunteer to do in my free time with free Python youth classes and organizing and mentoring DjangoGirls in Chicago and at various PyCons. Therefore I want to help support the Education Working Group as a group member.
• Overhaul institutional infrastructure: The changing face of the PSF has been fascinating for me to see and experience. What does it mean to be a foundation that supports the Python community and how can the PSF build a transparent organization that promotes it, these are the type of questions I want to contribute to. Governance is at best difficult but I am passionate about it.
• Build outreach in new areas: I've been fortunate to travel to participate in PyCon USA, Django Under the Hood (Amsterdam), and DjangoCon Europe (Budapest). I will be participating in EuroPython this year and it is my hope to expand upon my Python travels by visiting Latin America. While traveling is one form of promotion for Python, I am dedicated to broadening the PSF's reach by finding other means of outreach.

My contributions to Python community:

As an organizer:

• I founded PyLadies Chicago and primary organizer for the chapter. As primary organizer I work on big picture items like organizer recruitment, coalition building, and identify key areas for event planning.
• Coalition building with other Python groups in Chicago, specifically the Chicago Python User Group (ChiPy). We've teamed up to do coder dojos, a work night with specific learning goals with the end goal of maximizing PyLadies members in the ChiPy Python mentorship.
• Advancing Python OSS contributions. I organized through PyLadies Chicago a joint OSS Python workshop with Write/Speak/Code, a conference for women software engineers. I'm also championing the inclusion of Python OSS projects for the Write/Speak/Code 2016 conference.
• Primary organizer for DjangoGirls Chicago 2015 which included 50 students and over 30 mentors.

As a speaker and writer:

• Speaker at PyOhio 2015, PyTennessee 2016, and upcoming speaker at EuroPython 2016.
• Editor for the upcoming O'Reilly's adaptation of Kenneth Reitz's The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python (written by Tanya Schlusser).

As a teacher:

• Volunteer and mentor for DjangoGirls Bilbao, DjangoGirls Budapest, DjangoGirls Montreal at PyCon 2015.
• Python teacher for Project Tech Teen Chicago, a free summer program for Chicago inner city youth that teaches coding.
• Girl Develop It Chicago Python teacher
• PyLadies Remote teacher

Affiliation

• Platform Engineer, Sprout Social, http://sproutsocial.com
• PyLadies Chicago Founder, Principle Organizer
• Write/Speak/Code Conference (2016.writespeakcode.com) Speaker Outreach
• Founding Member of Chi Tech Diversity (chitechdiversity.com)
• Adler Planetarium Chicago STEM Mentor
• PyLadies Remote Teacher
• Girl Develop It Chicago Python teacher
• Systers Google Summer of Code Mentor

In short, my passion for teaching and learning has driven me to become a Python organizer through PyLadies and now a speaker at Python conferences. Expanding outreach by promoting the values of diversity and inclusion are my primary goals I wish to accomplish as a PSF board member. By prioritizing these values the PSF has been at the edge of exciting new projects. As a board member I will work relentlessly, since that is something my passion drives me to do, and with great determination. I do not believe in doing something 50%, it is with a full effort that I always apply myself to the task at hand.

Thank you.

In solidarity,

Lorena Mesa

Trey Hunner

New Board Member. (Nominated by Anna Ossowski)

Anna: I nominate Trey Hunner for the PSF Board of Directors. Trey is truly passionate about Python education, welcoming new people into the Python community, and making the Python community a positive and friendly place for everyone. Trey is a huge supporter and contributor of various diversity initiatives, he is incredibly reliable, and always willing to help. Trey is a very valuable member of the Python community who would make an excellent addition to the PSF board.

Trey about himself, his involvement, and goals:

I have been gleefully using Python since 2009. I have acted as a consultant, teacher, mentor, community manager, and event organizer.

I am a full-time Python teacher and trainer and a volunteer mentor to new and aspiring Python programmers. I hold online Python discussions and mini-workshops every week and I mentor peers at the San Diego Python Study Group every Saturday afternoon.

