Top Python Talent at Dublin’s PyConIE Conference

Python Ireland will be holding their eighth PyCon Ireland conference in Dublin in October. In the lead up to the conference, Irish Tech News spoke with some of the organisers, Dave Markey and Paul O’Grady.

When is it on?

The weekend of the 21st – 22nd October, in Dublin in the Radisson Blu hotel.

This is the eighth year of it running. What has kept it running this long?

It’s all about the demand. Python is used in two areas – traditional web backend and now in Big Data and Machine Learning, which is exploding in use, particularly in Dublin.

You can also see this demand for python skills in Ireland in job advertisements and the popularity of meetup groups.

Python has become one of the world’s most popular languages, it’s so versatile that it can run on a 64k microcontroller or can process terabytes of data using pandas.

What exciting things can people look forward to?

There are two days of speakers with two tracks of talks, and workshops running in parallel.

We’ve got international keynote speakers like Brandon Rhodes from the states, who is a former member of the board of the Python Software Foundation. We have Tracy Osborn, author, entrepreneur and again from the states, and Ana Balica from the UK and Sean O’Donnell from Ireland.

From Ireland, we have Siobhan Grayson, DatSci student of the year winner as well as speakers from companies like Zalando and Rapid Ratings.

A great feature of the conference is the “lightning talks”, these are 5-minute talks where anyone can sign up and talk about that little project they’ve been working on or that cool library they’ve found that does cool stuff. You’ll be able to sign up to the lightning talks on the day via the notice board in the conference area.

We even have free eBooks from O’Reilly(check your swag bag)!

On Saturday evening we’ve got a quiz with drinks and pizza being sponsored by Tenable. Some nice prizes there too! It’ll be great craic altogether!

Also, this year for the first time, the conference will have live closed captioning for the hard of hearing.

What opportunities are on offer for people/startups/investors and companies attending?

PyConIE is the biggest indigenous software conference running in Ireland at the moment, so it attracts the best developers and sponsors – there are over 350 developers registered.

For companies, it’s a great recruitment opportunity through the sponsorship program, and to share and discuss company culture with developers.

What tips would you give to people attending to get the most out of it?

Have a look at the schedule beforehand and plan what workshops and talks you want to attend.

We have an app to help you schedule everything and to connect with others at the conference.

And connect with others at the conference. There’s plenty of opportunities during the day and during the quiz on Saturday evening.

How can people book tickets / when does it usually sell out?

Tickets usually sell out the week before the conference, so there’s not much time.

Anything else you’d like to add / we should have asked?

Radisson Blu has very recently upgraded their AV equipment, so we’re looking forward to holding the event there again this year.

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