Friday, March 19, 2010

2010 Q1 Community Service Awards

The PSF Board chose in the first quarter of this year to honor two individuals who have both given outstanding service to PyCon. For the first time framed certificates were actually presented to the recipients in person at the conference.

Ken Whitesell has been a PyCon supporter for a very long time. It's hard to remember a time when Ken wasn't working behind the reception desk to make sure that delegates received all the help they need. Ken has also done sterling work in presenting many tutorials at PyCon, and has evangelized Python to the commercial world over a long period.

Yarko Tymciurak has provided several years meritorious service in developing and maintaining electronic registration and payment systems for PyCon. He has also shown exceptional dedication to providing high levels of customer service to both delegates and sponsors, going above and beyond the call of duty in assisting with registration issues.

Many thanks to both Ken and Yarko. We hope to see you both at PyCon again next year.

Final 2009 Community Service Awards

Only now have I been able to make the time to record the recipients of the final PSF Community Service Awards of 2009. I hope the recipients will accept my apologies for the lateness of this announcement.

Catherine Devlin received her award for her long-term contributions to PyCon, the organization of the first two PyOhio regional conferences, for promoting diversity in the Python community and for education efforts.

Facundo Batista's award came for organizing PyCon Argentia and the Argentinian Python community as well as contributions to the standard library and work in translating the Python documentation.

The PSF's thanks go to both these people (both, as it happens, PSF members though this is not a pre-requisite to be honored).