Additional Notes

My Day job is a Forestry Data Scientist with Coillte, the Irish state forestry company.

In recent times, I have part of the organizing team fo PyData London Conference 2025, PyData NYC Conference 2024, and assisting with PyData Global on an ongoing basis for the past few years. My functions have typically been related to social media, corporate outreach, speaker recruitment, CFP review and session chairing.

I assisted the organization of PyData Berlin Conference 2025 (i.e. retrieval of social media assets, and advice on current best practice for social media and corporate outreach)

I was the founder of PyData Dublin / PyData Ireland. although I have since stepped back from organizational duties.

I was on the board of Python Ireland and was conference lead for PyCon Ireland (2015 to 2019) and PyCon Limerick (2019 and 2020) I was also very active in the R and Julia Communities over the last 10 years

Research Software Engineering

• Research software engineering is the use of software engineering practices in research applications.

• The term was proposed in a research paper in 2010 in response to an empirical survey on tools used for software development in research projects.

• It started to be used in United Kingdom in 2012, when it was needed to define the type of software development needed in research.

• This focuses on reproducibility, reusability, and accuracy of data analysis and applications created for research.

References

1. Cynthia Longfield - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Longfield.

2. CYNTHIA LONGFIELD / Entomologist, world traveller. https://www.herstory.ie/news/2019/5/22/cynthia-longfield-entomologist-world-traveller.

3. Cynthia Longfield facts for kids - Kids encyclopedia. https://kids.kiddle.co/Cynthia_Longfield.

4. Ireland’s Greatest Woman Inventor finalist - Cynthia Longfield, Madame …. https://www.siliconrepublic.com/science/irelands-greatest-woman-inventor-finalist-cynthia-longfield-madame-dragonfly.

References

1. useR! | LF Events. https://events.linuxfoundation.org/user/.
2. 2026 Esri User Conference. https://uc2026.esri.com/flow/esri/24uc/eventportal/page/detailed-agenda.
3. useR! 2022. https://user2022.r-project.org/.
4. About - user2022.r-project.org. https://user2022.r-project.org/about/user/.

References

1. useR! | LF Events. https://events.linuxfoundation.org/user/.
2. 2024 Esri User Conference. https://uc2024.esri.com/flow/esri/24uc/eventportal/page/detailed-agenda.
3. useR! 2022. https://user2022.r-project.org/.
4. About - user2022.r-project.org. https://user2022.r-project.org/about/user/.

PyData NYC Conference 2024

PyData NYC Conf 2024

The event typically includes keynote sessions, talks, lightning talks, and tutorials. It’s a great opportunity for networking and learning from experts in the field. The next PyData NYC conference is scheduled for November 6-8, 2024³.

Programme

At PyData NYC, you’ll find a wide range of topics that cater to various interests within the data science and analytics community. Some popular topics typically covered include:

• Machine Learning and AI: Techniques, tools, and applications in various industries.
• Data Visualization: Best practices and tools for visualizing complex data.
• Big Data: Handling and processing large datasets efficiently.
• Data Engineering: Building and maintaining data pipelines and infrastructure.
• Deep Learning: Advances in neural networks and their applications.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP): Techniques for processing and analyzing text data.
• Data Ethics and Privacy: Ensuring ethical use of data and protecting user privacy.
• Open Source Tools: Development and use of open-source software for data analysis.

These topics are often presented through a mix of keynote speeches, technical talks, hands-on tutorials, and panel discussions. Is there a particular topic you’re most interested in?

1. PyData NYC 2023. https://pydata.org/nyc2023/.
2. PyData NYC - Meetup. https://www.meetup.com/pydatanyc/.
3. PyData NYC - Home. https://nyc.pydata.org/.
4. Home | PyData NYC 2022. https://pydata.org/nyc2022/.
5. About - PyData NYC 2022. https://pydata.org/nyc2022/about/.

