News

02/06/2014

Announcing Peter Hintjens as EuroPython keynote speaker

We are pleased to announce that Pieter Hintjens will give a keynote speech at EuroPython 2014. Our decentralized future Pieter will talk about the urgent push towards a decentralized future. As founder of the ZeroMQ community, he will explain the vision, design and reality of distributed software systems. He’ll explain his view on the community itself, also a highly decentralized “Living System”, as Hintjens calls it. Finally he’ll talk about edgenet, a model for a decentralized Internet.

About Pieter Hintjens

Pieter Hintjens is a writer, programmer and thinker who has spent decades building large software systems and on-line communities, which he describes as “Living Systems”. He is an expert in distributed computing, having written many protocols and distributed software systems. He founded the ZeroMQ free software project in 2007, and in 2013 launched the edgenet project to build a fully secure, anonymous peer-to-peer Internet. He is the author of “ZeroMQ - Messaging for Many Applications” (O’Reilly), “Code Connected”, and “Culture and Empire: Digital Revolution”. His blog is at hintjens.com .

24/05/2014

Google Women in Tech Conference and Travel grants

They write:

As part of Google’s ongoing commitment to encourage women to excel in computing and technology, we are pleased to offer Women in Tech Travel and Conference Grants for EuroPython 2014 conference.

Overview

They are offering the winners:

Free registration for the conference
Up to 1000 EUR towards travel costs (to be paid after the conference)

To be eligible for a conference grant, the candidate must:

Be a female working in or studying Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or technical field related to the conference subject
Have a strong academic background with demonstrated leadership ability
Attend the core days of the main conference

How To Apply

To apply, please submit this by the 23th June deadline.

Winners and claim process

All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by email, approximately 3–4 weeks prior to the event. If you are selected, you will receive additional information on how to register for the conference and how to receive your travel grant.

06/05/2014

Trainings and talks available

We apologize for running late with the EuroPython 2014 schedule but we are now almost finished with the training and talk selection.

The complete list of EuroPython trainings can be found here.

The list of accepted talks is almost finished. Three remaining talk slots (out of 102) will be filled shortly. In addition there will be eight sponsored talks (given by EuroPython sponsors, TBA) and six keynotes (with four keynote speakers already announced and two others TBA).

A more detailed schedule with an overview of the talks by days and rooms will be published shortly.

29/05/2014

Poster deadline extended until 05/05/2014

We extended the deadline for submitting proposals for the EuroPython 2014 poster session for a week until 05/05/2014. Persons with rejected talks now have a second chance bringing their topic to the public by submitting a poster proposal.

24/04/2014

Financial assistance, partner programme, diversity and schedule

Financial Assistance Programme

In the second round of the EuroPython Financial Assistance Programme we granted an additional sum of 3000 EUR for April which results in a total sum of 8000 EUR so far. There will be a third last round in May. So if you are seeking for financial support for coming to the EuroPython 2014 in Berlin you can still apply for the last round.

We also started the sale of Financial Assistance support tickets last month. You can buy one or more Financial Assistance support tickets for a value of 10, 20, 50 or 100 Euro. With the purchase of Financial Assistance tickets you will support further Python enthusiasts to go to EuroPython 2014 in case they need financial support for a ticket or travel expenses. The EuroPython organization team granted already 5.000 Euro last month in the first of three rounds. Please show your appreciation for the Python community and help us to bring more people to the conference which could not make it otherwise.

Partner programme

We are currently working on the details for a partner & family programme in case you want to bring your better half or your whole family to Berlin. Berlin offers a lot of options for spending the time outside the conference programme like visits to museums, boat trips or guided trips to the Berliner “Unterwelten” and many other places of interest. A survey will be announced and published shortly in order to involve you and your partner into the arrangement and selection of the partner programme.

Diversity at EuroPython

There has been a heated discussion over the last week about the representation of women as speakers at EuroPython 2014 and about diversity in general. You can find the official thread here and the official statement of the EuroPython organizers here. Starting point of the discussion was that PyCon 2014 in Montreal reached an outstanding attendance of about 30% women (both as speaker and attendees).

The EuroPython organizers are committed to diversity by gender, sexual orientation and location. Besides the existing Code of Conduct we are working on an explicit Diversity Statement in order to make the EuroPython 2014 enjoyable for everyone. Making EuroPython more diverse is a long-time process that involves the EuroPython Society, the local organizers and the European Python community as a whole. Diversity and outreach can not be dictated but must be lived in reality on all levels.

