We’d love you to present at the second-most online PyCon AU ever!

We’re looking for talks on everything Python, open source, and tech-related. If it would be of interest to someone, anyone, in the Python community, it’s of interest to us! In addition to the detail below, make sure you checkout the FAQ and speaking page on the PyConline AU website.

We welcome submissions from everybody, including those:

• who have never given a conference talk before,
• who are new to Python,
• who have built interesting things in Python,
• who have broken interesting things with Python,
• who have helped build Python, and
• who have expertise to share with our community from fields outside of Python (and outside of technology).

Our CFP process also encompasses submissions to the Specialist Tracks (Education, Science, Data & Analytics, Snakeoil Academy (Security & Privacy), and DevOops), so you can submit your talk to the main conference and the Specialist Tracks with one click. To submit your proposal to one or more of the Specialist Tracks, please tag it with the track names of your choice, which are provided for you in the screens that follow. You can select more than one!

🥳 What to express interest in running a social event? Go to this submission process

🍎 Interested in the Education Showcase? Go to this submission process

If you have questions about the CFP process, you can reach us at program@pycon.org.au.

Please note that we are, as last year, 100% online. All talks will be delivered by either pre-recorded or live video stream. If you need equipment, assistance, or advice on getting set up to record or stream, please get in touch with us.

Talk slots and timing

We are intending to offer only 30-minute slots this year. If you choose to take questions, the time allocated for that will be part of your allotted time. We are open to other formats beyond slide-based talks. If you’ve got an idea for a panel, a live coding exercise, a guided tour of your programming environment, anything that you think would interest the Python community, feel free to pitch it!

If you have a proposal that would fit better in a 15-minute slot or a 60-minute slot please feel free to chat to us but given scheduling issues we may ask whether you are able to rework your proposal to suit a 30-minute slot.

We understand that you may not be in the Australian Eastern Standard Time zone (UTC+10) or may have restrictions on when you can be available. We have provided a place for you to indicate what times you can present live or be available for questions/responses during playback if prerecording. We will do our best to accomodate your availability.

Anonymity

Our submission process is anonymous. This means our first-round reviewers will not know anything about your identity while assessing your proposal. Please avoid including identifying information like your name or your pronouns (he/she/they) anywhere in your abstract or description so that our reviewers can assess your talk by itself. If you add such details, please be advised that our CFP curators will edit all identifying information from your submissions before the reviewing process begins.
Make sure to read our anonymity guidelines before your final submission! This FAQ contains important tips on what “anonymous” looks like, and provides information on our review process.

Benefits

Proposals which are accepted will receive one free ticket to PyConline AU 2021, or two if two speakers are presenting together. You are welcome to propose a talk with more than two speakers, but please be aware that if it is accepted, only two complementary tickets will be allocated.

Speaker expectations

All speakers will be expected to have read and adhere to the conference’s code of conduct. In particular for speakers: slide contents and spoken material should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate, nor is language or imagery that denigrate or demean people based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, physical appearance, disability, or body size.

Getting (extremely) online

This year we will also be expecting our speakers to present remotely. This will present a different set of challenges compared to presenting in person. We will be using a mix of talks that are live streamed on the day, and talks that we will pre-record with accepted speakers beforehand. As part of the call for proposals, you’ll have the option to express your preference, but note that if you choose to only present live or only pre-recorded, that could reduce the likelihood of your talk being selected.
You will need a computer with a webcam, microphone, web browser and Internet connection, regardless of your choice of live vs. pre-recorded. We’ll also be holding sessions before the event to help you get set up, check that everything works, and help you get the best quality stream you can, so you’ll need to attend those. If your talk is being pre-recorded you’ll also need to attend an online session for the recording to take place, and some presenters of live talks will be asked to join our pre-recording sessions as back-ups as well.
If you’re concerned about your ability to record or stream your talk, or to join in for questions or discussion, please also reach out. We are actively looking for ways to ensure that speakers have access to the equipment they need and advice on how best to present to a camera rather than a room. Bear in mind that audio quality is far more important than video quality. If we can hear you and see your slides, that’s awesome. Anything else is icing.

Mentors and feedback

If you’ve never presented at a conference before and think you might like to try it, we want to hear from you! In order to support speakers, we will offer mentorship and feedback to those who would like it. The list of mentors is coming soon, but you can request mentorship by contacting program@pycon.org.au and we’ll put you in touch with a mentor as soon as we can. Similarly, if you would like feedback on your proposal, contact us once your proposal is submitted and one of our mentors will reply with feedback.

This Call for Papers closed on 2021-06-11 22:00 (Australia/Melbourne).