Thursday, December 21, 2017

Community is at its Peak at North Bay Python

As I sat in the cool, darkened theater, I reflected on what had brought me to North Bay Python. While I had heard the buzz about a Python conference in Petaluma, it wasn’t until PyLadies Vancouver offered me a free ticket that I decided to attend. A quick flight from Seattle brought me to San Francisco the night before North Bay Python started, allowing me time to partake in one of my favorite hobbies -  navigating public transit to new places. Sitting in the theater I felt lucky. Though I had attended a variety of Geographic Information Systems conferences, this was my first Python conference outside of PyData Seattle and local meetups. I could not wait for what was in store.

Nestled in the heart of wine country in Sonoma County, roughly 40 miles north of San Francisco, sits the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma. Built in 1911 and normally hosting theater and music shows, the theater is not the usual host for a tech conference. Christopher Neugebauer, an organizer of North Bay Python, originally had the idea to hold a conference at the Mystic Theatre earlier this year as he was talking to friends at PyCon. By the end of PyCon 2017 it was decided, and planning had begun for the first annual North Bay Python conference. 

The historic venue wasn’t the only thing special about this conference. Before the talks began, Christopher got on stage and informed us of the code of conduct, photo sensitivity policies, all-gender bathrooms, quiet spaces, and nursing room. We were provided a number to call if at any time during the conference we felt unsafe. Next, Josh Simmons, another organizer, asked the audience, “Who here is attending a technical conference for the first time?” Roughly 40% of the 230 attendees raised their hand, shocking the organizers at the overwhelming percentage of newcomers. Thus the largest developer conference held in Sonoma County was also, perhaps, its most welcoming.


This single-track conference offered a relevant and diverse range of topics including security considerations, using Python to orchestrate libraries written in Fortran and C, demystifying iterators, and developing good leadership practices. Keynote Brandon Rhodes, having received many questions about his PyCon 2017 slides, which he ran completely inside a terminal, gave an overview of why and how he made them. Keynote Carina C. Zona presented a compelling case for 2 Factor Authentication (2FA), as well as guidance on how to make 2FA more user-friendly and inclusive. Some of my favorite talks were those that had the audience in stitches. Melanie Crutchfield’s talk entitled “Stumbling Through Django and How Not To” took us through her process of building a Django application and lessons she learned so that we don’t have to, was full of hilarious analogies and delightful hand-drawn slides. Benno Rice’s talk, “A Young Twitter Bot's Illustrated Primer”, walked us through his adventures with Twitter bots, which was not only informative but peppered with ridiculous bot-generated tweets.


While planning the schedule, Christopher and the other organizers had a shortlist of keynote speakers in mind. "We were lucky enough to get our first two choices!” said Christopher. For the remaining talks, they put together a call for proposals, offering support for those interested in speaking through workshops and feedback sessions. In the end, they ran a blind review process which anonymized proposals to compensate for biases. The organizers were very pleased with the result as Christopher explained, “we ended up with an astonishingly high-quality program that included new speakers and a community representation that we are really proud of."


In terms of networking opportunities, North Bay Python provided a wiki for people to use to gather in Birds of a Feather groups. Others used Twitter to find people to have lunch or dinner with. Additionally, the organizers collaborated with PyLadies San Francisco and PyLadies Silicon Valley to hold a PyLadies lunch on the first day of the conference, free of charge and open to all PyLadies in attendance and their supporters.


Rachel Kelly, a DevOps engineer at Bright.md and seasoned conference goer noticed many special things about this conference. “I have never seen a nursing room at a conference before”, she said, “and I have been to what are undoubtedly some of the world’s most inclusive conferences.” She went on to say, “the code of conduct was not only a requirement for attendance, it was reinforced at the beginning and touched on throughout the weekend, sometimes personally from the organizers.” The single-track of the conference was also much appreciated, she noted, “I loved being able to focus on and watch every single talk, something we are rarely afforded at technical conferences.”


So will they do it again next year? “Absolutely!” said Christopher, “our first conference felt really special, and we can’t wait to share Petaluma and this experience with even more people in 2018.”


North Bay Python was organized by Christopher Neugebauer, Joshua Simmons, Sam Kitajima-Kimbrel, Andrew Godwin, and Sarah Kuchinsky. The full schedule can be found on their website. Videos from the conference were produced by Next Day Video and every talk is now available for viewing on the North Bay Python YouTube channel.