Free Friday Nights @ The Whitney Museum

The Whitney Museum of American Art hosts Free Friday Nights every Friday from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM¹². During this time, admission to the museum is free for all visitors. The event includes:

• Access to exhibitions: Explore the museum’s current exhibitions without any admission fee.
• Special programming: Enjoy various activities and events that may include talks, performances, and more.
• Music: Experience live or curated music to enhance your visit.
• Stunning views: Take in the beautiful views of the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and more from the museum’s iconic terraces.

Though admission is free, tickets are required, and capacity is limited, so it’s recommended to reserve tickets in advance.

The High Line

The High Line is a unique public park in New York City, built on a historic elevated freight rail line on Manhattan’s West Side. It stretches for 1.45 miles (2.33 km) from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street near the Javits Center1.

Walking to the Whitney

Here’s a step-by-step guide to walk from the Microsoft Conference Center at Times Square to the Whitney Museum of American Art, using the High Line:

1. Start at the Microsoft Conference Center located at 11 Times Square, 8th Avenue & 41st Street.

2. Head southwest on 8th Avenue towards 34th Street. This is about a 10-minute walk.

3. Turn right onto 34th Street and continue walking west until you reach the entrance to the High Line at 34th Street and 12th Avenue.

4. Enter the High Line and enjoy a scenic walk south. The High Line is an elevated park built on a historic freight rail line, offering great views of the city and the Hudson River.

5. Continue walking south on the High Line until you reach the Gansevoort Street exit. This is the southern end of the High Line, located in the Meatpacking District.

6. Exit the High Line at Gansevoort Street and head east towards Washington Street.

7. Turn right onto Washington Street and walk south for a short distance until you reach the Whitney Museum of American Art at 99 Gansevoort Street.

This route is approximately 2 miles and should take around 40-50 minutes, depending on your walking pace and how much time you spend enjoying the High Line.

Refences

1. Free Friday Nights | Whitney Museum of American Art. https://whitney.org/visit/free-friday-nights.

2. Free Friday Nights and Second Sundays - Whitney Museum. https://whitney.org/visit/free-days-and-nights.

3. Free and Discounted Admission | Whitney Museum of American Art. https://whitney.org/visit/free-admission.

References

1. useR! | LF Events. https://events.linuxfoundation.org/user/.
2. 2024 Esri User Conference. https://uc2024.esri.com/flow/esri/24uc/eventportal/page/detailed-agenda.
3. useR! 2022. https://user2022.r-project.org/.
4. About - user2022.r-project.org. https://user2022.r-project.org/about/user/.

Call For Proposals

The CFP is still open until September 12th, 2022.

We welcome attendees with wide varieties of experiences, expertise, and backgrounds to create a diverse and compelling learning opportunity. Users, contributors, and newcomers can share experiences and learn from one another to solve hard problems and grow a stronger community. nAs well are regular presentations, Workshops and Lightning Talks are also welcome.

Presentations will be given live with opportunities for questions and answers to facilitate a more engaging experience and a deeper discussion. Presentations will come in a variety of formats, such as workshops, talks, and panel discussions to create diverse learning experiences.

Following each session, a recording will be posted to attendees for continued viewing. At the conclusion of the Summit, all presentations will be posted on YouTube.

Pay What You Can

Tickets are currently on sale and once again we’ll be using a pay-what-you-can pricing model to maximize the number of community members able to participate in this world-class programming.

Talks, Tutorials & Keynotes - Something for Everyone

At PyData Global 2021, there was over 150 presentations this year including “Wounds Over Time - Tracking Wound Healing via 3D Models”, “Document your scientific project with Markdown, Sphinx, and Read the Docs”, “NLP and Hate speech: Why does it matter and what can we do?”. Keynote addresses were be given by Naomi Ceder and David Beazley

Keep In Touch

To stay up-to-date on all conference announcements:

• Follow the PyData Global company page on LinkedIn: PyData Global

• Follow PyData on Twitter

Why-R? Limerick

• Date: Saturday 1st February 2020
• Location: Thomond Park Stadium, Cratloe Road, Limerick.
• Times: 10.00am to 16:30pm approx
• Career Zoo Limerick’s Website
• Why R? Limerick’s Website

Tickets

• Admission is free, but attendees must have registered for Career Zoo.

