2026-03-21 –, Teresa Yuchengco Auditorium (Main Hall)
In the late 2000's to Early 2010's, I visited the Philippines a total of 6 times while serving in the United States Marine Corps. There I had found memories of enjoying my time with others and sharing in the amazing food and experiences. In the moment, the experiences were great but they didn't become legendary until word got around and the hype was built.
In 2026 much of our storytelling has changed from diving deep to buzz and hype in shortform. FOMO has never been higher but it's from the comfort of our couches and glossed by AI summary and algorithm-chasing. This is coming at the cost of community. ""Why participate when I can get the talks online and AI can teach me all the things""?
This talk tells stories of community and legend. It shares how communities can grow from ice cream parlors and random meetings at 5am morning walks.
This talk share about how community grows outside the venue walls. It addresses the origins of community growth and learning about new things from my experiences in the Philippines 15 years ago and how some of the staples of those deployments became legendary.
Then the talk transitions to the legends made in my decade of being in the community. The secret, legends happen outside the walls of the conference.
Lastly, I'll showcase how a thought can start at the conference and only truly develop when you have the ability to develop it over time with the people that you meet at the conference.
The community is a place to learn but the benefit is beyond the talks and comes from the power in how a talk can bring people into a room that will change the Python world forever!
Jay is a Staff Developer Advocate at Aiven. Jay is also the founder of Black Python Devs where they work to extend the reach of Python communities, projects, and organizations to Black developers around the globe. Jay has served as a keynote speaker in the Python Community and when away from the keyboard can often be found cheering on their favorite baseball team.