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

[Ramdas S]

> 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.
>


Conferences and sponsored events should be used to raise funds for other
activities, which directly will contribute to the growth of a community.

The biggest return o investment for a Conference outside newbies, is that
this becomes a common point for python users across the country to get
together exchange ideas, and understand from each other ie we can network
with each other. Newbies I am sure will get to learn something new.

The biggest problem we have today is lack of good entry level Python
programmers that companies can hire. Python is not growing in this country
the way it should. I wish,  we get young developers who will learn the
language and make themselves available for jobs, so that companies can pitch
in for bigger projects using Pythonic technologies.

I would rather be happier if we could invest 1 L and produce 100 or even 10
good young Python developers, whom the industry can hire instead of flying
in a big name. I am not against getting big names in, it adds color to the
event. But beyond that I don't see anything great.

The fact of the matter is even if you have five big names come in, they can
only interact with a dozen or so people personally over the event. If 700
people actually turn up at an event, only about 50-60 can hob knob with a
Holden or Shaw.

If you really want to listen to them, then there are many presentations
online which you can watch at your leisure.

A judicial investment of surplus funds can help us produce better Python
programmers, which would have a domino effect.

I'm personally frustrated that my company have not been able to hire any
Python programmers of less than 1 year experience, that we are actively
thinking of going back to PHP, since we have work and we need people to
execute. What is IPSS doing about it? Mind you, this is not just my opinion,
several other entrepreneurs whom I personally know have been reluctant to
switch projects to Python for the same reason.

Kenneth whom I met during a BOF at  our offices in Bangalore last week tells
that we are sitting on  piles of cash, which we are being saved for the next
event.

I believe that every event should be self sufficient on its own, and should
produce surplus cash which should be invested in real Python evangelism, and
that starts from grass roots, and sponsoring contests, SOC like projects,
get youngsters involved.

I feel good about the fact that 700 people attended it or 1000 made it to
the event.  But what about the million developers in the country, and the
million wannabe which are being churned out by our educational institutions?
Can we use these funds to reach a fraction of them? Or should we look at
flying in as many foreign speakers as possible, and basically boost our
egos?

We must rather fund someone who's actually going and doing a free day of
evangelism in a school or a college, than fly in someone
who gets an extended holiday.

 I'd be happy if we can actually promote/encourage/ at least cover TA/DA
costs some of our friends who take free classes in colleges and
organizations, so that we have new blood learning and  experiencing this
wonderful programming language.

Please do not get me wrong, and take this personal. We need to think beyond
the conference and look at building a community.

Remember Conference is not the community.

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