I have participated in multiple Python community workshops and conferences, both in and outside of my home town:

• SD Django TDD workshop 2013 - co-author, co-organizer, teacher
• SD Intro to Python workshop 2014 - co-author, co-organizer, teacher
• Django Girls Ensenada 2015 - coach
• PyCon US 2015 - tutorial assistant teacher and meetup open space host
• DjangoCon US 2015 - lightning talk presenter
• Django Girls Austin 2015 - coach
• Django Girls Inland Empire 2015 - co-organizer
• PyTennessee 2016 - tutorial assistant teacher and lightning talk presenter
• PyCon 2016 (upcoming) - tutorial presenter
• Django Girls San Diego 2016 (upcoming) - co-organizer

I currently co-organize my local Python meetup, have previously co-organized my local JavaScript meetup, and have taught for and contributed web development resources to PyLadies Remote.

Diversity

I am greatly concerned with fostering an inclusive and diverse Python community. I would like to work on making the Python community more welcoming to outsiders and to individuals who sometimes feel like outsiders.

The PSF should support community efforts which:

1. Encourage activate empathy within online and offline Python communities
2. Support positive mentorship activities
3. Encourage community outreach efforts

Usability

I would like to support the increase in PSF transparency. Aditionally, I would like to improve the usability of the various PSF-related resources in order to encourage the involvement of the wider Python community in PSF processes.

Those interested in volunteering contributions to PSF resources should have a means to understand their abilities to do so. To that end, I would like to increase the documentation around PSF assets. Documentation and contributor-how's are not only important for our code, they are important for community resources in general.

There is no reason the many wonderful volunteers who have contributed their time and expertise in the past should be expected to keep up their efforts indefinitely. Documenting processes, code, and other resources will allow the torch to be passed to future contributors.

Affiliations: Truthful Technology LLC, San Diego Python, EditorConfig

Jackie Kazil

New Board Member. (Nominated by Anna Ossowski)

Anna: I nominate Jackie Kazil for the PSF Board of Directors. I am incredibly impressed with Jackie's leadership qualities. As chair of the PSF grants workgroup Jackie has driven the efforts of establishing a process for handling grant request over the past few months, which is an important area of work the PSF does. It is thanks to Jackie that the PSF is now able to process grant requests much faster and on a rolling basis. Jackie is always on top of things and it's a pleasure to work with her. I firmly believe that as a member of the PSF board Jackie will be able to drive a lot more positive change within the PSF.

Jackie about herself, her involvement and goals:

I have three passions, passions that drive most of what I do in life, including the work that I do in the Python community.

1. Democracy
2. Diversity
3. Education

Democracy

Democracy means representing the people that elect you. This means being led with integrity and objectivity. I have an incredible drive for civic engagement. I am a trained journalist, which is a profession that seeks to empower the people that it serves.

Diversity

'Diversity' is often associated with gender and race, but diversity should be considered in the following terms (in no order of importance): gender, race, color, sexual preference, income, geography, national origin, differently abled, age, and family status.

The community needs to start taking a more active role in not just making individuals feel welcome, but inviting them into the community by directly reaching out.

Education

My mother, who risked her life to escape Communist Czechoslovakia said, "You can have everything taken away from you... your money, your home, the clothes on your back, but no one can take what is in your head."

My zest for educating others has been long standing. I am working to start two programs in the DC region that teach programming to folks that need skills training. Part of this is also helping with job placement after training.

Summary

I want to empower folks in the community to have their voices heard and institute and develop Python educational standards within the PSF.