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Friday, December 01, 2017

The PSF’s Grant Program Policies and Preferences

Are you starting a new Python conference, founding a group, or beginning a workshop? The Python Software Foundation can help with a grant. But first, you need to understand our policies.

The PSF has had a grants program for many years. Over the last 4 years, the program has become increasingly known in our community, which has always been a desired outcome. As knowledge of the grants program grows, however, the PSF receives more grant requests, ultimately meaning our PSF staff and volunteers have more grant requests to process. On occasion the PSF updates our grant policies as we learn more about best practices.

Our goal with this post is to inform the public of what our current policies are. The policies may change over time so remember to review the PSF's grant policies when submitting a request to ensure you have the most up-to-date information. We also have a Frequently Asked Questions page about grants.

What are the current grant policies & preferences?


  • We prefer to receive your request at least 6 weeks out from the event or project start date. We receive a high volume of requests and our volunteers that review the requests are all around the world contributing remotely. A six week lead time will allow us sufficient time to thoroughly review your request and provide follow up as necessary. Effective immediately, we will not accept grants that are submitted within 10 working days of the event or project start date.
  • Our current focus includes: Python projects (including porting projects), workshops, conferences (especially for financial aid), and Python diversity/inclusivity efforts. Grants for non-Python specific events will only be considered where there's a clear Python component to the event. In the cases of non-Python specific events a grant will only be for the Python component of the event. The PSF will consider supporting a hackathon if the event has hands-on Python education for a minimum of 6 hours. We will not fund prizes for hackathons.
  • We have guidelines on how much funding we award. There is no set maximum, but grants are awarded with consideration for the annual PSF grant budget and the other grant requests that have been submitted and awarded. The Foundation reserves the right to make a grant smaller than the total you request. If this would not be acceptable you should state that in the application.
    • The maximum conference grant size is typically USD 10 per attendee, with a preference towards helping new events to establish themselves in their local community. Larger conferences (300+ attendees) are expected to have access to additional local funding options and hence may be granted a lower amount per attendee. Conferences that are running separate educational programs may also apply for a separate educational grant.
    • The maximum educational program grant size is typically USD 25 per student, provided the students each receive at least 6 hours of Python instruction as part of the educational program. We give preference to students who would otherwise not be able to attend such classes. If the class has an educational hardware component such as a Raspberry Pi that the students get to keep, you may request up to USD 50 per student. Please note that subsequent funding requests for workshops in the same region may be funded at a lower rate to encourage sustainable, long-term relationships with local sponsors. When submitting your workshop grant request, it helps the grants work group to see a brief budget for your event.
    • The PSF will consider grants up to USD 300 for Python-related sprints. Please provide information about focus and goal of the sprint in your application, as well as the number of expected participants.
    • The PSF allocates money each year for PUG website hosting costs and subscriptions to event advertising sites like meetup.com. 
  • We require all events to have a code of conduct. The code of conduct should be a set of guidelines for your event that set the social norms and practices for the participants, organizers, and sponsors.
  • With regards to payments, we distribute funds via check, wire transfer, and PayPal. If you will be requesting a wire transfer, adjust your request to account for wire transfer fees. PayPal payments to organizations may incur service fees that will need to be paid by the grant recipient. If your grant request is approved, specific information will be requested in the email notification. 
    • We prefer to make payments at an organization-to-organization level when possible due to US IRS accounting rules. 
    • After you receive a notification with the amount of funding the PSF approved for your grant request and you submit an invoice, payment will be processed within 7 business days and the Controller will notify you when the payment has been sent. We sometimes run into issues when sending funding internationally so that is why we ask to receive grant requests 6 weeks out.
  • Reporting is an essential part of our grants program. The PSF would like to see how the grant was used, so we ask to receive a report on the event, project or program that was funded. The PSF has a policy that requires all events to submit reports. These reports are useful for us to gauge the impact we are having and how the event went. For subsequent events, we require past reports in order to consider additional requests. The report should include an overall overview (including location, venue, participation demographics if applicable), sponsors, reflections (including things that went well and things that could be improved, any feedback you received from participants. If your event/project has a blog, social media post, pictures that relate to the grant we'd love to see them, too.
We welcome grant requests via our CiviGrant form. We want to help new communities develop a stronger Python presence in the coming year!
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