Revision 50 as of 2016-05-16 05:24:31

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Describe PythonSoftwareFoundation/BoardCandidates2016 here.

Don Sheu ==============

*New Board Member.* (Nominated by Yannick Gingras)

Summary


Beginning with PyCon Montreal 2014, I joined Yannick Gingras in organizing PyCon Startup Row. As part of the team producing Startup Row, I launched local events to select participants on Startup Row at PyCon. My efforts at producing local events started in February 2014, in Seattle where companies like Rover.com and OfferUp presented. Over 400 people attended the inaugural Startup Row road show event.

Since the initial event in Seattle, the Startup Row team has produced events in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and Los Angeles.

I recruited Mattermark contributor Jason D. Rowley and SpotHero founder Jeremy Smith to join the Startup Row organizing team.

In our PyCon Portland 2016, event in San Francisco, we fielded an all women panel of judges. Judges included Kat Manalac of Y Combinator, Bethanye McKinney Blount formerly CTO of Reddit, Leah Culver of Dropbox, Bebe Chueh CMO of Legalzoom, Jessica Scorpio founder of Getaround, and Christine Spang founder of Startup Row alumna Nylas.

With Dusty Phillips author of "Python 3: Object Oriented Programming", I founded PuPPy (Puget Sound Programming Python) in Seattle. Our very first event was a mini-conference on improving gender balance in tech professions. Lynn Root was featured speaker. Panelists included Geek Girls Carrots founder Kamila Stepniowska, Kristin Toth Smith COO of Dolly and local selection committee members of National Center for Women and IT, Krista Davis and Steph Burg.

In the 21 months since founding, PuPPy has had 23 large format talk format meetings. We have put on a total of 90 events over 21 months when we include weekly Programming Nights where members meet to casually work on projects or seek help learning Python. Membership is now at 2100, and our membership is growing every month. Our largest events have turned out over 200. For a string of three months, we fielded all stars of Python as speakers starting with Brett Cannon and Larry Hastings in December 2015, Brandon Rhodes in January of this year, and Jessica McKellar in February. The February event hosted by Dropbox included Redfin CTO Bridget Frey on a panel discussing improving gender balance in engineering roles. Our women attendance for our February 2016 event was 52%.

Globally, PuPPy normally turns out about 25% women turnout at our talk format events, correlating with our overall membership of 25% women.

Plans During Board Term


**Income for the Python Software Foundation**

If I am honored with the privilege of serving on the Python Software Foundation board, I'd like to further efforts to introduce process and professionalism to the efforts of the PSF. Where I think I can offer concrete improvement is in efforts to generate income for the PSF. For example, I believe that introducing good process and practice to annual sponsorship efforts we can increase income in a increment worth the effort.

For Startup Row for example, in San Francisco alone I generate email lists for outreach that total over 300 founders of startups using Python. With that list I methodically approach each founder individually with directly addressed email offering to share information about Startup Row and our efforts to help early stage startups by featuring them in the expo hall of PyCon.

In the past, I've accelerated sales of a growing company from $3m annual revenue to excess of $15m in 18 months. I believe that though that scale of improvement is unlikely, I can contribute meaningfully towards improving income of the PSF.

**Global Outreach**

Another area where I can help the PSF and global Python community is expanding awareness of our community in previously inactive locations like Myanmar and Israel. I would love to support Younggun in growing our presence in Asia. I speak Mandarin and Korean, and read both. My 2016 plans include business trips to Myanmar. In Yangon, local tech community leaders hosted the world's largest barcamp with over 6000 participants.

**Support of Local User Groups**

I am grateful for the PSF's support of PuPPy. Recently a grant from the PSF helped us bring Melanie Warrick to Seattle to speak on the trends in Ai. Our event turned out 220 (RSVPs).

What I have learned with Dusty in building a fast growing local user group, I'd love to commit our experience to a local user group kit. I love what Lynn Root and PyLadies have done with Github and their success in spinning up new chapters every month. I know it can be daunting to organize the first meeting. I'd love to personally coach those interested in founding a local user group through every step of the way.

In Seattle, Seattle Data/Analytics/Machine Learning was dormant for over a year. When the organizers approached me for tips, I coordinated a combined event to relaunch DAML. PuPPy help seed DAML's renaissance with our members interested in their subject matter. The group continues to meet every month and is growing rapidly. I turned over all of my internal organizing documents and provided them with introductions to likely hosts and sponsors.

10two1 (self-employed)

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