Things that I have done (specifically in the programming community)

• Founded PyLadies DC, which has helped seed future growth worldwide.
• Assisted in development on new PyLadies chapters.
• PyLadies auction organizer PyCon 2015
• PyLadies auction helper, Pycon 2014, 2013
• PyCon Keynote committee 2015
• Talk or tutorial reviewer for PyCon or Scipy 2013, 2014, 2015
• PyCon Speaker 2012, 2013, 2015
• Led accessibility hackathon - #allyhack 2015
• Leader of DCFemTech
• Teaches Python in the local community
• Former leader (now-coorganizer of Django District)
• Founder of GeoDC
• Teaches Python journalists through IRE/NICAR, PyJournos, and sometimes Hacks and Hackers
• Building a Python library w/ fiends on Python library that does agent based modeling

Affiliations: 18F, PyLadies, DCFemTech, PyJournos, IRE/NICAR

Naomi Ceder

2015 Board Member

I've been using, promoting and teaching Python on various levels for over 15 years as a teacher, author, developer, manager, and organizer.

My Contributions to the PSF in 2015/2016:

• Co-created PSF Grants Working Group. The Grants WG is a step towards delegating some the PSF's decisions to a broader geographical group, and also gives more people experience in managing the PSF. The Grants WG has developed into a key resource in managing grants given to community events, having approved around $40,000 in grants.
• Assisted in interviewing for new role of PSF Infrastructure Manager.
• Actively supported the PSF's involvement in the BBC micro:bit project in the UK.
• Supported the creation of Python initiatives in Nigeria by helping get access to a mailing list, and advice on organization and grant requests; and Cameroon by coordinating with projects applying for PSF support.
• Gave keynotes at PyCon UK, PyCon Ireland, PyCon Poland
• Coordinated and co-presented 2015 EuroPython PSF members' meeting.
• Attended 16 out of 17 PSF board meetings.

My goals for 2016/2017 as a board member would be to do all that I can to help the PSF achieve its mission in any way that I can. In particular, I'm interested in:

• Foster Diversity - Diversity means more than increasing the numbers of women or nationalities (though both of those are important) - it involves thinking about a wide range of axes - race, ethnicity, disability, neurodiversity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, economic background, etc. I want to ensure that the Python community is as inclusive and welcoming as possible along all of those axes and more.
• Develop New Leaders - I believe that for an organization to be inclusive thought and effort must be put into opening all aspects to new people. My practice has been to deliberately hand off projects I've started as soon as practical once they are established, and I would view a board position the same way. I would also encourage and support a healthy turnover in board committee and working group leadership and membership, so that more people gain leadership experience.
• Support Education - Support for education is more than funding workshops - I'd like to encourage initiatives to improve pedagogy, tools, and resources for the various groups teaching Python, perhaps starting with a working group aimed at curricula and teaching resources.
• Evolve PSF management - As the community grows, the role of the PSF board needs to adapt. I will continue to support changes to make the PSF board have more of an oversight role and to develop other means to handle managerial and executive duties

Background:

• Founded Trans*Code, the first hackday series in Europe and UK to exclusively focus on issues of the transgender community
• Keynotes and talks on Python, Diversity, and Community at PyCon UK, PyCon PL, PyCon Ireland, ACE!Conf (Krakow, Poland), Write/Speak/Code 2016, EuroPython, PyCon US, PyLadies, and others.
• PyCon organizer - Co-chair of PyCon Sprints in 2015, 2016 and organized the PyCon Intro to Sprinting workshop; created/coordinated the first two education summits at PyCon; created/organized the poster session at PyCon for its first 3 years.
• PyCon UK organiser - Education Track Presenter at PyCon UK 2014; organising committee for PyCon UK 2015; created the first poster session at PyCon UK; Code of Conduct response team; Trans*Code at PyCon coordinator.
• Author of The Quick Python Book, 2nd ed. (3rd ed in preparation).
• Currently based in Chicago,II USA, but still involved with projects in the UK. Work with Python developers in USA, UK, Germany, Japan, China, Africa.

As a senior technical leader at a company that relies heavily on Python I'm very interested in the long term health and growth of Python and the Python community.

Finally, I take commitments to positions like this seriously - I absolutely hate to miss meetings or deadlines, and I make sure tasks I'm assigned "just get done" with as little fuss as possible.

