PyCon Australia 2012 News

Call for Volunteers

Submitted on 2012-08-08 05:52

With just ten days until the start of PyCon Australia 2012, it’s time for us to call for volunteers -- we need your support to make PyCon AU a huge success. Over the course of the conference we will be needing session chairs, people to man the registration desk and general volunteers.

Session chairs and only need to commit to being in one room between two breaks (e.g. from the end of morning tea through the beginning of lunch). You can take up these roles and still see all of the talks in one room for a session -- just nominate which sessions you'd be happy to chair in your reply and we'll try to allocate you to them

Session chairs are responsible for managing one room for a block of presentations between two breaks. Their job is to:

Introduce the speakers
Keep speakers on time
Ensure the session is kept in order
Passing the audience microphone to questioners (this helps make sure our video recordings are of a very high quality).

Our registration desk will be open on Friday night and Saturday morning (http://2012.pycon-au.org/programme/registration).

We need four volunteers to make short work of the 200+ delegates that we are expecting. Outside of those rush hours we’d like to keep the desk manned to answer delegate queries and deal with late check-ins.

Finally, any volunteers who can be on call throughout the conference to assist the organisers would be greatly appreciated.

For those who can make it, we plan on running a briefing session on Friday afternoon, sometime around 3:30pm (time to be confirmed).

If you're interested in volunteering for any of the roles that we've described above, please reply to contact@pycon-au.org.

PyCon Australia dinner cruise and reception

Submitted on 2012-07-30 00:00

We're very pleased to be able to announce the final, hitherto unannounced part of PyCon Australia 2012 -- our conference dinner this year is being held offsite at Peppermint Bay, near Woodbridge, some 30km to the south of Hobart.

Taking advantage of the waterfront location of our conference venue, we'll be starting the evening with a one-hour twilight cruise on the Navigators catamaran, MV Marana (with your choice of indoor seating, or outdoor viewing decks); following the cruise, Peppermint Bay will present a three-course dinner, featuring fresh produce from the local region and around Tasmania. Once that's done, we'll take you back to Wrest Point aboard the Marana.

We hope the dinner will be an excellent centrepiece of the conference this year, which will help make PyCon Australia 2012 a memorable event.

For more information about our dinner cruise and reception, or PyCon Australia in general, please see our website.

Images: Peppermint Bay.

About PyCon Australia

PyCon Australia is the national conference for the Python Programming Community. The third PyCon Australia will be held on August 18 and 19, 2012 in Hobart, Tasmania, bringing together professional, student and enthusiast developers with a love for developing with Python. PyCon Australia informs the country’s Python developers with presentations, tutorials and panel sessions by experts and core developers of Python, as well as the libraries and frameworks that they rely on.

To find out more about PyCon Australia 2012, visit our website at http://pycon-au.org or e-mail us at contact@pycon-au.org.

PyCon Australia is presented by Linux Australia (www.linux.org.au) and acknowledges the support of our Gold sponsors: Google Australia (www.google.com.au), and the Australian Computer Society (Tasmanian Branch) (www.acs.org.au); our Event partners: Kogan, and Secret Lab; and our Silver sponsors: the Python Software Foundation, the Django Software Foundation, Anchor Systems, 99designs, Red Hat, BitBucket by Atlassian, ekit, Ionata Web Solutions, RimuHosting, and CSIRO.

Four weeks until PyCon Australia 2012: Have you registered yet?

Submitted on 2012-07-22 15:53

Things have been very busy here at PyCon Australia 2012 headquarters -- we've been busy putting the finishing touches on what we hope will be an amazing conference for Python programmers from around Australia and beyond.

T-shirt registration deadline: Tuesday 31 July.

Of course, a conference is nothing without people attending, and there's still plenty of opportunity to join in the fun. Registrations for the conference will remain open until the week of the conference, or until we sell out; but if you want one of our fantastic conference t-shirts, you'll need to have your registration finalised on Tuesday, 31 July.

Prices for reigstrations start at $44 for students, and $198 for individuals. You can register at http://2012.pycon-au.org/register/prices

More Events!

For those of you attending the conference, you'll be pleased to know that we've confirmed a few more of our events for the conference. The annual PyLadies breakfast is happening on the Saturday, before conference festivities start, at Wrest Point's Pier One waterfront restaurant. This event is open to all female delegates to the conference, and is being sponsored by our good friends at Google Australia.

We've also finalised details of our conference dinner -- we'll be sharing details of these with you next week, but needless to say, we're very excited about it, and can't wait to share this with you.

About PyCon Australia

To find out more about PyCon Australia 2012, visit our website at http://pycon-au.org or e-mail us at contact@pycon-au.org.