Using R for Stylometry

Who really wrote Shakespeare? A quick introduction to using R for stylometry.

This workshop will demo the stylo package in R, conducting stylometric analyses of works by Shakespeare and some of his contemporaries.

Presenter: Rory Quinn

Bio: I am a data science enthusiast who enjoys learning new tools and methodologies for extracting useful insight from data. I particularly like using R for its extensibility and great package ecosystem.

Time and Location

• The workshop takes place on Saturday 1st February at Thomond Park.
• The workshop will take place on Morning Session (11:00 to 12:00) in a workshop room at Career Zoo.
• The venue is ordinarily a corporate box suite, and has a capacity of 12 people.

Requirement

• Please bring a fully charged laptop with a recent version of R installed.

Registration

• To register, visit the career zoo eventbrite site and select a general admission and a ticket for this workshop.

Data Science Learnathon with KNIME

What is a Learnathon?

It’s between a hackathon and a workshop. It’s like a workshop because we’ll learn more about the data science cycle - data access, data blending, data preparation, model training, optimization, testing, and deployment. It’s like a hackathon because we’ll work in groups to hack a workflow-based solution to guided exercises.

Full Details can be found on the Career Zoo Website

About the Presenter

Paolo Tamagnini is a data scientist at KNIME, holds a master’s degree in data science from Sapienza University of Rome and has research experience from NYU in data visualization techniques for machine learning interpretability. Follow Paolo on LinkedIn

Requirements

• Please bring your own laptop, ideally pre-installed with the latest version of KNIME Analytics Platform.
• Check the Career Zoo Websit for more details.

Registration

• To register, visit the career zoo eventbrite site and select a general admission and a ticket for this workshop.

Machine Learning With Julia

THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT

Join Julia Computing’s Avik Sengupta (VP Engineering) who is leading a workshop on ‘Machine Learning with Julia’.

Julia is the fastest high-performance open source computing language for data, analytics, algorithmic trading, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other scientific and numeric computing applications. Julia solves the two language problem by combining the ease of use of Python and R with the speed of C++.

Julia works with GPUs, TPUs, multithreading and parallel processing to deliver seamless unlimited scalability from a single CPU to thousands of nodes, cores and threads in the public or private cloud. Julia has run at petascale on 9,300 Knights Landing (KNL) nodes with 650,000 cores and 1.3 million threads to analyze over 56 terabytes of data using Cori, one of the ten largest and most powerful supercomputers in the world.

Julia has been downloaded more than 12 million times and is used at more than 1,500 universities. Julia co-creators are the winners of the 2019 James H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software and the 2019 Sidney Fernbach Award.

Julia Computing was founded in 2015 by all the creators of Julia to provide products including JuliaTeam, JuliaSure and JuliaRun to businesses and researchers using Julia.

Links

• The Julia Language - The main portal for the Julia language
• JuliaCon 2020, Lisbon - Julia’s international conference
• Julia Computing - Professional services for Julia

Machine Learning For Coders

Machine Learning For Coders

Presenter: Iain Keaney ( skellig.ai )

Abstract

• Machine Learning (ML) is no longer ring fenced to researchers and data scientists.

• New high-level APIs are driving the democratisation of ML applications and enabling programmers to build and implement ML solutions in their own work.

• This workshop describes how these APIs work and why they sometimes perform better than even state-of-the-art solutions.

Time and Location

• The workshop takes place on Saturday 1st February at Thomond Park.

• The workshop will take place on Morning Session (11:00 to 13:00) in a workshop room at Career Zoo.

• The venue is ordinarily a corporate box suite, and has a capacity of 12 people.

Requirement

• Please bring a fully charged laptop.

About the Presenter

As a creative engineer, I love to build new things. I’ve previously worked on a computer vision start-up, developing a consumer solution for mobile 3D scanning. My PhD focused on an application of artificial intelligence in offshore engineering.

In 2017 I was named in The Sunday Business Post’s 30 Under 30 Most Interesting People in Irish Tech.

Registration

• To register, visit the career zoo eventbrite site and select a general admission and a ticket for this workshop.

