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Bringing First Timers to PyCon Through Financial Aid

• caissy 14y ago
  This year was my first PyCon ever. Being a student, I did not have the funds to pay for a 4 night hotel and a 600$ flight. I really wanted to go, so I just decided to put what ever it would cost on my almost full student line of credit. Thanks for the this financial aid, I was able to reimburse everything, and my final cost for attending PyCon was near zero. While being at PyCon, I also decided to help the best I could. I was a session runner for 4 different tracks. This led me to meeting amazing people (Doug, Dave, etc) and having a few minutes private talk with the speakers as we rushed down the stairs to their room. Overall, what really amazed me during the weekend is the community itself. I still can't put words on how incredible the outreach that the community is trying to accomplish is (Financial Aid, PyLadies, The Yound Coder, Poster session, etc). This is what makes PyCon and the Python community so unique.
  • nicholassmith 14y ago
    This is why having a way of getting people who deserve it but cannot afford it is a very good thing for conferences. I hope more conferences adopt it as a policy.
• tolos 14y ago
  I don't really want to go if I can randomly lose my job.
  • nicholassmith 14y ago
    Seriously, that issue has been talked to death and this isn't the place to reignite it.
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
• jedberg 14y ago
  It would be great if that blog post ended with a big "Donate" button so that after reading the great story I can give money to help fund some scholarships for next year.
• samet 14y ago
  That was awesome. I couldn't go to PyCon without Financial Aid. This is the biggest amount of aid I've ever heard in a conference. 100.000$ is really big. Conference was hillarious, I was glad to be there. Thanks all for the aid program.