Running EuroPython 2020 as an online conference

Challenges we faced switching to an online event due to COVID-19

Marc-Andre Lemburg

Community EuroPython EuroPython Society (EPS) The Answer to Life the Universe and Everything Else

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We had been planning the EuroPython 2020 conference in Dublin, Ireland ever since late in 2019, when we ran the CFP. In March, it became apparent that the COVID-19 crisis would not be over by July 2020 and so we had to make a hard decision to either drop the event for 2020 or go online.

Since we wanted to support the community even in difficult times, we decided to go for the online version -- even though this would be much less engaging than the in-person event.

For the past months, we have been creating a concept for the conference from scratch. The talk will present our approach, how it came to be and which challenges we faced. The concept should be usable by other conference as well.

Type: Talk (30 mins); Python level: Beginner; Domain level: Beginner


Marc-Andre Lemburg

eGenix.com

Marc-Andre is the CEO and founder of eGenix.com, a Python-focused project and consulting company based in Germany. He has a degree in mathematics from the University of Düsseldorf.

His work with and for Python started in 1994. In 1997, he became a Python Core Developer. He designed and implemented the Unicode support in Python and continued to maintain the Python Unicode implementation for more than a decade, after it first appeared in Python 2.0. He also authored the well-known mx Extensions, e.g. mxTextTools, mxDateTime and mxODBC, which are now distributed and maintained through eGenix.com.

Marc-Andre currently is Chair of the EuroPython Society (EPS) which organizes the EuroPython conference series and support the Python community in Europe.

He is also a founding member and Fellow of the Python Software Foundation (PSF) and has served on the PSF Board several times.

Today, Marc-Andre spends most of his time consulting and managing large-scale customer projects heavily relying on Python and databases. More details are available on http://www.malemburg.com/.