PyCon UK 2017

PyCon UK, 4 days in Cardiff, the land of my people (I'm ¼ Welsh).

Every conference has talks, workshops, keynotes. What makes a conference stand out is the other things. PyCon UK stands out in its inclusivity, its commitment to diversity, and its welcoming atmosphere.

All the photos below are embed's from the conference's official photographer Mark Hawkins.

Affordances

There are deliberate affordances that help to make it easier for traditionally under-represented groups to attend, and to feel welcome when attending:

A professionally staffed creche (at no additional charge):

A quiet room:

A Code of Conduct. Here is Sasha talking about that Code of Conduct:

I think the quiet room is particularly effective. Conferences are busy, noisy, stressful, full of people, confusing, unfamiliar places. There are many people that would find any of those factors a problem; in combination it can be simply unacceptable. The availability of a quiet room lets people know that there is a place they can go if they feel unable to cope with the rigours of the crowded hallway or auditorium. An escape valve.

This doesn't happen accidentally. It is down to the hard thoughtful considerate work of the committee:

This is just a small selection of the concrete actions the committee takes to include people.

Children's day

Saturday is Children's day where as well as the traditional conference there are activities particularly aimed at children.

They experiment with micro:bit…

build robots…

hack like a boss…

then at the end of the day, everyone piles in to the main hall to see Cat Lamin host the children's show-and-tell. It is quite magical. These three young people made a Python out of pipe-cleaners with blinking LED lights. You can see their python code projected behind them.

The other talks

There is a quite a variety of talks, not necessarily about Python.

Chad talking about mental health in the workplace:

Alex talking about being asexual (it was also asexual awareness week):

Career development panel (featuring Kristian as the Token Man):

And, all the way from India, Anweshar and Kushal Das talking about community building in India. Anweshar is rolling her eyes as she explains how this man, now her husband, was trying to impress her when they first met by talking about Python.

Closing

It was fun, and it was good. All good things must come to an end, and so did PyCon UK. I felt a little sad leaving, but Rae Knowler stepped in to forward some advice from Ash McAllan.

Hey #pyconuk folks, this is for us as well. 💜🐍🏔 https://t.co/B4yiXg37Hy

— Rae Knowler (@RaeKnowler) October 29, 2017

The 2017 schedule has links to the talks and the speaker's slides.

Hope to see you next year!