[Inpycon] Ideas for Pycon India 2023

[Adarsh D]

Hey Everyone,

I am sharing a few of my ideas for Pycon India for this year. Would love
your thoughts on the same.

I gave a talk at Pycascades last week (Regional Python Conference in
US-Canada, 2023.pycascades.com) and have met many Python experts including
Guido Van Rossum and Brett Cannon (Steering Council member and core-dev). I
even casually asked Guido if he was interested in coming to Pycon India😅.
He said that the chances are rare since he doesn't like long travel.

I am inspired by the way Pycascades was organized and the strength of
regional communities in the Americas. Would love to volunteer and see them
replicated in India also.

Please find my below ideas for Pycon India and Python Community in India in
general.

   -  It would be great if we can plan some keynotes/sessions from Steering
   council members.

Steering council members are authoritative figures in the Python world and
have a lot of insights into the future of Python. Interacting with them
will be a great opportunity & exposure for our attendees.
Most of them are currently working with Microsoft. Due to the current
financial crunch, chances are low that they get sponsored by their company
to attend in person.

It would be great if we can arrange an online platform for
keynotes/sessions and Q&A with them if they are willing to speak.


   - Sprints

It would be great if we can organize sprints for contributing to
open-source projects. This has been done at Pycascades and Pycon US. This
will add variety to the conference since something practical is also
involved.
At Pycascades, it was a great success and will act as a great help for
beginners looking to start contributing to open source. This will work well
if we allow the host open-source maintainers to attend remotely since many
of them are based in the US.

I can volunteer with finding Projects if we are planning for sprints.


   - Sessions from Indian core-devs

Going through the list at
https://peps.python.org/pep-8102/#active-python-core-developers, we have
multiple core devs from India.
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajabhilash/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthikeyan-singaravelan-18373951
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/kushal-das-5a655b8/

Also, Prashant has written a free book on Python internals, listed in the
python-dev guide.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/prashanthraghu/

I am not sure if they are already present on this mailing list. It would be
great if we can have sessions from them.


   - CFP Call and Review process

1. Can we accept online-session submissions also (Speakers looking to give
the talk remotely)?
2. How are we planning to review and shortlist the submissions? Recently
many Pycons have been going with a community voting mechanism (EuroPython
and Pycon Italy)

I and my team would like to volunteer for the CFP process.


   - Can we plan an online community of Python developers all over India?

We have so many devs in India with all skill levels. But we seem to be
under-represented in the Python Steering council/core dev team as well as
in open source circles. We have our presence everywhere, but we don't have
an active online community to help us go to the next level. It would be
awesome to have a pan-India online community with dedicated channels
including the below ones:

   1. We can have usual beginner-friendly channels where members can help
   with beginner questions.
   2. Since we already have multiple core devs from India, it would be
   great if we can have a separate channel for intermediate devs looking to
   contribute to Python. Also, the Python dev guide has a list of other core
   developers who are happy to mentor others.
   3. It would be nice to have an open-source channel where we can
   showcase/ help with open-source projects and organize remote contribution
   sprints.


Me and my team at Strollby (We are from Trivandrum, Kerala) would like to
volunteer with the CFP process, Sprints(if we are planning for that), and
the Pycon India website. Looking forward to Pycon India '23!

Thanks & Regards,
Adarsh D
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