Affiliation: W. W. Grainger, Trans*Code

Carol Willing

2015 Board Member.

I have been honored to serve on the PSF this past term. I continue to be humbled by our community members, their achievements, and dedication in the many areas served by the Python language. If you are considering running for the board, I encourage you to do so and share your strengths, talents, and ideas with the PSF.

PSF Highlights for the 2015-2016 Term

With hard work by PSF board members, PSF Operations staff, and many volunteers in the Python community, the PSF achieved the following highlights:

• PSF Sustainability: Approved the expansion of the PSF staff to provide continuity in PSF operations and support and grow the community and language. Hiring an Event Coordinator and Administrator, IT Manager, additional blog writer.
• Transparency: Reorganized the PSF mailing lists to provide greater transparency to the community about the PSF. Retired psf-members. Created psf-vote, psf-community.
• Governance and Organizational Structure: PSF Grants, Scientific Python, Python Cuba, Python Education workgroups. Retired Sprints, Outreach & Education groups.
• Community recognition: Community service awards and Frank Willison award. Recognition of Google Summer of Code organizer, mentors, and its participants
• Advancing the Python Language: Supported trial development to port Twisted functionality to Python 3 and projects including pytest, tox, and open source conference registration software.

My Contribution to the PSF community

• Participated in 16 of 17 board meetings (Attended 14. By proxy 2.)

• Worked to improve governance and transparency. Authored New Director onboarding guide. Researched nonprofit best practices via BoardSource and other materials.

• Performed community outreach and welcomed newcomers to Python, including:

  • Keynote speaker for PyCon Philippines 2016.
  • Workshop organizer, speaker, and panelist at Grace Hopper Celebration 2015.
  • Panelist and Mentor at Write/Speak/Code 2015 (and upcoming 2016). Outreach at SciPy 2015, DjangoCon 2015, PyTennessee 2016. Mentor, Django Girls. Organizer, PyLadies booth and Arts & Music Birds of a Feather meeting at SCALE (Southern California Linux Expo) 2016. Speaker on Interactive Data Science Collaboration, CineGrid 2015.

• Member, Scientific Python Workgroup.

• Volunteer for PyCon 2016. Tutorial committee. Program committee.

Goals for 2016-2017

• Continued focus on the PSF’s organizational growth, operations, sustainability, and community transparency.
• Strive for professionalism, kindness, and thoughtfulness when working with board members, staff, and volunteers.
• Support the core workflow changes for CPython as well as projects that help onboard contributors.
• Recruit individuals to run for the PSF Board 2017-2018, work toward diverse international representation on the board, and foster fresh ideas for fulfilling the PSF’s mission.

Thank you.

Affiliation: Project Jupyter, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Willing Consulting, Fab Lab San Diego.

Carrie Anne Philbin

2015 Board Member.

I have been a part of the Python community for since 2012, and a member of the Board of Directors in 2015. I'm an award winning secondary Computing & ICT Teacher, Author, and YouTuber from the UK. I am the Director of Education at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and also a Computing At School Board Member. I am the author of 'Adventures in Raspberry Pi' a computing book for teenagers wanting to get started with Raspberry Pi and programming (including Python). Winner of Teach Secondary magazine's Technology & Innovation Best Author award 2014 and Talk Talk's Digital Hero Award in 2013. I speak at conferences and events about Computing education (see EuroPython 2015 Keynote and PyConAU 2015 Keynote). I've supported the PSF's involvement in the BBC micro:bit project in the UK.

As a PSF board member, my two primary concerns would be to encourage the use of Python in formal and informal education contexts, as well as continuing to address the long term challenges of Python in education.