Git and GitHub: A hands-on workshop

Venue: Workshop Room

Workshop (14:00 - 16:00)

Presented by Chidubem Iddianozie (UCD /Github)

Abstract

Turbo-Charging your technical dexterity using Git and GitHub: A hands-on workshop.

• This workshop covers all that is needed to integrate git into your daily development life using GitHub.

• We will begin with a discussion of what git is and how it works.

• Then a hands-on session, where we will run through multiple templated practical scenarios using Git commands.

• Lastly, we will wrap up by discussing other free offerings such as hosting websites using Pages.

Requirement

• A laptop.

Registration * To register, visit the career zoo eventbrite site and select a general admission and a ticket for this workshop.

Links

1. PyCon - Python Ireland. https://pycon.ie/.

Links

1. PyCon - Python Ireland. https://pycon.ie/.
2. PyCon Ireland 2024 - Python. http://python.ie/pycon-2024/.
3. undefined. https://sessionize.com/pycon-ireland-2024.

PREAMBLE

There’s been some recent discussion about DjangoCon(.eu | .us) and whether or not speakers should have to pay for admission as well - see Chris Wanstrath’s (of Github) tweets (here and here) and this Convore thread for examples. Obviously, as PyCon is the “big dog” so to speak for Python conferences, everyone looks to “us” for a model to work from, or how we manage things. I’ve seen a lot of poop slung towards the DjangoCon organizers, mainly due to a lack of knowing “why” certain policies (such as “Everyone Pays”) exist for DjangoCon, PyCon, and other conferences.

As co-chair and program committee chair last year, and program committee chair the year before, and now chair for the next two years - I figured it might be good to take a moment to explain the rationale behind PyCon’s approach - as well as some statistics about the budget. I’m not going to state that this policy is perfect; nor that it won’t be changed; I also will not release the budget publicly - I don’t think giving everyone a spreadsheet without the context of the hundreds of man hours of work that go into it is useful, at all.

Important Note: PyCon is organized and managed by the Python Software Foundation - this means that, as part of being a 501c3 charity, some of the financials from past PyCon is available as part of publicly accessible financial documents of the foundation. You can find those on the PSF’s site.

The same reasoning may not apply to a conference that is organized by a commercial entity or is done for profit. OSCON is a commercial conference, so having speakers get in free is generally expected. DjangoCon.us is in the middle - it is organized for profit by a commercial entity, but it also contributes heavily back to the Django Software Foundation. DjangoCon.eu is managed differently as well.

POLICY AND FINANCIAL AID

First, what is the “policy” - well, first, it’s not a policy per-se; it’s part policy, and part tradition. The policy is “Everyone pays for a ticket” - attendees, tutorial presenters, organizers (meaning: all volunteers, including the chair) and sponsors - everyone pays their way. Yes, this means Van and myself both paid for our own tickets to attend. Everyone is treated as equal - sponsors get free admissions as part of conference sponsorship packages, and keynote speakers may be provided with either compensation or admission depending on the negotiated deal (some keynote speakers cost money, for example).

Now; an interesting aspect of this is that PyCon, as a conference, offers a very generous financial aid program - this means that some attendees, speakers, tutorial presenters, etc have some, or in rare cases, all of their expenses such as flight, hotel and admission provided to them from the PyCon budget. PyCon goes out of it’s way to encourage people to apply for financial aid - even if we can’t cover all of your expenses, we will give you free admission based on need. The FA application process is simple, and straightforward. It’s also very liberal - the only caveat is that speakers at the conference “get bumped to the top” of the applications so that we don’t lose a good talk because of financial need. We also don’t ban anyone from applying (for example, I needed assistance in 2010 even as the PC chair).

We use the FA budget to not only help the “normal” attendees of the conference, we also keep an eye towards diversity - for example in 2010 we had a specific grant program (funded by Google) for women to attend PyCon - which they did in amazing numbers! We also try to help more people with less money than less people with more money - we want to spread assistance out as much as possible. This is why FA requires room-sharing at the conference hotel, this is why we may only cover part of a given applicant’s costs - we want to help more people.