Schedule

Therehas been some confusion related to the published preliminary schedule (also under the aspects of diversity). The complete schedule will be announced shortly with roughly additional 50 talks and all trainings. The programme team is currently heavily working on the final version that will also take more diversity aspects into account for choosing the talks. We apologize for the confusion - specially to all persons that submitted a proposal keeping them in an uninformed state. The problem was caused by some internal miscommunication but also by the desire to publish a resilient schedule as early as possible in order to let the speakers make their travel arrangements in time.

11/04/2014

Preliminary schedule available

We are pleased to present a preliminary list of finally accepted talks. There are currently further talk proposals in the decision queue including trainings. We will announce a final list of talks and trainings shortly. Thank you for your patience.

07/04/2014

Deadline for poster session extended - Schedule to be published soon

We extended the deadline for the poster session until 28/04/2014. If your talk has been rejected this will give you the opportunity to resubmit your talk proposal for the poster session. The review process has come to an end and we will publish a list of accepted talk with in the next days.

30/03/2014

EuroPython website sprint a success - many new features implemented

Last weekend the web team met in Berlin (and was supported by one member remotely) in the rooms of Veit Schiele Communications GmbH in order to bring the EuroPython 2014 website software forward. The team under the leadership of Markus Holtermann implemented the following new features:

A short while ago we made some heavy changes to the main menu. Unfortunately the user experience wasn’t the way we expected it to be. Thus we got some comments on the EuroPython mailing list [1]. It took us some time to decide how to change the way the menu should work. Eventually, a click on a main menu item only toggles the menu as of now (GitHub issue 103) [2]
We want to generate the badges (and other stuff for the conference) directly from the user data you provide on the website. This presented us with some kind of challenge as you will see in the next bullet point, too. We decided that the singe point of truth for the user data is the user profile. We therefore added a field where you can enter your interests. (GitHub issue 105) [3]
As said before, the single point of truth for the user data is and will be the user profile. Unfortunately, during the purchase process of a ticket, we only have information about the buyer, not any of the intended ticket users. Although we didn’t change this part in the update (and we won’t change it in the future), you are now able to assign a ticket to another user. This is incredible useful for those buyers ordering multiple tickets, eg. for their colleagues or friends. To assign the ticket to somebody else, ask him/her for the user name and assign the ticket to him/her from your purchase view [4]. If the intended user doesn’t have a account yet, ask him to create one. All tickets that are *not* assigned to somebody will use the first and last name given during purchase. (GitHub issue #101) [5]
Since many attendees are not from Germany, we looked for a way to hand out SIM cards. Due to legal restrictions this is not *that* simple in Germany (you normally need to present a photo ID). Fortunately we found a reseller where we become some kind of reseller ourselves (it’s a bit more complicated than that ;) ). Hence we will offer SIM cards within the next days that you can buy beforehand and you can pick up during check-in (more details soon). (GitHub issue #100) [6]
When you modify your profile and try to upload a new avatar, but there are errors in some other fields, the avatar gets lost. We solve this by adding front-end validation to this and many other forms. (GitHub issue #47) [7]
If you are looking for a job (in your real live, not the one on the internet :D), or if you think about getting a new job for whatever reason, you can now opt-in (and later opt-out) of job offers by our sponsors. We will *NOT* hand over any of your data to the sponsors. The sponsors have to give us their offer and we will send it only to those users interested in job offers. (GitHub issue #78) [8]
The list of your purchases now shows canceled purchases too. (GitHub issue #102) [9]

06/03/2014

EuroPython 2014 flyers available — Spread the word!

Dear European Python communities,

we created a EuroPython 2014 flyer for promoting the conference at various other events over the next weeks and months. We encourage everyone going to related conferences or events spreading the word about EuroPython 2014. Just send an email to the EuroPython helpdesk with information about who you are (name and postal address), how many flyers you need and information about the event where you intend to distribute the flyer.

In addition we ask all local Python user groups and communities to add the EuroPython 2014 logo to their website and a link to the EuroPython 2014 website.

The success of EuroPython 2014 also depends on you!

Spread the word!

Thank you very much in advance.

04/03/2014

We started today with the review process for the submitted proposals. 248 proposals for talks and 38 proposals for trainings have been submitted. The Call for Proposals for posters is still open until 12/04/2014. Rejected proposals can be resubmitted for the poster session.

All registered reviewers can now start with the review process. You just have to login with your account into the ep2014.europython.eu site and click on the “Reviews” menu. There is a lot of work to be done so please start early.

The review phase ends on 30/03/2014.

Thank you all in advance for submitting this huge amount of proposals and all reviewers.

03/03/2014

EuroPython organizer meeting and EuroPython Webteam software sprint

We would like to point out that the next EuroPython organizer meeting will take place on 13/03/2014. Volunteers are invited to meet with the Berlin organizer team.