Accommodation and registration deadlines fast approaching!

Submitted on 2012-07-08 18:36

With little over one month remaining before PyCon Australia 2012 kicks off in Hobart, Tasmania, there are some important conference deadlines fast approaching. There's just one week left to book conference accommodation at the conference venue, and only registrations completed before the end of July will include a conference T-shirt.

Accommodation -- Book by Tuesday 17 July

Our conference venue, Wrest Point, has a number of hotel rooms reserved for PyCon Australia delegates, at guaranteed prices. These are good value-for-money, and are all very close to the conference rooms.

These rates will only be guaranteed for delegates who reserve their rooms on or before Tuesday 17 July 2012. For details of prices, room types, and how to book, see our website at http://2012.pycon-au.org/register/accommodation

To reserve your room, one night's (refundable) deposit must be paid on reservation.

Conference Registration -- Register by Tuesday 31 July to guarantee your t-shirt

Conference registrations will be open until just before the conference kicks off, unless we sell out earlier. However, we need final numbers for our t-shirt supplier at the start of August. So, if you want your conference t-shirt, please register before Tuesday 31 July!

If you've got any queries about the conference, registration or accommodation, please don't hesitate to get in contact with us through e-mail at contact@pycon-au.org

See you here in August!

About PyCon Australia

To find out more about PyCon Australia 2012, visit our website at http://pycon-au.org or e-mail us at contact@pycon-au.org.

PyCon Australia is presented by Linux Australia (www.linux.org.au) and acknowledges the support of our Gold sponsors: Google Australia (www.google.com.au), and the Australian Computer Society (Tasmanian Branch) (www.acs.org.au); our Event partners: Kogan, and Secret Lab; and our Silver sponsors: the Python Software Foundation, the Django Software Foundation, Anchor Systems, 99designs, Red Hat, ekit, Ionata Web Solutions, RimuHosting, and CSIRO.

Wrest Point Accommodation Update

Submitted on 2012-06-27 22:30

As part of PyCon Australia 2012, we're offering accommodation deals through our conference venue, Wrest Point, for delegates attending the conference.

Wrest Point have recently reduced their public rates for all classes of room, so we have renegotiated our group rate for the conference to reflect the current general public rate for these rooms. In most cases, these represent a 20% discount upon our original guaranteed rates.

The rates are guaranteed until Tuesday 17 July, and are as follows:

Mountainside (3.5 stars): $105/night
Water Edge (4 stars): $115/night
Tower (Mountain View) (4.5 stars): $135/night
Tower (Harbour View) (4.5 stars): $163/night
Suite (4.5 stars): $228/night

Note that there are limited numbers of Mountainside rooms remaining. All rooms are available on a single, double or twin-share basis, with extra beds available for $35/night

For details, sample room photographs, and booking instructions, see our web site at http://2012.pycon-au.org/register/accommodation

Bookings made under our original guaranteed rates will be discounted to reflect these new rates, including refunds of room deposits on checkout if applicable. If you have any queries, please e-mail the conference organisers at contact@pycon-au.org

PyCon Australia 2012 Conference Programme Revealed!

Submitted on 2012-06-14 07:19

(Hobart Tasmania, 15 June 2012) With both of our keynotes announced, PyCon Australia is very proud to be able to reveal the programme for the 2012 conference, to be held on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 August 2012 in Hobart, Tasmania.

Following an impressive response to our Call for Proposals the conference will feature three full tracks of presentations and tutorials, across two days, covering all aspects of the Python ecosystem, presented by experts and core developers of key Python technology.

Our keynote presenters, Mark Ramm, Engineering Manager on Juju at Canonical, and Kenneth Reitz, Python lead at Heroku will be joined by a wide array of presenters covering a broad range of backgrounds, including industry, research, government and academia.

As ever, PyCon Australia is a great place to keep up-to-date with the latest trends in Python web technology: From Heroku, Lincoln Stoll will be presenting on the 12 Factor Method for building software-as-a-service apps. Other web related topics include deployment and testing techniques for Django applications and techniques for asynchronous web programming.

There's also a wide range of talks for the rapidly growing community of developers using Python in science. Edward Schofield's survey of the latest developments in Python for Science and Engineering will get you up to scratch on what tools and techniques are shaping the Python world for scientists. From there, case studies and introductory talks will delve into all aspects of Python in science: including techniques for handling large scientific data sets, natural language processing, and data visualisation -- attendees working with Python in all fields of science will gain something from PyCon Australia 2012.

Finally, for newcomers to Python looking to quickly enhance their Python skillset, Graeme Cross' tutorials in our Classroom stream will help you to rapidly enhance your knowledge of Python -- you can then attend our general stream talks to glean a snapshot of the state of the art in Python.