Key perspectives I believe I bring to Board discussions:

• Formal computing education experience, including use of Python in schools and classrooms
• Computing curriculum development experience, teaching young people from age 5 upwards to learn to program with Python
• Experience with outreach, particularly encouraging diversity (see CAS #include & Geek Gurl Diaries)
• Developing and running teacher training and professional development (see Picademy and PyConUK Teacher Track)

Specific initiatives I would personally be aiming to advocate for and participate in over the 2016/2017 Board term include:

• highlight great python education projects
• highlight where support is needed by the community in education projects
• help foster a wider conversation between industry experts, programmers and educators
• bring more teachers into the PSF

Affiliation: Raspberry Pi Foundation

Younggun Kim

New Board Member. (Nominated by Carol Willing)

Carol: I nominate Younggun Kim. I'm very impressed with Younggun's community outreach related to PyCon APAC 2016 and PyCon KR. He's traveled across the Asia Pacific region to listen to and learn about other Pythonistas' needs and interests as well as to share his enthusiasm for Python.

I've owed a debt to the Python community for all of their support over the last two decades of my software engineer career. And I’ve always had a mind to pay it forward. That's why I began organizing PyCon KR with a few fellow Pythonistas in 2013. As a result, I introduced PyCon to local Pythonistas in 2014 with 400+ attendees for the first time. The event has grown with each successive effort, and now 1500+ attendees are anticipated for PyCon APAC 2016.

Sharing knowledge and expertise with others is a core value of mine, and I attend as many PyCons as I can so that I can learn about planning, organizing, and delivering the best programming to our attendees. Last year I attended 5 PyCons, and 6 PyCons are scheduled in my calendar for this year so far.

Background

• PyCon KR/APAC organizer - Co-Chair of PyCon KR since its inception in 2014.
• Open Source Advocate at NIPA - NIPA is an affiliated organization of Korean Ministry of Science. As an Open Source Advocate at NIPA, I enjoy giving talks at conferences as well as contributing my code to several on-going projects.
• Technical Leader at SmartStudy - The company has been using Python heavily since its early stages. I'm in charge of the company's backend infrastructure, technical decisions, and developer culture.
• Technical Translator - I translate technical articles, books into Korean. Most of my work is related to Python. Two past projects include "Python for Data Analysis" by Wes McKinney and "High Performance Python" by Ian Ozsvald and Micha Gorelik.
• University Lecturer- I'm teaching Python Programming to graduate students at Seoul’s School of Integrated Science and Technologies (aSSIST).
• Based in Seoul, Korea. However, I have various networks all around the world, especially Non-English speaking countries.

Goals for 2016-2017

• Introduce PyCon to as many countries as possible - Help them to become successful, sustainable, and most importantly, enjoyable events for the community.
• Encourage more people to contribute to open source project - I believe it is important to encourage more people to "experience contributing" with their beloved Open Source Project. With a little care, we can get engage many new contributors in the community, and a few of them may be the next core contributors to the project.
• Discover neglected areas of the community - I still see neglected areas of the community out there. Some of them want to organize their own PyCon but don't know how. Or even worse, it is not sustainable. While they want to, they should be able to. Because of the language, region, and/or income, some people have no way to gain access to Python.

I assure you that my passion for our community has never been more enthusiastic. I will capitalize on my local advantage to outreach within our community. Thank you.

Affiliations: PyCon KR/APAC, Open Source Advocate at NIPA, Smart Study

Diana Clarke

2015 Board Member.

I was one of the most active board members during this past term, and I bring to the table a pragmatic, let's get this done, now, work ethic. Having chaired or co-chaired 5 PyCons in recent years, my gut is also calibrated to quickly and appropriately respond to the kinds of issues the PSF has to deal with on a regular basis. I am proud of what PyCon and the PSF have accomplished, I am immensely grateful for your past support, and I look forward to the possibility of serving on the 2016-2017 board. Thanks, folks!