As you can guess - since financial aid is a part of the budget, we allocate a set amount of money to this - but, without a solid budget (meaning, admission ticket sales, sponsorships, etc) we can’t have it - it’s actually a dice roll. We can guess at how much FA we can carve out of the budget at the start of the process, and we will award that amount - but that means if we have low attendance, don’t book enough rooms, or our catering costs spike, or lack sponsors, the conference can lose not insignificant amounts of money helping people. The rub being, you don’t know for sure if this will happen until the conference actually happens.

So, how does “everybody pays” play into this? In two ways. First, it helps hedge our risk, institutionally speaking. PyCon had a good/bad year in 2009 - good for the attendees, but horrendously bad financially. We made various commitments in 2008 just as the markets were peaking, and we lost a lot of money when everything went south. Since then, it has been our budget policy to make sure that our revenues will cover our hard costs even if there is a 15% dip in attendance and a 35% dip in sponsorship.

Second, you may have guessed that the “everybody pays” policy allows us to pad the financial aid budget. This has the direct benefit of bringing more people to the conference, increasing the diversity of people attending, getting a larger proportion of the community together, etc.

I’m happy to say, that on most years, we very happily break our financial aid budget - meaning, if we have a positive outlook, we will gladly overspend on financial aid and take less “profit” for the conference. The point of the conference is the community, it’s not about the conference! We help the community as much as we can by helping to cover the costs of people who would not otherwise be able to attend.

HISTORY AND TRADITION

Once you start organizing a conference you start to rapidly realize how costly things can get - and if you don’t have sponsors with giant bags of money, or the conference is not being run for profit (such as OSCON), you can quickly get into trouble if you don’t have a policy in place that will ensure financial viability. PyCon came from very small, humble beginnings but has grown year over year consistently - maintaining the “everyone helps, and everyone pays” tradition originally set forth.

It is my understanding that the policy/tradition has as much to do with financials as it does with “the feel”. No one is treated specially, we - meaning the community - put together the conference, we are taking the financial risk that comes with it. We are in it together, and that means “everyone helps, and everyone pays” - it is the most equitable solution that helps us maintain fairness and the flavor/feel of the conference. When you realize that even Guido has to buy a ticket (even if it was paid for by Google) or that Van Lindberg had to buy one - it suddenly makes you realize that all of us truly believe in the spirit of “we are all in this”.

Speakers; as a an additional guideline, while always paying for a ticket; always pay at the discounted early bird rate no matter when they register. So yes, we do discount them, but no more than anyone else who registers within the early bird window.

As an aside, the “everybody helps” is also part of what makes PyCon special. When people come to other conferences, they frequently come expecting to be coddled and catered to. When people come to PyCon, we hope they come expecting to contribute. Having everybody contributing is at the core of the best parts of PyCon - from stuffing bags, to lightning talks, to the wonderful Testing in Python BOF.

HARD COSTS, STATS AND RISK

So what makes up a PyCon budget? Well - Van covered some of it in his wonderful “Behind the Scenes” post for PyCon 2011 - but in more detailed terms of percentages of the total costs for the budget:

Catering (Food, beverages): 54% Networking: 5% Audio/Visual and Video Recording: 13% Payments to Tutorial Instructors: 6% Misc/PR/Sponsors and Administration: 16% Swag: 2% Financial Aid: 4%

Catering, plus Financial Aid and video recording is 70% of the budget alone. The total value “spent” for financial aid alone well exceeds 50,000$ We spend a massive amount of money for audio/visual and the video recording making all of the talks available on the web (see the python miro community). Tens of thousands of dollars spent on networking.

We could forgo feeding people - but with a conference that runs from 8am to 6pm for 5 days, that would suck - and people needing to leave to get food would be disruptive and ruin the flow. We could forgo recording the videos. We could do a lot of things to cut back and lower the budget numbers so we could give more away (such as comp’ing speaker tickets), but that doesn’t make the risk and costs from the hotel go away.

