• Community Conference Reports

Community Conference Reports

Part of the effort to have better community relations, the Python Software Foundation attempts to have a present in international conferences. Our goal is to have the Director of Operations or a Board Director attend four international Python conferences throughout the year.

Below are reports from the PSF representatives that attended a Python Conference.

2016

PyBay 2016

Location: Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco, CA

Dates: August 19-21, 2016

PSF Representatives present: Betsy Waliszewski, Carol Willing

Report from Betsy Waliszewski

• There were just under 400 attendees and it looked like nearly everyone had checked in by the mid-day on Saturday.

• Friday, there were 2 pre-conference offsite tutorials (Wesley Chun and Raymond Hettinger) that were sold out. After that, everyone came back to the conference venue at the Mission Bay Conference Center for a reception, keynote by Jessica McKellar, lightening talks, and networking.

• Saturday and Sunday there were 4 tracks, a job fair & tools expo, reception & cash bar. The gold and platinum sponsors set up on Saturday morning, while the remaining exhibitors set up at 4:00 that afternoon. Hacker and open spaces were set up. I spent the day on Saturday helping out in the sponsor area and swag table. I brought stickers and the last of the Python desktop toys (400). Both were very popular. It was very busy all day and the sponsors got very good traffic.

• I was very impressed with the conference. The organizers are to be commended for creating a welcoming and professional atmosphere. The sponsors and attendees were well-taken care of, the food was good, and the talks well-received. For a first time event, it went off with very few issues. A couple of negative things I heard was that the women’s t-shirts were child-sized , and there were a few AV glitches. There were also some issues with the mobile app. Other than that, everything went very well. They had a nice printed program guide too.

• I understand from Grace that they were able to break even, which is a great. I’m sure if they do this again, they’ll start planning earlier than they did this year. It’s really amazing what they were able to accomplish in such a short time.

Report from Carol Willing

• I believe that they had 398 attendees. They mentioned at closing talks that 25% were women. I did meet a couple of folks that were there on a scholarship and they found the conference really worthwhile and the community very welcoming. They mentioned that next year that they would work on additional efforts on diversity. I think (and I may be off on the number) they were able to offer 10 scholarships and a number of volunteer-attend scholarships which one of my Cal Poly students did.
• Grace, Simeon, and all the volunteers were incredibly helpful. It was wonderful to have Betsy there to talk about the PSF and hand out the highly coveted PSF stickers. The venue was lovely and worked well for the size of the conference.

• I had a fabulous weekend. I attended Raymond’s workshop on Friday and Jessica’s keynote and the lightning talks. I liked the way they set up the schedule with breaks between the talks which people enjoyed since it gave folks a chance to meet each other and less pressure to rush from one room to the next. The hacker space was conveniently located between the sponsor/job fair and the outside patio where lunch was served. It was great to have the hacking so close to the sponsors since people would introduce folks to the sponsors and vice versa. Something to perhaps consider fostering more of at PyCon.

• Along those lines, a little thing that was very effective and entertaining was the little table signs in the hacker lounge. Just scratch paper and a little wire memory holder yet people enjoyed sharing topics and conversation.
• One surprise was how down to earth, helpful, and encouraging the conference felt. I didn’t expect that from the Bay Area based on other events that I have attended in the Bay Area. Grace and Simeon as well as the volunteers really worked hard to make everyone feel welcome and part of the community.

PyCon APAC 2016

Location: Seoul, South Korea

Dates: August 13-15, 2016

PSF Representatives present: Ewa Jodlowska, Younggun Kim, lvh, Don Sheu

Top tweets from the event: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kyol5e4xv8xqygr/%23PyConAPAC%20-%20Twitter%20Search.pdf?dl=0

Ewa's slides shown at the PSF booth: http://prezi.com/8kgq9e9o_1fk/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Report from Ewa Jodlowska

August 13, 2016

• Attended Wes’s talk (opening Keynote). During his talk, he mentioned how Scientific Python gets supported by NumFocus and the Apache Foundation but did not mention the PSF. Why is that? Perhaps we need to better publicize our working groups.