PyCon Australia 2012 programme committee chair, Richard Jones, was impressed with the level of response to the Call for Proposals, which closed in early May: "We had an unprecedented response to our Call for Proposals this year, and this has helped us to put together one of the strongest programmes ever at PyCon Australia. There's something for every developer working with Python in this year's programme -- be they working in web technology, in research, or even if they're just a Python enthusiast who wants to learn more about their favourite language."

The full schedule for PyCon Australia 2012 can be found at http://2012.pycon-au.org/programme/schedule

Registrations for PyCon Australia 2012 are now open, with prices starting at AU$44 for students, and tickets for the general public starting at AU$198. All prices include GST, and more information can be found at http://2012.pycon-au.org/register/prices

We're looking forward to seeing this excellent programme brought to life at PyCon Australia 2012, in Hobart, in August.

About PyCon Australia

To find out more about PyCon Australia 2012, visit our website at http://pycon-au.org or e-mail us at contact@pycon-au.org.

Mark Ramm joins PyCon Australia 2012 as a Keynote Presenter

Submitted on 2012-06-12 18:26

PyCon Australia, the national conference for the Python programming community is happy to announce that veteran Python web developer Mark Ramm will be joining the 2012 conference as a keynote presenter.

PyCon Australia 2012 will be held in Hobart, Tasmania on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 August, 2012.

Where do the tools of the scientist meet the tools of product design for high-growth Startups? Mark explains: "There’s been a lot of buzz about 'Lean Startups,' 'Customer Development,' 'Business Model Generation' and related topics lately, and there is a real transformation in the way we design and build products at work behind all that buzz -- the fundamental principle behind all of them is applying scientific and experimental methodologies to product design decision making."

"Fortunately Python is a great tool for those looking to apply data science to product design."

In Mark's previous role as Director of Engineering at SourceForge.net, he set out to prove the value of these tools in an established organisation, eventually transforming their development practices, and the entire SourceForge.net product around it, to help them meet the needs of their users quicker. He now works as Engineering Manager on the Juju team at Canonical, helping developers rapidly deploy services to the cloud.

A regular presenter at Python-related conferences around the world, including PyCon US, EuroPython, Kiwi PyCon and OSCON; Mark is also the co-BDFL of the TurboGears web framework, and is a regular contributor to the Pyramid ecosystem.

We're looking forward to hearing Mark's guide to developing startups with the tools of the scientist in August. Conference registrations are now open at http://2012.pycon-au.org/register/prices

(Photo Credit: Mark Ramm by Flickr user daninrgb, CC-BY-NC)

About PyCon Australia

To find out more about PyCon Australia 2012, visit our website at http://pycon-au.org or e-mail us at contact@pycon-au.org.

PyCon Australia 2012 and Google Australia announce gender diversity grants

Submitted on 2012-05-29 22:58

PyCon Australia and Google Australia are pleased to announce that they're joining forces to offer gender diversity delegate grants to women who wish to attend PyCon Australia in 2012. These grants will cover up to $AUD500 of travel, accommodation and registration costs for women living outside of the Southern Tasmania region to attend this year's conference.

These grants aim to reduce the financial barriers to attending PyCon Australia 2012, by subsidising the registration and travel costs of people from diverse groups, who contribute in important ways to the Python community.

More information can be found at http://2012.pycon-au.org/diversity_grants

Eligibility

In order to be eligible for one of the grants, you must be:

A woman, aged 18 or older
A professional, enthusiast or student interested in, or currently working in Python-related fields or projects
Planning to attend both days of PyCon Australia 2012

In order to be eligible for the travel and accommodation grant, you must additionally: live further than 150 km (by road) from the conference venue.

(If you are unsure, please visit http://maps.google.com.au/maps/place?q=Wrest%20Point,%20Tasmania and use the "Get Directions" link in the upper left-hand corner to calculate the driving distance from your place of residence to the venue.)

More information can be found at http://2012.pycon-au.org/diversity_grants

Award Amount

All selected grant recipients will be extended the Early Bird registration rates to PyCon Australia, provided registration is completed prior to 13 July.

In addition, recipients of the travel and accommodation grant will be reimbursed up to $500 in travel and accommodation costs.

More information can be found at http://2012.pycon-au.org/diversity_grants

Timeline

Applications for the gender diversity delegates grants are open now, and will close on Friday 22 June We will notify all successful recipients of their award by Friday 29 June so that you can have ample time to complete your travel plans.