Contributions in 2015-2016

• Attended all board meetings except for the one that was only a few hours after I gave birth (but I followed along on slack, lol)
• Grants: championed changes to the PSF grant allocation process & guidelines, kept the ball rolling for in-flight grant requests, and maintained the grants page content
• Professionalization of the PSF: advocated for more paid PSF positions & helped with the hiring and onboarding of additional PSF staff
• PSF Blog: cleaned up the PSF blog template, recruited & onboarded a second blog post writer, and coordinated blog post content
• Communication: sent bi-weekly PSF board meeting summaries to the public mailing lists, and played an active role in retiring the psf-members mailing list & launching the new psf-community list
• Worker Bee: moderated the PSF board mailing lists multiple times each day, actively participated in board mailing list discussions, answered email on behalf of the board, and otherwise tried to serve as an extra set of hands for the PSF staff

Goals for 2016-2017

• Continued professionalization of the PSF: improved and sustainable delivery of the services the PSF provides the community
• Tooling: work with the new IT manager to modernize the PSF tooling and improve process, staffed by paid internships
• Communication: continue to send grant summaries, board meeting minutes, etc to the psf-community mailing list
• PSF Blog: onboard additional PSF bloggers to broadcast community success stories, and otherwise connect the community

Background

• B.Sc. Computing Science, 2001
• PSF Board of Directors, 2015
• PSF Community Service Award, 2014
• PSF Fellow, 2013
• PyCon US 2015 Chair
• PyCon US 2014 Chair
• PyCon US 2013 Co-Chair
• PyCon Canada 2013 Co-Chair
• PyCon Canada 2012 Chair

Affiliations: PSF, Red Hat, OpenStack

Van Lindberg

2015 Board Member.

This will be my tenth year being active in the PSF. In that time I've been a fellow, former PyCon Chair, outside General Counsel, a Board Member, and most recently the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Over this time my primary focus has been on the creation of the institutions of the PSF. The PSF is not just a "holding company" for Python. It also serves an important purpose supporting smaller projects, providing social opportunities by producing PyCon US and supporting almost every other PyCon in the world, and providing centralized services for the broader Python community. In order to do that effectively, it is necessary that the PSF have a reasonable revenue base, that it have continuity from year to year, and strong institutions that enable and empower the members to work together.

This is hard work, and most of it is hidden. A lot of it only gets noticed when things go wrong. :) But there are some visible accomplishments: The reworking of the bylaws to eliminate the "old boys club," the development of the fiscal sponsorship infrastructure for funding small projects, and grandually working us up from one to three full-time employees involved in the administration and day-to-day management of the PSF.

Goals for 2016-2017

(Shamelessly ripped off from Diana's above, since I agree with every one of these)

• Continued professionalization of the PSF: improved and sustainable delivery of the services the PSF provides the community
• Tooling: work with the new IT manager to modernize the PSF tooling and improve process, staffed by paid internships
• Communication: continue to send grant summaries, board meeting minutes, etc to the psf-community mailing list
• PSF Blog: onboard additional PSF bloggers to broadcast community success stories, and otherwise connect the community

Affiliations: Rackspace, OpenStack

Chris Clifton

New Board Member

I have been in Information Technology for the past 20 years but more in the hardware, infrastructure, system administration, and network engineering side. For the last 2 1/2 years, I have been working on automation of network equipment and that is what has brought me to using python. I have been very impressed with it's community and the software foundation. So much so that I want to help out.

I have experience volunteering in organizations and representing the members in state and national meetings. I would like the opportunity to assist the Python Software Foundation in its future goals.

My Goals for 2016/2017

• All the previously listed goals are very worthy endeavors for PSF and I do not feel they need repeated.
• I have ideas of areas I want to volunteer assistance to the foundation but want to talk to those currently in charge these area before I post them.

Affiliations: United Airlines

Annapoornima Koppad

New Board Member.

Self Nomination

Annapoornima about herself, and her contributions towards Free and Open Source Software:

I was fascinated with the idea of Free and Open Source Software when I heard about it. While looking for ways to get involved with Free and Open Source Software, I happened to find Python programming language. That was the beginning of an entire episode of love towards programming in contrast to the abhorring which I had accrued while working on C, or C++.

I have been using, teaching, promoting Python programming at introductory levels in and around Bangalore, India. I have contributed earlier to FOSS, got off the track for a while and now back to contributing to two causes that I care most about, first, Free and Open Source Software, second, Women’s empowerment.

