Yo edu-sig! FYI the below is archived as: http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-July/012720.html
Vern is doing a good job of bringing our proposal before the Pycon organizers, and I'm wanting to give enough background to make our motivations clear. Those of us with a CP4E background have little trouble understanding, but in some circles its still a new idea that "everyone" would be interested in programming for some reason. Kirby ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: kirby urner <kirby.ur...@gmail.com> Date: Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 2:20 PM Subject: Proposal: poster session To: "pycon-organiz...@python.org" <pycon-organiz...@python.org> Kirby here. Just wanted to chime in on the poster session thread, having been at Pycon when the idea first surfaced, giving full credit to our fearless chairman Steve Holden for thinking of it. I hatched in Princeton's philosophy department (1879 Hall) where we didn't have those, my first exposure to "poster session" being 1st International Conference on Buckminsterfullerene in Santa Barbara, Elsevier sponsoring (1990s sometime, BFI was just moving there). Steve has a stronger background in academic engineering, even if he's beyond all that now. In a nutshell, here's the premise: Pycon showcases successful private sector businesses mixed with some academics but has precious little in the way of outreach to minors, under-aged, under-privileged looking for a break, wanting to get noticed. The "private sector business" flavor stems from using upscale hotels with high price tags, meaning floorspace at a premium, can't expect a full blown poster session ala Nanotubes 05, going along in parallel with Europython @ Chalmers and dwarfing Python's exhibit space, as nanotubes are more important. Photo exhibit: http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2006/08/hp4e.html (scroll to bottom picture and click for larger view -- shows Europython geeks mingling with nanotube people). This idea for a "poster session" is at least our short term solution. Our long term solution might be to host some satellite eduPycons on university campuses, got the idea from Jeff Rush & Co. to piggy back on science fiction conferences, in terms of outreach, mix in robotics (device control), complete with tournaments. These wouldn't be at luxury hotels necessarily, more likely university and college campuses, although I've been pitching Angel of the Winds as an example resort casino option, given interest in teaching Pythonic Math [tm] in gambling subcultures in some niches.... Anyway, back to my main point: picture a highly talented young Pythonista in Poughkeepsie, wanting to showcase a pet project in the equivalent of a national dog show, but for snake projects. For the time being, Pycon is the best we have to offer, and Vern Ceder has generously volunteered to PSF take these pet projects in for consideration, coordinate their getting some focus. He has lots of relevant experience from what I've discerned i.e. he really is a great person for this position, hope he'll stick with it. We planned this out as a BOF in Chicago and in followup communications. I don't think we need to second guess Vern as to how he picks winners, or if he even does that. He's writing the job description as he goes, though I've suggested he build around the Giles character in Buffy, known as "a watcher" informally -- at least some kids will like that (means he's watching the radar "between Pycons", keeping alert to what's out there in the field). The based example I've yet seen, of a long-running conference that mixes academic projects (posters) with company booths, is the ESRI sponsored GIS in Action, held shortly after Pycon this year, with me representing PSF in sharing our "lore". You can look at my slides, read my journal, at this address: http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/04/gis-2009.html (mentions Vern and Pycons explicitly, as did my talk) ESRI, for those who don't know, is the giant of GIS and standardized on Python awhile ago, meaning a huge following in those circles. Children of government GIS workers across the nation are chomping at the bit to send projects to Vern (lets just model that), and what we're hoping for Pycon, is some modest exhibit space in the corporate exhibit area (like where geeks line up around coffee, munch cheesies). Posters need not be accompanied by live actors, need to be the subject of lightning talks, but do have lots of contact information, so geeks munching and drinking, taking these in, have a way to follow up in their capacity as talent scouts, blogosphere reviewers. Kids will get to read about themselves, get a sense of the competition, and so Pycon will have served this new purpose and edu-sig people can nod appreciatively, thinking Python Nation is really well governed, praise Guido or whatever. Lastly, although I've dwelt on minors, school aged kids, I didn't want to give the impression we're precluding oldsters from diving in. It's just that FOSS geeks are getting old enough to have teenagers, have input to Pycon's planning as parents not just as single males just out of college or something (still a part of the demographic obviously). So I see this as part of a maturation process, a sign of Python reaching some milestones. On a related topic, Laura has tried to get the child care scene off the ground at Europython (some talk of my Tara doing babysitting), but here we're skirting that issue by suggesting a poster needn't come with a 15 year old directly attached. If said 15 year old wants to record some Youtubes to explain the project, then getting that officially wired in to the Pycon site would be a second aspect of this project (in addition to the physical poster boards). Make any sense? Kirby Urner PSF 09 4dsolutions.net _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
