PSS-SA Open Space

Notes from the Python Software Society of South Africa town hall discussion at PyConZA 2019.

Date: Friday, 11 October 2019

Topics discussed:

Accreditation for PyConZA

  • Being accreditation would be useful for accruing continual development points, which are used by some professional bodies in South Africa as proof of continued professional development.

  • Accreditation of PyConZA or of the PSS-SA would potentially be useful when applying for work visas (which often require one to show membership of a professional organization).

  • One option would be for PyConZA to become accredited with the IEEE South Africa.

  • Action: Investigate becoming accredited by the IEEE South Africa.

Open Source Week and links to other open source communities

  • A question was asked about what conferences or topics could be added to Open Source Week. Suggestions discussed included front-end development, Javascript and Rust.

  • A question was asked about what directions TechConf might extend in and whether there was a need for a broader conference like FOSDEM.

Sustainable conference organizing

  • Running a conference is a heavy burden and often falls on few people.

  • Jointly hiring a professional event manager for Open Source Week with TechConf was discussed and broadly supported if the costs weren't too high.

  • PyConZA organizers have written quite a bit on how PyConZA is organized, and what the roles, responsibilities and timeline look like.

  • Action: PyConZA to tidy up and unifying its documentation on running the conference and share it more widely.