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Nominee for 2026 Python Software Foundation Board Election

Laís Carvalho

  • Previous Board Service: New board member
  • Employer: Pydantic
  • Other Affiliations: PyLadies Dublin, PyCon Greece, former Europython Board Member, former Python Ireland board member, PSF Fellow, EPS Fellow, Community Service Award recipient 2025.
  • Mission Alignment: This candidate affirms their nomination and positions are aligned with the current mission and bylaws of the Python Software Foundation.
  • Nominee Statement:

      Introduction

      My name is Laís Carvalho. I'm Brazilian, based in Dublin, and I work in Developer Relations at Pydantic. I came to Python in 2014 through NumPy, using it to replace Wolfram Alpha for numerical analysis coursework in engineering school. When I switched my degree to IT, Java was compulsory, and coming back to Python afterwards felt like being handed back a language I could actually think in. I stayed for the people.

      I joined the Python Ireland committee in 2019 and later became the first Black woman to serve on its Board, hosting meetups and helping organise the national conference. I started organising EuroPython in February 2020, the first online edition, led the Comms & Design team, and later served on the EuroPython Society Board. Since 2022 I have run Humble Data, a beginner workshop programme that has travelled across conferences and languages, most recently into Portuguese, translated with PyLadies Nordeste in northeast Brazil, who are about to run it in a public school in Salvador. I co-founded MidMeetPy, co-organised the Pyjamas Conference, and I turn up for PyLadies Dublin whenever there's a call. The PyLadies lunch at the first PyCon Greece was my idea; I helped shape it and put it together with the local community, and the people who made it happen went on to form the PyLadies Athens chapter. I started PyLadies Day at EuroPython in 2024, which has run again in 2025 and 2026, and Humans of EuroPython in 2022, an interview series about the people who make that conference happen. It is still running four years later (Thanks Mia Bajic), written now by volunteers who came after me. At PyCon US 2025 I session-chaired talks in Charlas because rooms needed chairs and I was there.

      That sort of happens often. I have been around long enough in this community that people ask me directly, and I say yes. The community has been generous in return: a PSF Community Service Award, PSF Fellowship, and EuroPython Society Fellowship. I would like to turn that recognition into responsibility.

      Being the first of something is a fact about the room. I would rather it stopped being token-remarkable, and the way that happens is by changing who gets found, funded, and asked.

      My nomination goals are:

      • Grow the Foundation itself: membership, capacity, and the money to sustain both
      • Finance the community that already does the work: find places where the PSF cannot reach and help
      • Position the PSF in the AI ecosystem

      Qualifications and Experience

      I have done a version of this job twice. The EuroPython Society Board meant budgets, contracts, sponsor negotiations, volunteer disputes, and the permanent gap between what a volunteer board wants to do and what it has the capacity to do. The Python Ireland Board meant the opposite end of the scale: a small national community where the difference between a healthy year and a dead one is two or three people staying involved.

      I know the PSF's recognition programmes from the receiving end. I have been through the Community Service Award and the Fellowship, so I have seen how they surface some people and quietly miss others, and I know what recognition does for someone's willingness to keep going, and how valuable that is. It is also work I do unprompted. I started Humans of EuroPython because the people holding that conference and some of the foundation together were invisible to the people attending it.

      Some of what I helped start has outlasted my involvement. PyLadies Athens grew out of a lunch at the first PyCon Greece. PyLadies Day at EuroPython has run every year since 2024. Humans of EuroPython is on its twentieth interview, written now by volunteers who joined after me. Humble Data was translated by the communities that wanted it, not by me. Handing things over is fundamental.

      I do growth and developer marketing for a living. I run paid campaigns, developer content, and event strategy for a commercial product. That means my working days are spent on questions the PSF also has to answer: what a sponsorship is actually worth, what makes a conference presence pay for itself, and how you tell afterwards whether any of it worked. It is an unusual background for this board, and it sits close to the Foundation's sponsorship and fundraising work.

      And I teach beginners. Humble Data exists because "just get started with Python" only goes so far without a room and a mentor.

      Goals

      Grow the Foundation itself

      The PSF's ambitions have outgrown its capacity, and that gap does not close by asking volunteers for more. Growth here means three things: more members who understand what membership is for, revenue that does not depend on a small set of large sponsors, and enough staffed capacity that critical work is not one burnout away from stopping.

