Participate at SciPy2013

The early registration deadline is rapidly approaching for SciPy2013, and all our decisions on speakers are out. This year was really tough as we had more submission than ever at a quality that exceeded all my expectations. If you submitted something and haven't heard from us, let me know.

If you missed the deadline for proposals, I want to elaborate on a number of ways you can still participate. While the material for the official program is closed, we have ample opportunities for more spontaneous contributions for all attendees.

• Join the community
• Speak at Lightning talks
• Hack at the sprints
• Participate in BoFs

Join the community

This year we have a number of opportunities to help get acquainted with learning how to contribute. Starting with two days of beginner tutorials to teach the basic tools of our community and a tutorial on contributing to NumPy, the core of almost all scientific python projects. If you are new to the ecosystem or an old hand needing to know the ends and outs of contribution the tutorials are there to help.

We have teamed up with the Austin PyLadies to present some material on how and why to contribute to open source communities. It's well known that open source communities can be difficult to navigate and folks are not always polite. We hope to show some perspectives on contributing and what to expect.

Lightning Talks

While we don't all have a story of printing NumPy arrays to QR codes and scanning them to get around bureaucracy, lightning talks remain one of the most fun parts of the conference. Tell us about your new venture, your craziest hack, your nerdiest tech rant, or whatever you feel best fills your five minutes.

Hack at Sprints

The sprints start Friday and we hope to have a large number of the core projects all come out. In the next week we should have sign ups on the website. Sprints are not only a good time to focus on your project for a few days, it also is a place where the experts in the scientific python will be in the room. Any quick bugs or small details to ask can have a much quicker iteration cycle.

This year we are also encouraging folks to not wait until Friday to start hacking, and I know some of you wouldn't wait anyways. I'm looking at you Fernando, Jake, Wes, .... But this year we will have about 6 break out rooms just right for 4 to 8 people to brainstorm and hack in between things.

Birds of Feathers

This year we have nine time spaces open for Birds of a Feather sessions. I personally find these session the best to discuss ideas with the conference attendees. We will have a sign up on the web soon as well. Some ideas I have floated include: state of the project BoFs discuss the future of many projects, evolution of the publication in the state of open code and data, and best ways for teaching scientist python.