I founded Pyladies Bangalore in July, 2013 to encourage women to learn programming. This chapter is a pro-women organization and is open to people from all spheres of life. I encourage women to bring their kids along with them to foster the scientific interest in both the women and their children. I encourage women who have taken break in their careers to get back on their feet both financially and emotionally.

In March 2016, I restarted the meetup group here, http://www.meetup.com/Bangalore-PyLadies-Foundation/. The membership grew from 0 to 83 members within a period of one and half month.

I am expecting at least 50 regular attendees for each workshop that I conduct this year including men who want to help my cause.

2016/2017 Goals as a Board Member

I want to continue workshops for Python programming in both online as well in person modes in Bangalore, India through Pyladies Bangalore.

I want to provide training in Python programming at schools where students do not have proper access to educational materials, let alone a computer. I want to make this full fledged effort with contributions from all over the world.

I have always involved myself as a worker rather than policy making person, or a person formulating guidelines for others to follow. With Pyladies Bangalore, I have discovered a part of me that wants to iron out the difficulties underrepresented women and children from lower income groups in developing countries face. I am more than eager to serve on the Board of Directors for Python Software Foundation.

I am currently focusing on reaching out to people in and around Bangalore which is supposed to be the information technology capital of India. Reaching out further, I want to explore regions of India that are still untouched by the transformation that technology can bring into their lives.

My contributions to Python Community

I founded the Pyladies Bangalore chapter, and created a member base comprising 83 members in less than two months. I have successfully conducted online mentoring sessions with Kenneth Love as the mentor.

I did a hackathon at Thoughtworks Company, Bangalore, India funded by Python Software Foundation.

I conducted a second event of a hand on workshop titled, “Introduction to Python programming” at Bangalore. The details of the event can be found here, http://akoppad.blogspot.in/2016/05/introduction-to-python-programming-from.html.

I have been instrumental in running the shows as a one woman army. I have done Facebook advertising, posted Linkedin ads, and leveraged Twitter for generating interest in the activities of Pyladies Bangalore. I have contacted people who have cared, and come forward to help grow Pyladies Bangalore.

I want to continue to nurture this effort of mine until it can take off its own without my handholding.

Thanks and regards, Annapoornima

Monty Taylor

New Board Member. (nominated by Morgan Fainberg)

Monty about himself, his involvement and goals:

I have been a PSF Fellow since 2012.

I've been using Python professionally for 16 years, during which time I've started two companies with products written in Python, worked as consultant doing Zope solutions for people, briefly maintained the Python MySQLdb driver (when Andy wanted a break).

My most recent and notable Python involvement has been with OpenStack and with Ansible.

I was lucky enough to be at Rackspace when we put the OpenStack project together, and as a result am the person who built the OpenStack Infrastructure project which focuses on the dev tooling and CI for OpenStack.

I've tried my best to funnel OpenStack resources towards broader Python needs. I've supported our friends in the packaging ecosystem (pip, setuptools, PyPI) by hiring people, facilitating the hiring of people or providing people the space to work on Python needs upstream.

Two years ago I started working on improving Ansible's OpenStack support and have wound up becoming an Ansible committer.

In my role inside of Big Companies, I've been involved in advancing the use and adoption of Python and Ansible at both Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and at IBM. Via OpenStack I've also been indirectly involved in the resulting uptick in Python use through included and adjacent projects.

In terms of outreach, I speak at conferences and with customers worldwide, and enjoy putting Python code on slides and talking about it.

I currently sit on the OpenStack Foundation Board of Directors and the OpenStack Technical Committee.

What I'd like to do on the PSF Board

(Shamelessly ripped off from Van's rip off of Diana)

• Continued professionalization of the PSF: improved and sustainable delivery of the services the PSF provides the community
• Tooling: work with the new IT manager to modernize the PSF tooling and improve process, staffed by paid internships

More specifically ... I've been quite successful over the last six years with getting a somewhat ludicrous amount of resources, both human and computer, applied to OpenStack. I'd like to work similarly with Python to get more resources, support the current humans and/or get new humans involved as it makes sense.