Average Revenue per attendee: ~$300 Average Cost per attendee: ~$465

In total - these costs (for 2011) came to well over 600,000$ - that’s right. Over half a million dollars in hard costs for a conference of 1,380 Pythonistas. Much of the payments, guarantees, deposits, etc have to be put down up front of the actual conference with no guarantee that we will make our sponsorship or attendee numbers. That means, in the case of PyCon - the Python Software Foundation fronts potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments and risk. We also expect these to climb with the move of the conference to Santa Clara.

Conferences are unknowns - you put up a lot of time, energy and money - lots of money - and you hope you hit certain numbers. For example, you make a contract with the hotel that says “we will have X number of people book X number of rooms nights” - if you don’t meet those numbers? The hotel penalizes you a stunning amount of money. You make a contact for catering - saying that you will serve X number of meals - and if you don’t hit that? You get penalized. You put a lot of faith in making numbers on:

Sponsors - without corporate sponsors, we simply could not exist (at this scale), period. Attendee Numbers - You expect X number of attendees, broken up into “corporate, individual and Y” rates - corporate rate tickets are where you make the bulk of registration rates. Hotel Rooms - if you don’t hit your contracted numbers, you will take a bath Do you know what happens if, for some reason - say an economic downturn - you don’t make those numbers? Your conference loses over $230,000, possibly more. That 230k number? Right around the amount PyCon 2009 lost, representing a massive financial loss for the Python Software Foundation. Yes, you try to mitigate the risks by careful planning - if you’re lucky, you get some insurance to cover some of the potential losses. PyCon is actually really lucky in all of this - we’ve grown enough that we get to leverage economies of scale with the contracts we deal with. Small conferences? Not so much - they get harder in the face of failure, and they don’t have the bargaining power we have..

It’s a delicate balancing act, requiring careful planning and a lot of work to drive attendance and sponsorship - negotiations with Hotels, Catering, Unions, are all things that have to go right in order to make a conference that even stands a chance of not losing you massive amounts of money. In the case of PyCon - a massive loss of money (such as 2009) could cause the foundation to go bankrupt and dissolve. As it is, the foundation, already spartan in spending cut back even further to protect itself which represents a net negative for the Python Community.

WHERE DOES THE PROFIT GO?

Alright - I’ve outlined the philosophy, the scale and the risk. Now, you’re probably asking where, if we have it, does any profit from the conference go? Easy - straight back into the community.

Whatever profit - really, money left over, goes to cover the initial costs/risks for PyCon the next year, and the years after - it also goes to the Python Software Foundation that in turn, reinvests that money into the community (see the foundation blog).

Having a healthy positive margin also means we can increase things such as the financial aid budget for the next year, allowing even more Python developers to attend.

Why not run a budget that aims for 0$ +/-?!

Because, that is simply insane - you can aim for minimal profit by reinvesting into things such as financial aid, or other perks for the attendees but only after you have guaranteed you’re going to make your numbers - see the issue? At best, you budget is a highly refined series of educated guesses. At worst? Someone goes bankrupt - at smaller conferences such as DjangoCon.eu, where some costs and contracts are secured by an individual and their credit card?

That person goes broke, because the entities you signed contracts with will get their money.

So, you never, ever aim for a loss, but you also don’t aim for extracting “maximum value” from conference attendees. You aim, you plan, and you hope to provide the best value and experience to attendees and sponsors - you do this through a lot of hard work and sweat. You make sure attendees walk away raving about the conference, you make sure you generate the maximum return on investment for the community.

IN CLOSING

Historically, PyCon has never been aimed at “extracting money” from the community - it could be run a lot more profitably. We could increase ticket rates, reduce FA and walk around in Nascar-esque suits with sponsor logos on them - there’s lots of things that could be done to make PyCon a massive profit center for the PSF. We don’t though - why? Because, that defeats the purpose of a community conference, put together by and for the community.

We take what money we end up with and we sponsor the sprints at PyCon itself, we hold the language and virtual machine summits. The PSF reinvests it into the Python community as a whole (see the sprints project, for example, or the 10,000$ check we gave to PyPy). The money is given out in the forms of developer grants, holding sprints, providing sponsorship to smaller Python conferences all over the world, outreach and education initiatives, etc. No one gets a shiny new car or anything - money that comes from the community conference goes back into the community. You can see how much goes where if you peruse the PSF resolutions page.

