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Submitted on 2015-08-17 22:29
It's time to say goodbye from Brisbane!
Thank you to everyone who helped make this conference happen, the team, the volunteers, the sponsors, the speakers, the papers team, our Miniconf organisers, our partners and of course our attendees.
Almost all of our videos have been uploaded and linked to the schedule (a couple of videos need some manual handling).
We hope that you've enjoyed yourself, learnt a lot, and made new friends: welcome to the community. You don't have to wait till the next conference to have that feeling again, if there isn't a user group in your home town, consider starting your own.
Roll on PyCon Australia 2016 in Melbourne!
Submitted on 2015-07-24 17:42
As part of Carrie Anne Philbin’s keynote announcement last week, we also announced the availability of financial assistance grants for qualified primary and secondary teachers wishing to attend the Python in Education Miniconf on July 31st.
Teachers that are interested in attending the Python in Education Miniconf, but face financial barriers to doing so, are strongly encouraged to apply for financial assistance.
These grants are made possible by the generous contributions of the Python Software Foundation and Code Club Australia, and are designed to make it easier for teachers to justify attending an education focused event hosted by a software development conference. As such, teachers may apply not only for assistance with registration, travel, and accommodation costs as described for the regular financial assistance program, but also a contribution of up to $360 towards the costs of hiring a substitute teacher for the day.
Submitted on 2015-07-13 16:17
Following on from 2014's inspirational keynote advocating Python for Every Child in Australia as part of the rollout of the Australian Digital Curriculum, this year sees PyCon Australia playing host to its first ever Python in Education miniconf. As part of that event, we are thrilled to announce our second PyCon Australia 2015 keynote speaker: Carrie Anne Philbin, Education Pioneer at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, chair of the UK's Computing at School's #include initiative, author of "Adventures in Raspberry Pi", and a member of the Board of Directors for the Python Software Foundation.
As an award winning secondary Computing & ICT teacher, Carrie Anne is a vocal advocate for the merits of Python as an educational tool, and brings to PyCon Australia a wealth of experience with the UK's search for a suitable text based programming language to serve as a follow on from self-contained visual programming environments like Scratch.
Submitted on 2015-06-28 21:08
Last week, we revealed the programme schedule for Pycon Australia 2015 (2015.pycon-au.org/programme/about). This week, it's our pleasure to announce the first of our keynote speakers for 2015, Carina C. Zona, the founder of @CallbackWomen, an initiative that aims to reduce the well-documented gender disparity in speaker line-ups at programming conferences.
For some time now, through Schemas for the Real World Carina has been advocating for developers to address the ways that seemingly incidental details of how we structure our data models can have real and lasting impacts on the way people experience the software-mediated world around them.
This year, she is taking on a new challenge, and asking us to reflect seriously on the "Consequences of an Insightful Algorithm". In this era of large data sets, and rich analytical tools, we’re able to extract remarkably precise intuitions about individuals from seemingly innocuous information. But do we have a right to know details that users didn’t consent to share, even when they willingly shared the data that leads us to a particular conclusion?
What are our obligations to people who did not expect themselves to be so intimately known without sharing directly? How do we mitigate against unintended outcomes, as when a major social network inadvertently triggered painful memories for grieving families who’d recently experienced the death of their child or other loved ones?
As Carina puts it, "We design software for humans. Balancing human needs and business specs can be tough. It’s crucial that we learn how to build in systematic empathy."
Carina is a developer, community manager, advocate, certified sex educator, and whimsical gluten-free baker. She has been an organizer & instructor for many tech women’s organizations, including formerly serving on Railsbridge’s core team, and has given talks at more than 20 technical conferences among the Python, Ruby, JavaScript, and PHP communities.
She spends a lot of time thinking about the unexpected cultural effects of our decisions as programmers.
We can't wait to hear Carina's keynote and we are sure you will enjoy it as well.
PyCon Australia has endeavoured to keep tickets as affordable as possible. We are able to do so, thanks to our Sponsors and Contributors. Registrations for PyCon Australia 2015 are now open, with prices starting at AU$50 for students, and tickets for the general public starting at AU$240. All prices include GST, and more information can be found at http://2015.pycon-au.org/register/prices
Submitted on 2015-06-24 10:59
PyCon Australia is proud to release our programme for 2015, spread over the weekend of August 1st and 2nd, following our Miniconfs on Friday 31 July.