There is also a Webteam software sprint scheduled for 22-23/03/2014. if you are fit with Django (CMS) and Python of course, please join us.

28/02/2014

EuroPython Accommodation

Have you seen our Accommodation page? We have arranged special prices with some hotels and hostels near the venue location. Always compare the prices with the ones of hotel booking sites. Berlin also offers a variety of options for booking private apartments or private rooms for reasonable rates. In addition we set up an ether pad for attendees interested in room sharing. Please add your room requests or offers to the ether pad if you are looking for a cheap option and if you don’t worry to share a room with other Pythonistas.

11/02/2014

Call for Volunteers

EuroPython is organized and run by volunteers from the Python community. Everyone who is attending EuroPython is welcome, and all help is very much appreciated.

Want to get started? Read about the various opportunities to get involved below, and consider signing up for the EuroPython! It’s how our community stays informed throughout the year, and signing up doesn’t commit you to anything.

http://ep2014.europython.eu/en/conference/volunteers/

10/02/2014

Call for Proposals extended until 16/02/2014

We extended the deadline for the Call for Proposals for a week until 16/02/2014 23:59:59 CET. So you have one more week to submit your favorite talk topic or proposal for a training or a poster.

https://ep2014.europython.eu/en/proposals/cfp/

09/02/2014

Call for Reviewers: get involved and and help the EuroPython program committee

Talk, training and poster presentations will be selected from the proposals by a team of reviewers.

Anybody is invited to join the reviewer team, including people who also submitted proposals.

Call for Reviewers

07.02.2014

Early Bird "Personal" tickets sold out - next change on Monday, 10.02.2014

The Early Bird ticket sale for EuroPython went much better than expected. All one hundred tickets of the “Personal” category have been sold within one day. The organization team decided to offer 50 more “Personal” tickets to Early Bird conditions starting Monday, 10.02.2014 11:00 UTC (12:00 CET).

06.02.2014

EuroPython Financial Assistance

We offer special grants for people in need of a financial aid to join EuroPython. Follow these instructions to apply for a grant.

As part of our commitment to help everyone joining EuroPython, we are pleased to announce that we offer conference grants at 3 categories:

Ticket discount: Get 50% off of the conference ticket you’ve booked
Free ticket: Get a standard ticket for the conference for free (including full access to talks, trainings, sprints, official social event on Wednesday evening …)
Ticket and travel costs: Get a standard ticket for free and we will cover the travel and accommodation costs pro rata, depending on what you are applying for.

For more details please check the Financial Assistance page.

04.05.2014

Early Bird ticket sale starts tomorrow, 5.2.2014!

The Early Bird ticket sale for EuroPython 2014 will start tomorrow, 5.2.2014 at 15:00 h UTC/16:00 h CET.

31.01.2014

Early Bird ticket sale starts on Wednesday, 05/02/2014

We are pleased to announce that the EuroPython 2014 ticket sale will start next Wednesday, 05/02/2014 with the Early Bird ticket phase. There is a contingent of 300 tickets that will be sold to a reduced price in three categories:

Business
Personal
Student

If you are a student and want to get the student discount, please email a copy of your student identity card to helpdesk@europython.eu once the sale has started. An email prior the to sale start will not be considered. The requests will be processed in the order they are received.

26.01.2014

The Early Bird ticket sale will start soon - special notice to students

The Early Bird ticket sale will start soon; early bird tickets are limited in number. If you are a student and want to get the student discount, please email a copy of your student identity card to helpdesk@europython.eu once the sale has started. An email prior to the sale start will not be considered. The requests will be processed in the order they are received.

22.01.2014

EuroPython 2014 Call for Proposals open until 9.2.2014

You can submit your proposal for giving a Python talk or a training until 9.2.2014. The submission deadline for the poster session is 12.4.2014.

20.02.2014

EuroPython Society website now live

The EuroPython Society has created a new website to collect information on EuroPython, the society and its workings.

For those who don’t know: the society is a Swedish non-profit organization which was formed in 2004 by the EuroPython organizers to put on EuroPython conferences.

A new board was voted in at the EuroPython 2012 conference. Given the size of EuroPython conferences, we’re working on formalizing the EuroPython selection process, providing resources and arranging with local teams to run EuroPython conferences.

We consider the EuroPython Society the representation of the EuroPython attendees, so if you have questions, requests for improvements or other ideas on how to improve the series, please feel free to contact us.

You can also become members of the EuroPython Society at no charge and then vote at the general assembly of the society. Please visit our members page for more information.

Enjoy,
—
EuroPython Society

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