PyCon is beginning to also outstrip the ability for a small group of volunteers to put together - more and more we’ve had to bring on commercial entities (whom we have to pay) to assist in organizing or doing specific things (such as registration, or website development). I fully expect PyCon 2012/2013 to quickly hit the attendance cap meaning we’re going to have more scaling issues and higher costs - this is a fundamentally good thing - PyCon, it is felt, can sustain it’s current feel and quality up to a maximum of 1500-2000 attendees.

We do not have the intention of raising that cap.

Instead, we - as the foundation - intend on encouraging smaller more regional conferences such as PyOhio to grow - PyCon will continue to be the “big dog” so to speak - but it being the big dog will allow us to further cultivate and pollenate the entire Python community and ecosystem.

Given all of that - as the PyCon chair for the next two years - and being relatively comfortable that we will again, put on a highly successful conference - I am exploring the idea of steeply discounting the cost of tickets for speakers. I feel that not only is the conference viable once again, but that the speakers do help make the conference what it is - last year we had over 200 talk and tutorial submissions. All of those speakers submitted talks knowing that they would have to pay for a ticket to attend - but given the positive outlook, I’m comfortable in thinking that we will be able to provide accepted speakers with a discount to thank them for their talk.

It’s all about community, and reinvesting in it in the right places, at the right times, and managing your risk. The risks putting on a conference - even a small one (especially a small one) are massive, but the returns - especially when you’re standing on a stage in front of 1380 fellow Python hackers handing a big cardboard check to a fantastic project?

Well, the returns are well worth it.

Details

• Tag by most recent recording date

1. Lead with Key Details (First 3–4 Lines)

LinkedIn collapses long posts after ~3 lines on mobile and ~4 on desktop. To maximize visibility:

• Start with the most important info: event name, announcement, achievement, or call to action.
• Use bold phrasing, line breaks, or formatting to draw attention.
• Example:

Excited to announce our upcoming community showcase: "Data & Drones: Visualizing the Future"!
November 12 | Dublin | Hosted by Why R? Foundation

2. Use Strategic Keywords

LinkedIn’s algorithm surfaces posts based on relevance and engagement. To optimize reach:

• Include keywords related to your domain, audience, and theme (e.g., “open-source”, “data visualization”, “community outreach”, “R programming”, “drone mapping”).
• Mention organizations, tools, or formats (e.g., “Why R?”, “Copilot”, “ggplot2”, “Shiny”, “pet portraits for outreach”).
• Avoid keyword stuffing — 3–5 well-placed terms are ideal.

3. Image Guidelines

Visuals dramatically increase engagement. Follow these specs:

• Aspect ratio: Prefer landscape (3:2) — e.g., 1500×1000 px or 1200×800 px.
• Avoid portrait orientation (e.g., 2:3 or 9:16), which LinkedIn penalizes for taking up too much vertical space.
• Use high-resolution images with clear focal points and minimal text overlay.

4. Alt Text for Accessibility and SEO

Always include alt text when uploading images:

• Use Copilot or another tool to generate up to 1000 characters of descriptive alt text.
• Include:
  • What’s visually depicted (e.g., “A drone hovering over a coastal landscape with data overlays”)
  • Context (e.g., “Captured during the Why R? Foundation’s outreach event on environmental mapping”)
  • 2–3 relevant keywords (e.g., “drone mapping”, “community data”, “open-source visualization”)

5. Writing Tools and Workflow

• Use Microsoft Copilot to draft, refine, and optimize your post.
• Consider writing in Word or Notepad first, then pasting into LinkedIn to avoid formatting glitches.
• Review your post for:
  • Line breaks and spacing
  • Keyword placement
  • Image alignment and alt text

Sample LinkedIn Post Template

Just wrapped up our latest outreach project: "Data & Drones: Mapping Community Stories"!

Hosted by Why R? Foundation in Dublin, this initiative brought together open-source advocates, drone pilots, and data artists to visualize local narratives through aerial mapping and R-powered diagrams.