Following our largest ever response to our Call for Proposals, we are able to present two keynotes, forty eight talks and two tutorials. The conference will feature four full tracks of presentations, covering all aspects of the Python ecosystem, presented by experts and core developers of key Python technology. Our presenters cover a broad range of backgrounds, including industry, research, government and academia.
We are still finalising our Miniconf timetable, but we expect another thirty talks for Friday. We'd like to highlight the inaugural running of the Education Miniconf whose primary aim is to bring educators and the Python community closer together.
The full schedule for PyCon Australia 2015 can be found at http://2015.pycon-au.org/programme/about
Submitted on 2015-06-21 21:45
On Friday July 31st, the inaugural PyCon Australia Python in Education miniconf will be held at the main conference venue. This event aims to bring together Python developers interested in educational initiatives, community workshop organisers, professional Python instructors and professional educators across primary, secondary and tertiary levels to share their experiences and requirements, and identify areas of potential collaboration with each other and with the broader Python community.
Submitted on 2015-06-09 21:30
We are delighted to announce that online registration is now open for PyCon Australia 2015. The sixth PyCon Australia is being held in Brisbane, Queensland from July 31st – 4th August at the Pullman Brisbane and is expected to draw hundreds of Python developers, enthusiasts and students from Australasia and afar.
Submitted on 2015-06-01 08:26
PyCon Australia 2015's financial assistance programme has opened! Financial assistance is the cornerstone of the conference's outreach programme -- the programme helps us to fund registration, travel, and accommodation expenses for deserving applicants. In doing so, we're helping to put PyCon Australia within reach of everyone who wants to attend.
If you'd enjoy PyCon Australia, or the Australian Python community would benefit from you coming to the conference, we'd love you to come along. You can find out more about the specifics of the programme on our site at http://2015.pycon-au.org/grants
PyCon Australia strongly encourages people to apply for financial assistance -- even if we can’t cover all of your expenses, we will give you free admission based on need. The application process is simple, and straightforward. It’s also very liberal -- the only caveat is that speakers at the conference "get bumped to the top" of the applications so that we don’t lose a good talk because of financial need. We also don’t ban anyone from applying.
Anyone interested in attending PyCon Australia is eligible to apply for financial assistance. Grants are allocated on the basis of need, and applications will be assessed by our financial assistance panel. In short, anyone whose attendance at PyCon Australia will help improve the Python community in Australia, or around the world, is invited to apply.
To apply for financial aid, fill out our application form, which you can find at http://2015.pycon-au.org/grants. The first round of applications will be considered after Friday 12 June 2015; the second round of applications will be considered after Friday 26 June, 2015.
Submitted on 2015-05-02 16:38
With just under a week to go until the PyCon Australia 2015 Call for Proposals closes, we thought it would be a good idea to give everyone an update and a reminder. We’re very happy with the proposals we’ve already received, but we’re eager to receive more! We hope our proposal writing working bees in Brisbane have been of help, and hope to roll them out to more cities next year. If you’ve got any questions please get in touch (numerous contact details are up on pycon-au.org). We would like to give a special shout out for the Education MiniConf, which is new this year: if you know people teaching and using computing in the education realm, please forward this CFP on.
The deadline for proposal submission is Friday 8th May, 2015.
We welcome first-time speakers; we are a community conference and we are eager to hear about your experience. If you have friends or colleagues who have something valuable to contribute, twist their arms to tell us about it! Please also forward this Call for Proposals to anyone that you feel may be interested.
The most recent call for proposals information can always be found at: pycon-au.org/cfp See you in Brisbane in July!
Submitted on 2015-03-23 20:57
PyCon Australia 2015 is pleased to announce that its Call for Proposals is now open! The conference this year will be held on Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 August 2014 in Brisbane. We'll also be featuring a day of miniconfs on Friday 31st August. The deadline for proposal submission is Friday April 25, 2014, and more information can be found at http://pycon-au.org/cfp