More information can be found at http://2012.pycon-au.org/diversity_grants

About PyCon Australia

To find out more about PyCon Australia 2012, visit our website at http://pycon-au.org or e-mail us at contact@pycon-au.org.

PyCon Australia is presented by Linux Australia (www.linux.org.au) and acknowledges the support of our Gold sponsors: Google Australia (www.google.com.au), and the Australian Computer Society (Tasmanian Branch) (www.acs.org.au); our Event partner, Secret Lab; and our Silver sponsors: the Python Software Foundation, the Django Software Foundation, Anchor Systems, Red Hat, ekit, RimuHosting, and CSIRO.

PyCon Australia 2012 Early Bird registrations almost sold out!

Submitted on 2012-05-26 04:25

tl;dr: PyCon Australia's Early Bird registrations are on sale until this Friday, 1 June -- or until we've sold 60 tickets. There's fewer than 15 left now, so hurry! Find out more at http://2012.pycon-au.org/register/prices, including details of our accommodation programme.

Are you planning on coming to PyCon Australia 2012, the national conference for the Python programming community? If you've been putting off your registration, now is an excellent time to act: there's fewer than 10 Early Bird tickets left for the conference, and these WILL sell out before the deadline of Friday 1 June.

Early Bird registration rates are available from $165 for "Enthusiast"-level tickets, or $420 for "Professional"-level tickets; each of these represents a saving of more than 10% on our regular prices. All tickets include access to the CodeWars event on Friday 17 August, and the post-conference sprints on Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 August.

For full details of what comes with each of our tickets, and for more information about the conference itself, visit http://2012.pycon-au.org/register/prices.

About PyCon Australia

To find out more about PyCon Australia 2012, visit our website at http://pycon-au.org or e-mail us at contact@pycon-au.org.

PyCon Australia is presented by Linux Australia (www.linux.org.au) and acknowledges the support of our Gold sponsors: Google Australia (www.google.com.au), and the Australian Computer Society (Tasmanian Branch) (www.acs.org.au); our Event partner, Secret Lab; and our Silver sponsors: the Python Software Foundation, the Django Software Foundation, Anchor Systems, Red Hat, ekit, RimuHosting, and CSIRO.

Heroku's Kenneth Reitz to present keynote at PyCon Australia 2012

Submitted on 2012-05-17 21:36

With Early Bird registrations well underway, PyCon Australia is very pleased to announce Kenneth Reitz of Heroku as the first of its keynote speakers for the 2012 conference, to be held on August 18 and 19 in Hobart, Tasmania.

As the world of software development turns to making things more usable for end-users of applications, making libraries and APIs easy for developers themselves to use often becomes an afterthought. Even in the Python world, many key APIs are a pain to work with. "Unfortunately, solving simple problems with Python isn't always 'import antigravity'. Best practices are sometimes far from obvious.", says Kenneth. "My keynote will analyse the high barriers of entry that clutter the Python landscape, and I'll be discussing ways to make Python more accessible for newcomers and less of a headache for seasoned veterans."

One of Kenneth's shining successes in making formerly difficult tasks easier for Python developers is the Requests HTTP library (python-requests): a tool that has transformed making HTTP requests in Python from a cumbersome and error-prone task into one that's elegant, easy to understand and easy to remember. Such is the success of Requests, it is now considered the de facto way of making HTTP requests in Python. python-requests is now the third most-watched Python project on GitHub, second only to projects from Facebook and Django.

Kenneth is now working with Heroku, overseeing the technical design of their Python application stack. Kenneth's other popular open source projects include Legit, Clint, Python-Guide, HTTPbin, Inbox.py, OSX-GCC-Installer, and more available at http://github.com/kennethreitz.

We at PyCon Australia can't wait to hear Kenneth's insights on improving the Python ecosystem in August! Registration is open at http://2012.pycon-au.org with Early Bird rates available to the first 60 paid delegates, or until Friday 1 June, 2012.

(Photo Credit: "Kenneth Reitz" by Kenneth Reitz, CC-BY. )

About PyCon Australia

To find out more about PyCon Australia 2012, visit our website at http://pycon-au.org or e-mail us at contact@pycon-au.org.

PyCon Australia is presented by Linux Australia (www.linux.org.au) and acknowledges the support of our Gold sponsor, Google Australia (www.google.com.au); our Event partner, Secret Lab; and our Silver sponsors, the Python Software Foundation, Anchor Systems, Red Hat, ekit, and CSIRO.

About Heroku

Heroku is a cloud application platform – a new way of building and deploying web apps. Developers can focus 100% on code and never think about servers, instances, or VMs again. Tens of thousands of developers have already deployed hundreds of thousands of apps to Heroku. For more information, visit heroku.com