[Inpycon] Necessity of foreign delegates. Was Re: Notes from InPyCon planning meeting of local Pune Team

[Anand Chitipothu]

2011/2/21 Dhananjay Nene <dhananjay.nene at gmail.com>:
> On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 10:27 PM, Sreekanth S Rameshaiah
> <sree at mahiti.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 19 February 2011 18:30, Noufal Ibrahim <noufal at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 19 2011, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
>>>
>>> > On Sat, 2011-02-19 at 11:34 +0530, Navin Kabra wrote:
>>> >> 3. Is a foreign speaker really necessary? We spend a lot of money, and
>>> >> maybe
>>> >> they don't have the star power that we think they have. Opinion was
>>> >> divided
>>> >> on this topic.
>>> >
>>> > not really necessary unless the person is already in India.
>>>
>>> I disagree. Details in another thread (Navin's mail which I forwarded to
>>> the list)
>>>
>> Good to do if cost is shared through a grant as in last year.
>> -1 if we have to generate the entire cost.
>> - sree
>>
>
> Since I am new to broader discussions about pycon india, I took some
> point to ponder on the topic. I am not too sure how useful a foreign
> delegate is. Here's a quick summary.
>
> a. It is unclear if seasoned pythonista's decision to attend will be
> influenced by the existence of a foreign delegate
> b. Part of the foreign delegate's fees are paid for by Pycon India
> whereas the local speakers don't have to, is a dualism that is hard to
> explain. Of course foreign delegates paying for themselves (or fully
> paid for by PSF should be fine).
> c. Anyways it seems we rely on the foreign delegate to provide an
> overall enthusiasm building keynote rather than some hardcore python
> elucidation. So, we don't seem to be wanting to go for some advanced
> python skills that we would otherwise find it hard to get from others
> in India. At the same time there are perhaps some topics that the
> foreign delegate could comment upon which are not otherwise not easily
> understood through at least the python user mailing lists and websites
> (as an eg. perhaps some insights into pypy VM)
> d. The opportunity cost of the expenditure. At 1L, we cold imagine
> sponsoring anywhere between 5-10 teams to work on a python summer of
> code during vacations in India (this is a new idea that came to my
> mind as I was thinking through the topic). From an expenditure review
> perspective (how many miles does a rupee go to promote python), I have
> a feeling that such an expenditure could be better suited to
> supporting the growth of python in India.
>
> Again, I am new to this area, so I may not understand all the dynamics
> of how important it is to have a foreign delegate to rope in the local
> delegates. But this is my 2c (or 2paise).

Even if the decision to attend the conference might not change because
of foreign speaker, I'm sure having the presence of some people like
that makes the conference more vibrant.

I think it is not just about inviting speakers from abroad. It is
about inviting people who are active in the global python community to
come and share their insights.

I think we'll be able to raise enough funds and money will not be a
constant to invite foreign speakers.

Sponsoring teams to work on python is probably a good idea but
unrelated to the conference and i'm not sure if it is fair to use the
money we raise for organizing the conference for something else.

Anand