From pet portraits to environmental overlays, we explored how playful visuals and comparative diagrams can foster identity and engagement.

Tools used: ggplot2, Copilot, Shiny, and custom drone telemetry pipelines.

[Image: Drone hovering over a coastal village with data overlays — alt text embedded]

#OpenSource #CommunityOutreach #DataVisualization #WhyR #DroneMapping #RStats

Alt Text Guidelines for LinkedIn Images Using Microsoft Copilot

Why Alt Text Matters

• Accessibility: Alt text ensures screen readers can describe images to visually impaired users.
• SEO & Reach: LinkedIn’s algorithm uses alt text to understand image content, improving discoverability.
• Professionalism: Thoughtful alt text reflects attention to detail and inclusive communication.

How to Use Microsoft Copilot for Alt Text

1. Paste the image into Copilot (or upload it if using the app).
2. Prompt clearly: Ask Copilot to generate alt text for LinkedIn, up to 1000 characters, and include:
   • A detailed visual description (e.g., “A drone hovering over a coastal village”)
   • Context of the event or post (e.g., “Captured during Why R? Foundation’s outreach on environmental mapping”)
   • 2–3 relevant keywords (e.g., “drone mapping”, “open-source”, “community data”)
3. Review and refine: Ensure the alt text is accurate, descriptive, and not overly technical or generic.
4. Paste into LinkedIn’s alt text field when uploading the image.

Formatting Tips

• Keep it natural and readable — avoid keyword stuffing.
• Use landscape images (3:2 aspect ratio) to ensure optimal display.
• Always include alt text — it’s not optional.

Placement & Page Context

• The ad was published via the “Data Scientists Ireland” Facebook page.
• At launch:
  • Page had approximately 700–800 followers
  • Account was relatively inactive, with minimal recent posts and low organic reach
• Despite the dormant state, paid promotion enabled strong performance by bypassing reliance on follower engagement.

Campaign Timeline

• Launch Date: Tuesday, 29th April 2025
  
• Duration: 10 days
  
• Platform Distribution:
  • Facebook Mobile Feed
    
  • Facebook Reels
    
  • Instagram Reels
    
  • Instagram Stories

Targeting Strategy

• Used Meta Advantage+ Audience Optimization to reach relevant users based on interests and demographics.

Age Group

• 18 and older
  
• Strong reach across ages 25–44

Interests & Professional Tags

• Artificial intelligence
  
• Machine learning
  
• Python
  
• Data science
  
• Computer science
  
• Software engineering
  
• Related educational backgrounds and industry job titles

Geographic Targeting

• United Kingdom: Focused on London and South East England
  • Cities: Cambridge, Croydon, Reading, Oxford
    
• International Reach: Canterbury, New Zealand
  • (Unintentional — meant to target Canterbury, Kent, UK)

Performance Metrics

Summary Insight

The campaign delivered strong results despite launching from a non-active page.
- Low cost-per-click, high click-through volume, and effective audience targeting contributed to success.
- Future campaigns may benefit from: - Using more active community pages - Refreshing dormant accounts with engaging content prior to promotion

References

1. Dublin International Film Festival - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_International_Film_Festival.
2. Dublin International Film Festival. https://www.diff.ie/.
3. en.wikipedia.org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_International_Film_Festival.

References

1. ATELIER FOR FESTIVAL MANAGERS TOOLKIT Audience Development and Retention. https://www.thefestivalacademy.eu/media/3663-copy-of-toolkit_-audience-development-and-retention.pdf.
2. Guide | Audience Development Planning | The Audience Agency. https://www.theaudienceagency.org/resources/guide-to-audience-development-planning.
3. Audience Development Strategies (in Culture and the Arts). https://kmshare.net/isac2018/assets/images/maria.pdf.
4. New Festivals Toolkit Supports Audience Development & Engagement. https://massculturalcouncil.org/blog/new-festivals-toolkit-supports-audience-development-engagement/.
5. Recent Key Insights - The Audience Agency. https://www.theaudienceagency.org/evidence/cultural-participation-monitor/key-insights.