• Diversity. Everything Lorena, Jackie, Naomi and Trey said. Diversity is one of the most important issue facing our industry. I wish I had a magic wand to deal with brogrammers and with US-centric myopia, but I don't. I can, however, continue to engage with and advocate for all people who have different qualities from people who work for VC-backed companies in the SF Bay Area, whether those qualities are geographically, mental, emotional, political or biological.

Affiliation: OpenStack, IBM, Ansible (project, not company)

Raphael Pierzina

New Board Member.

Python is pure awesome and incredibly useful for a variety of tasks. However it is our welcoming community that makes Python so special to me.

Coming from the field of 3D animation, I learned proprietary software products at university, each of which had their own scripting language. I found myself reading through outdated documentation and abandoned forums countless times. Eventually I began my search for a programming language with a flourishing community that could be used for more than just 3D, like CLI tools, desktop, web or even mobile apps - with people that I could talk to and learn from.

I found Python and never went back.

For the past couple of years, I have been using Python every single day - both at work and in my Open Source projects. I have made friends with fellow Pythonistas at conferences like EuroPython, WriteTheDocs and the local user groups in Scotland but also online - I find this very inspiring. I am grateful for the ever-improving environment that the Python community provides.

Who am I? I am a person who gives back. For starters, I contribute time to the following Open Source projects:

• Core contributor of the Cookiecutter project
• Creator of Poyo, a pure Python PyYAML replacement that works painlessly everywhere
• Maintainer of the cookiecutter-pytest-plugin template
• Writer at pytest-tricks, a blog dedicated to teach Pytest

Last year at EuroPython, I helped run a Pytest workshop and spoke about Cookiecutter and Jinja2. I gave a similar talk at the Python Glasgow User Group, volunteered my expertise in Python testing during Adopt Pytest Month to help the Qutebrowser project and worked as technical reviewer for "Kivy Blueprints", a book on Python for NUI apps on mobile devices in my spare time.

As a member of the PSF board, I will try my best to foster diversity and openness across our community. I would like to help newcomers to begin their creative journey with code and find their way into the Python community. Often times the barrier from a Python script to a fully-fledged package can be intimidating - but it doesn't need to be. I would like to kick off initiatives that address this problem to encourage new developers to publish their first package on PyPI and share their creations with the Python community.

Python packages like pip, virtualenv, pytest or cookiecutter are critical infrastructure tools used by organizations and individuals globally. Teams, despite being volunteers, are expected to fulfill sometimes outrageous and unfair demands by well-funded companies, which can lead to stress and potentially put the project at risk.

I believe it becomes increasingly important to raise awareness for issues around sustainability of Open Source communities. As board director of the PSF I would like to increase the support for maintainers of Python packages that have become absolute requirements for many projects.

Affiliation: FanDuel, Cookiecutter, Pytest, Python Edinburgh, Python Glasgow

Kushal Das

Previously on 2014/15 Board

I am a CPython core developer, and also a fellow at PSF. I am also co-chairing the PSF grants committee. I am working with the Python community in India for the last 10 years. I spend most of time in building new developer base and teaching programming using Python. I gave regular talks on Python in many conferences all across India and outside.

I am an active volunteer in PyCon, and also work as the sprint-coordinator for the last few years. This year I worked with the microbit upstream to push the development/usage effort in the Fedora project.

I am organizing an online summer training for the last 9 years where people from all over the world participate and learn about FOSS in general and then learn how to use Python to solve their daily life problems. This training goes on for almost 3 months over IRC. The goal of this training is to get more global developers, diversity is a key factor in that training.

Raghav Hanumantharau

New Board Member

Firstly, I would like to thank the PSF for this opportunity to serve the Python Community.

I have been been an active user of Python for the past few years and have witnessed the power of Python in its ability to effortlessly solve complex software engineering problems in almost every field - from Financial Engineering to complex Data Science problems.

I would like for an opportunity to help other community members experience the same wonder that is Python.

I am active in Bay Area Meetups and have experience volunteering in various organizations.