      The commitment I would make is on the revenue side. The PSF runs on an annual budget of around $5 million with a staff of 14, while most of the value created by Python is captured by companies operating at a completely different scale. Python is the language of AI, and the businesses built on that fact are not the ones carrying the cost of maintaining it. In 2025 the Foundation withdrew a $1.5 million NSF proposal rather than accept terms that contradicted its mission. The community responded within two weeks with donations and hundreds of new Supporting Members. That response was moving, and it covered a small fraction of what was turned down. Individual generosity is not a funding model. Independence has to be paid for by income the PSF can predict.

      I would work on diversifying the Foundation's sources of income and on moving more of it onto structured, recurring terms with the companies that profit most from Python, so that the PSF has both a say in where the language is going and the money to fund the next wave of newcomers.

      The test I would hold that work to is the Grants Program. It was paused in August 2025 after reaching its budget cap, and it reopened in 2026 with a lower cap for conference grants. That programme is a small amount of money doing a disproportionate amount of good, and it should be funded on a permanent basis instead of being the thing that gives first when the budget tightens. Securing it indefinitely is what the revenue work is for.

      Finance the community that already does the work

      Most of what grows Python is unpaid and invisible to the people funding it. I have written the grant applications and I have sat on a board reading them, and the failure is usually not merit. It is that a first-time organiser in an under-represented community does not know what a fundable application looks like, and nobody tells them after a rejection.

      Here's an example. The Humble Data materials were recently translated into Portuguese by PyLadies Nordeste, in northeast Brazil, and they are about to teach them in a public school in Salvador. Nothing about that required PSF money. It required someone doing the translation and someone knowing the chapter existed. But the version of that work that reaches ten schools instead of one does need money, and the organisers doing it are the people least likely to have written a successful grant application before, or to know that the PSF funds this kind of work at all. A foundation's job is to be present where that work happens: to have people who can speak for the PSF in the rooms and languages it does not currently reach, and to go and find the organisers who need support instead of waiting for them to arrive with a proposal.

      What I would commit to is that outreach: advocates for the PSF in the regions and languages where it has none today, and reaching the people who need support treated as the Foundation's own work, not something it waits on.

      Position the PSF in the AI ecosystem

      This is the question the Foundation cannot keep deferring. AI companies are building large businesses on Python and its ecosystem while maintainers absorb the costs: review burden from machine-generated contributions, support load, infrastructure strain. The PSF has no clear position on any of it, and the tooling landscape is moving fast enough that waiting is itself a position.

      I sit close to this. I don't build the tools. I work with the maintainers carrying the load and with the companies that profit from their work, and I keynoted PyCon Greece 2025 on open source in this shift, so I hear both sides of the argument in their own words. My employer works in this space, and I would step back from any board decision where that became a conflict. What I would push for is that the PSF says plainly what it asks of the companies profiting from Python, what support maintainers can expect, and how the Foundation talks to its community about tools that are already in their workflows.

      Final words

      In short, my aim as a PSF Board member is to: fund the Foundation properly, by diversifying its income and moving more of it onto structured terms with the companies that profit most from Python, and giving the Grants Program funding it can count on. Reach the organisers who are already doing the work, in the places and languages where the PSF currently has nobody speaking for it. And take a clear position on Python in the AI ecosystem, for the maintainers carrying that weight and for the community relying on them.

      I do not expect to deliver all of it, and I am not going to promise that I will. Boards move slowly, priorities compete, and plenty of the work will be other people's, not mine. What I can promise is that I will serve with respect and consideration for every member of the board, and that I will do everything I can toward a more sustainable PSF, one able to keep supporting the members who sustain it.

      Community contributions

      • PSF Fellow (Q2 2025)
      • PSF Community Service Award, Q2 2024, for Python Ireland committee service since 2019 and EuroPython organising since 2020
      • EuroPython Society Fellow
      • Former Board member, EuroPython Society; organiser from Feb 2020, leading the Comms & Design team
      • Committee member since 2019 and former Board member, the first Black woman to serve on the board of Python Ireland; meetup host (playlist) and conference organiser
      • Organiser of Humble Data beginner workshops since 2022, including the Spanish edition and a Portuguese translation done with PyLadies Nordeste, now being taught in a public school in Salvador, Brazil
      • Proposed and helped organise the PyLadies lunch at the first PyCon Greece, alongside the local community; the people involved went on to form the PyLadies Athens chapter
      • Founder of PyLadies Day at EuroPython (2024), repeated in 2025 and 2026
      • Founder (2022) of Humans of EuroPython, an interview series about the volunteers behind the conference, now on its twentieth interview
      • Session chair, Charlas track, PyCon US 2025
      • Former co-organiser of the Pyjamas Conference, a 24-hour worldwide Python conference
      • Co-founder and former co-organiser of MidMeetPy, a Python podcast series with Cheuk Ting Ho
      • Volunteer and ally for PyLadies Dublin and PyLadiesCon
      • Opening keynote, PyCon Greece 2025: The Open Source of Self
      • PyCon Italia 2024: Python and Freedom and Bias
      • Panel discussion, PyCon DE 2024
      • Talks at PyData Hamburg, PyData Cambridge, Python Pizza Hamburg, TechNottingham, MoinWorld
  • Nomination Statements:
    • Nomination by: Cheuk Ting Ho

