Call for Proposals for PyCon India 2021 is now open!


2020 was a rollercoaster for all of us. The PyCon India team wishes you a safe and prosperous year. After accessing the circumstances, we have decided to organize PyCon India 2021 online. You can know more about that from our Announcement blog.

So, whether you are someone submitting a proposal for talks for the first time or just want to share what you have been up to with Python for a long time. This is YOUR time to shine!

We are looking forward to seeing beginner, intermediate, and advanced proposals on diverse topics from speakers of different expertise, and experience. To a submit a proposal, you don’t need to be a veteran who has spoken at a dozen conferences in the past. For making our conference truly diverse, we are looking for all kinds of people. That’s what our community is comprised of, and that’s what this conference’s schedule should be truly made out of.

Please make note of some important dates as mentioned below:

  • CFP opens on 5th March 2021
  • CFP closes on 7th May 2021
  • Schedule shall be released on Last week of July

  • Talks will be presented online on 18th and 19th September 2020

Where can you submit your proposal?

Read the call for proposals editorial for more information on writing proposals. Next, start with drafting your proposal in the New Proposal page after signing up for an account.

Do make sure to read the best practices before submitting your proposals especially if you are a first time speaker!

Guide to writing amazing proposals

As you think about your experiences, skills, and knowledge that you would want to bring to the table. We also want you to focus on the proposal that you will be submitting to us. A well-thought-out proposal could mean a chance for it to be selected and presented at PyCon India 2021. Take your time to go through our team's advice on preparing a kickass proposal that turns heads (virtually):

When submitting a proposal, you would need to fill in the following details.

Title

Give your talk/workshop a name that accurately describes the focus of that session in regards to potential attendees.

Description

A brief description of the talk/workshop is needed here. Do provide as much detail as you can to guide us through your plans to cover the topic. The workshop duration is needed to be 2.5 hours, and the talk duration needs to be 30 minutes. . Hence, a rough timeline detailing how you will be spending time explaining the concept would be a great idea to start with.

Audience Level

At what level of Python and other topic-specific experience or expertise is the workshop aiming for? We realize this may be too narrow for a workshop, for example, if the workshop is aimed at experienced programmers but novices to Python, but give it your best shot. Reviewers need to know what level of Python experience is targeted and also what level(s) of domain-specific expertise is targeted, for example, networking, SQL, database, etc.

Prerequistes

Preferences or requirements if any in regards to your talk/workshop that attendees need to take care of before joining in.

Video URL

Preview videos are you talking about your proposal, topics you intend to cover in your talk/workshop, and how you intend to cover them. Participants are strongly suggested to upload links to their preview videos while submitting their proposals. You can check the guidelines for creating a preview video in the following section.

Speaker Info

You'll be asked to enter your biography and the information will be made public. Here, you may wish to include more information for reviewers to complement information about your previous experience. This can include your subject matter experience, past workshops if any, past speaking events if any, or anything else that would help us understand and gauge your abilities as a workshop presenter. A link to a video would be ideal (to be added in speaker URLs)

Guidelines for creating Preview Video

With PyCon India 2021 being online, we are reintroducing preview videos to our proposal submission workflow. Preview videos are you talking about your proposal, topics you intend to cover in the talk, and how you intend to cover them. Participants are strongly suggested to upload links to their preview videos while submitting their proposals. It will be immensely helpful for reviewers to go through preview videos and take that into account before making final decisions on your talk proposal. Please keep in mind to strictly follow all guidelines for creating your video preview as mentioned below:-

  1. Duration & orientation
    A 1-3 minute video to be recorded, preferably in portrait mode.

  2. Upload to YouTube
    The video has to be uploaded on Youtube. If you don’t want other people to find it, mark it as unlisted. Don’t mark it as private or disallow embedding, or we won’t be able to see it. ​

  3. Only you talking about your talk
    The video should contain nothing except you talking about your talk.​ Try to make a video that holds our attention and helps us understand more deeply about what your talk is all about.

  4. No effects & No Music
    Please do not add any background music to your video. ​No screenshots or postproduction wizardry please; we don’t want this to turn into a video-making contest. If you’re going to spend time making something cool, put that into your slides & proposal instead.

  5. No Script
    Please do not recite a script written beforehand. Just talk spontaneously as you would to a friend. People delivering memorized speeches (or worse still, reading text off the screen) usually come off as dull and uninspiring. Think of this as a fun activity and let your heart do the talking. Be vanilla!

  6. Check your Audio
    Try to keep your voice clear and check that it's being recorded properly. Make sure there isn't any background noise. Try to record this in an empty room if possible without much going on in the background.

Have any more questions? We are here to help!

Feel free to ping us on Zulip or IRC (#pyconindia) or contact the coordinators through email:

We look forward to seeing your proposals filling our inboxes in the coming months! Till then stay safe, stay vanilla!

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