Daniele Procida: Welcome to DjangoCon Europe 2015

DANIELE PROCIDA: Good morning, welcome to Cardiff and welcome to Djangocon Europe 2015 our open day so I hope there are a few people at least who are not part of the main conference but have come just for today. Oh great. 2 people twice as worthwhile as 3. Put your hand up if you are here just for the opening. That’s great wonderful. {applause}.

Unfortunately slightly bad timing because it’s half term and middle of exams so I don’t think we’ll get all the sixth-formers who might have been here otherwise. Obviously it’s quite early on a Sunday morning for sixth-formers and because of the debacle we had with one direction we had to change our dates a bit so that hasn’t held with the timing for school pupils but any way ...

First of all, if you need help, just ask a volunteer and a volunteer is wearing a blue lanyard. Any Committee Members in here could you stand up - there is Vincent and David. Any volunteers apart from the Committee? There is Ben. So you’ll see a few of us wearing these and just ask us for anything and if we know the answer we will help you.

Speaking of lanyards at this conference we have a photography policy so if someone is wearing a black lanyard which is most people that mean they’re happy to be photographed. If they’re wearing a white lanyard they don’t wish to be photographed, they don’t wish to be asked if they’re sure and they don’t wish to be asked why they don’t want to be photographed. People have various reasons so please respect this policy. If someone is wearing a blue lanyard I think they want to be photographed as much as possible!

If you are an open day visitor and don’t have a lanyard but don’t want to be photographed you can borrow a white one for the day.

As every Python or Django conference we’ve governed by a code of conduct and the code of conduct is there to ensure everyone who attends is there to enjoy the event, that everyone feels welcome and feels like they’d like to come back to this again. If you’ve got a programme booklet it’s in full in there. If you want to look at it, have a look at our web-site it’s one of the most prominent things on there.

In brief, it is that nobody at the event is to suffer harassment or abuse of any kind and no one should behave in a way that causes distress to anyone else. If you become aware of a problem or something bother S you please come and speak to a volunteer immediately and we have a written procedure for dealing with it. Not that we expect anything to happen, partly they don’t happen because we have these policies.

So, what is a Django con?

It’s an open source software community conference. It’s a non-profit conference run by volunteers. When I say volunteers, even we the members of the Committee are unpaid volunteers. In fact everybody who comes to Djangocon including the members of the Committee who organise it have to buy their own tickets. That’s the way it works that everybody pays to attend. The only people who don’t pay to attend are people who need financial assistance and can apply for financial help for a free ticket or even for things like transport and accommodation. So, bear that in mind. It might be different from other software conferences you’ve been to. But it is important and it’s why it feels more like a festival or a party than a conference and why the first thing people do when they turn up and ask how can I help. Yes a bunch of attendees asking how they could help by volunteering so it’s a nice thing to be involved with.

So thank you to all our ad hoc volunteers who have volunteered.

This is our programme for our 6 days. It’s our open day which will give you a taste of it. Monday to Wednesday we’ll have our formal programme of talks not at the university but at Cardiff City Hall. Then on Thursday and Friday we’ll be back here at the university for 2 more days of workshops, clinics and sprints.

If you want to look at the web-site it’s at Djangocon.eu. Timetable is on the web-site in your programme booklet and is up on the walls in various places and we’ll get more copies printed as we speak.

We’ve got various workshops there is Django Girls all day. This is another non-profit organisation that has been set up to help encourage more women into computing and software development. It’s been extraordinarily successful, it’s been running less than a year and already has held workshops in I’m not sure how many dozen countries.

During the day we’ve got various workshops in different places starting from 11 o’clock. Very briefly we have Python and Django for PHP coders not because we’re trying to poach anyone.

NEW SPEAKER: Yes we are!

DANIELE PROCIDA: Yes we are ... Tracey Osborn, not sure if she is here but she’s doing a Django tutorial specially aimed at people with a background in web design but not in programming. Stefan is doing Django CMS. An introduction if you are interested in web content management. Marcus is doing a tutorial for people who have some Python experience already but would like to start applying it to the web. Leonardo is offering a workshop to dive into object oriented Python for people with some Python but want to understand more. And Erik is doing a tutorial on cryptography which will be suitable for people who only have a minimal grasp of Python and mathematics.

Go to them and have fun. You should have registered for them if you want to go but if you haven’t registered ask nicely at the door and there might be a place for you.

The talks are in batches, 2 before lunch and 2 after lunch. We’ll try and compress the time that we have lost a bit. We have breaks at 11 o’clock, lunch will be served from 12.30 to 14.30 at Aberdare hall there will be signs for people to take you there, and there will be an afternoon break at 4 o’clock. And we aim to finish by about half-past 5.

This only applies to the people who signed up for the whole conference. Please, you must tell us which meals and dinners you are planning to come to. So if you haven’t you need to come and see somebody in the registration desk as soon as possible otherwise there may not be dinners for you. This is part of our policy on food waste. We don’t want to be catering for people who don’t turn up for meals so we only cater for people who have told us they are coming to meals. That includes the main conference dinner tomorrow night if you haven’t told us that you’re coming for that it means you do not have a ticket and if you do want to come and don’t have a ticket it means you will have to go on a waiting list so come and see us about that as soon as possible. If there is a mean you signed up for but you’re not coming to please either tell us or remove it from your ticket on-line so we can allocate it to someone else. We’d be very grateful.

Also on the topic of waste you’ll notice that everyone who registered for the full conference has a bottle - can you wave that bottle - so we’re not serving, not using plastic cups or any other plastic bottles. There are water coolers. Fill up your bottle. That bottle will not last for ever but as long as you do if you look after it.

Our sponsors are setting up in the Jones gallery in the foyer. Go and talk to them. They’re as much part of this community as everyone else is. Some are here just for the hell of it because they want to participate in the community. Drop by, say hello, they’ll appreciate you talking to them and there will be a jobs fair so they’ll be expecting to see you, a lot of them are recruiting at the moment, drop by between 12 and 2. They’re making a huge contribution to the conference and we’re very grateful for that, couldn’t possibly happen without the sponsors, would be about 2 or 3 times the price if it weren’t for our sponsors.

Finally there is Cardiff university that’s a really important part of this conference and we’re very grateful for the contributions they’ve made.

Several members of the committee are from Cardiff University. Most of the volunteers are students of Cardiff University and they’ve provided facilities resources and the staff so thank you for giving up your Sunday for us {applause}.

The university through the Vice Chancellors Office has provided a number of scholarships for Cardiff University students to attend conference. A number of the schools have offered funding to their own students separately or given tickets as prizes to their students so we’ve got a lot of Cardiff University involvement. Also got some speakers 3 of whom you’ll be hearing this morning and we also have 3 very special visitors who have travelled from Namibia and that is also partly in thanks to Cardiff University so welcome to Maria, Michael and Jessica all the way from Windhoek {applause}.

If you are functioning on twitter do please mention and thank Cardiff University because they have made a huge contribution to this - or whatever social media.... That’s enough from me. I am going to introduce Prof. Roger Whitaker who is Dean research in the College of Physical and Engineering Sciences. Physical sciences engineering. And do you need a - no...

PROF WHITAKER: Just going to say a few words.

DANIELE PROCIDA: Thank you Roger. {Applause}.