      I am writing to express my enthusiastic support for Laís Carvalho’s election to the Python Software Foundation Board of Directors. Having worked closely with Laís across various community initiatives, I have witnessed first-hand the dedication and structural thinking she brings to the Python ecosystem. Her credentials speak to a career defined by service; she is a PSF Fellow, a EuroPython Society Fellow, and was the well-deserved recipient of the 2024 PSF Community Service Award. In her professional role as a Developer Advocate and Growth Marketer at Pydantic, Laís bridges the gap between technical excellence and community engagement, ensuring that Python’s growth remains sustainable and inclusive.

      Laís’s leadership in initiatives like Humble Data and her active involvement in PyLadies demonstrate a profound commitment to mentoring the next generation of Pythonistas and fostering diversity within our community. Her previous experience as a board member for the EuroPython Society provided her with a solid foundation in non-profit governance, making her uniquely prepared to navigate the complexities of the PSF. Laís possesses the rare combination of high-level strategic vision and a ground-level understanding of what makes our community thrive. I am confident that her expertise in community growth and her proven track record of selfless service make her a perfect fit for the PSF Board.

    • Nomination by: Sarah Abderemane

      ⁠I would like to second the nomination of Laís for the nomination as the Director of Python Software Foundation. I met Laís when she was an organizer of EuroPython and board member of the EuroPython Society. She is a welcoming member of the community and I have seen her involved in great initiatives such as the PyLadies Day at EuroPython. As a former board member of EPS and Python Dublin, she has the experience of making decisions and find the best solutions to solve problems.

      ⁠She has organized various conferences and has served as a speaker or keynote speaker at numerous events to share her knowledge and inspire the community, particularly in Europe. It would be an asset for the PSF to be able to determine the best course of action thanks to her insights. Laís as a director on the board will benefit the PSF with a more represented voice equivalent to current Python users around the world.

    • Nomination by: Jodie Burchell

      I first met Laís in 2023, through Cheuk Ting Ho. Cheuk and I shared a cab from PyCon US to the Salt Lake City airport, and as we chatted, I told her I wanted a way to be more involved in helping the Python community. That conversation led to me organising my first Humble Data with Laís, which was the start of one of my most valued relationships in the Python community.

      Laís is one of the reasons I'm involved in the Python community today. Beyond being one of the core people behind Humble Data, she also organised EuroPython for five years, including serving as an EPS board member. Laís brought me into both of these organisations, which led to me co-leading the programme team for EuroPython last year and running many Humble Data workshops of my own. It has been my privilege to work with her: not only does her deep love of the community show in everything she does, but her work genuinely makes a difference to both those long established in the community and those just starting out in it.

      Of course, this is just a tiny slice of everything she has done for the community. From being a board member and organiser of Python Ireland, to co-organising Pyjamas, to volunteering for PyLadies Dublin and PyLadiesCon, she has put in significant amounts of her time to increase access to Python for everyone, but especially more diverse groups. On top of that, she's given a number of excellent talks, including her opening keynote at PyCon Greece, which genuinely shifted how I saw my own journey in this language.

      I know that if Laís is elected to the PSF board, she will continue to bring the same passion and dedication to the broader Python community. She will champion changes that keep our community inclusive and accessible, and will do her best to set the language up for the future. I wholeheartedly nominate her for this position.

    • Nomination by: Carol Willing

      I endorse Lais Carvalho for the 2026 PSF Board. Lais is a proven community leader and has served as an organizer of Python Ireland, on the EuroPython Society Board, and as frequent global speaker about Python and its impact. She helped organize the effort to translate Humble Data workshop materials into Portuguese, and Humble Data is now taught in a public school in Salvador. Lais' leadership, foundation experience, and technical knowledge of AI and development tooling will be assets as a board member. I highly recommend Lais as a board member.

      Carol Willing PSF Fellow, Python core team, Jupyter core team, former PSF Board and Steering Council member