• Lvh worked at the booth
• Don Sheu arrived and staffed the booth
• Younggun staffed the booth when available, but since he was organizing, he did not have much spare time so in the end, I am very happy that we were there to staff the booth.
• Met with Django Girls Seoul organizers and passed on information for future grant requests. The original organizer of the group, Rachell, no longer lives in Korea so new organizers have been trained to take over. They are very excited and have lots of ideas on how to get more Koreans involved and engaged.

• Met with Dmitri from JetBrains. JetBrains is very interested in partnering with the PSF similar to how they have with the DSF. Discussed fundraiser (https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2016/jun/30/pycharm-and-django-fundraiser/), discussed http://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/python-developers-survey-2016/. Discussed getting corporate stats to help drive better sponsorship. Discussed how companies and the PSF are interested in a common thread of sustainability. We discussed how Data Analysis/Scientific in Python is on the rise.

• Spoke to Maciej about moving PyPy over to the PSF from the FSC. I think once we figure this out for BeeWare, we can offer this the same model to PyPy. I think that kind of support is huge for the community and I would like to see the PSF assist with it. I would like to help with the accounting if needed in order to make it happen for our community projects.

August 14, 2016

• DG organizers returned and discussed other workshops they are interested in putting on. They are interested in putting on workshops with raspberry pis

• Armin’s talk Python having stageful modules & how Flask helps with state management. Flask is commonly used by developers in Korea so Armin's talk and presence at the conference was very well received. He was asked for pictures and autographs several times during his time at the PSF booth

• Maciej’s talk was great - funding open source. Open Source is saving companies billions. We need to make corps see this so we can use some of those saved funds to help support and maintain OS. His talk would be great for our Sponsorship WG to see unfortunately it was not recorded

• It would be better interaction onsite to have access to @thepsf twitter account.

• Met PyLadies local organizers

• Attending PyCon APAC organizers meeting. During this meetings, they discussed creating a guideline document that can help other countries put on an APAC. They discussed how to increase national diversity so all APAC countries are represented in the audience. They also discussed financial aid. Off line, they will discuss how to deal with APAC accounting. Since the conference moves to different countries, money tends to get moved around when possible, but they would like to better the organization. They are considering an approach similar to how EuroPython is done or to become a PSF working group and have the money be managed by us.

• Attended PyCon APAC dinner that the conference put on for volunteers, speakers, and sponsors. Met with two students who were conference volunteers. They have recently learned about Python and developing in general but are very driven and energetic about the prospects. I spoke to them about attending PyCon US when they have a chance and also informed them of our financial aid program. I also met with another PyCon US sponsor, Roy from CrossCompute. We discussed international PyCons and his experiences attending them.

August 15, 2016

• Sprints and tutorials happening at a local company.

• The conference had more attendees show up for this day than they had expected. Organizations had to book additional space last minute. Good problem to have in my opinion. After lunch I chatted with Manabu Terada, the PyCon JP organizer. We talked about doing a similar setup of the PSF booth in PyCon JP 2017 as we did in PyCon APAC 2016.

Europython 2016

Location: Bilbao, Spain

Dates: July 16-24, 2016

PSF Representatives present: Naomi Ceder, Lorena Mesa, Ruben Orduz

Report from Naomi Ceder

• gave keynote on Python Community and PSF (video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCCiA-IlVco).

• ran PSF member meeting (with Lorena's help) (video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuMf6lnEumo).

• handed out PSF member stickers to new PSF basic members (Thanks to Marc-Andre Lemburg for the stickers)
• met with new organizer of London Python Meetup, Tariq Rashid, and discussed how PSF works with local orgs.
• discussed how to start a Python community with someone from Bosnia.
• referred someone from Colombia to Facundo B. to discuss forming community in Colombia.
• Ruben manned a PSF table in the main area during the main conference, handing out stickers, brochures, and talking to people.