Python X Southwest: SciPy in Austin!

Mark your calendars: SciPy 2015 is coming in July (July 6-12, 2015) to the fabulous city of Austin, TX. This will be the 14th annual SciPy devoted to scientific computing with Python, and organizers expect to exceed 500 attendees again this year. 

The importance of this conference for scientific computing cannot be overstated. Enthought, SciPy’s institutional sponsor, has been joined by many others, including Microsoft Azure, Square Root, D E Shaw & Co, Kitware, PyLadies, and, of course, the PSF. The PSF, which has funded SciPy in the past, is sponsoring the conference this year at the Silver Level with a contribution of $3000. Last year’s SciPy saw sponsorship increase 85% over 2013, a clear indication that this conference is growing in size, importance, and reach, as is the use of Python as the premiere language for scientific computing!

The 2015 conference will consist of 2 days of tutorials followed by 3 days of presentations. Last year, the conference expanded from 2 days to 3 days of talks, another indication of the explosion of scientific projects being conducted in Python. The conference will conclude with 2 days of developer sprints on projects of interest to attendees. The basic schedule is:

• Tutorials: July 6 - 7, 2015


• Conference: July 8 - 10, 2015


• Sprints: July 11 - 12, 2015

This year’s conference will continue its tradition of having fabulous keynote speakers. Last year, our own PSF Director Nick Coghlan gave a keynote on Python Beyond C. 2015 keynote speakers include: 

• 
  Wes McKinney, Software Engineer, and author of pandas (Python Data Analysis Library) at Cloudera. Wes is also author of the O'Reilly book Python for Data Analysis;
  
  


• 
  Jack VanderPlas, PhD, Director of Research – Physical Sciences eScience Institute, University of Washington;
  
  


• 
  Chris Wiggins, Chief Data Scientist; Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics, The New York Times & Columbia University.
  
  

SciPy 2015 will also include two specialized tracks that run parallel to the general conference: Python in Data Science and Quantitative Finance and Computational Social Sciences.

The venue is the same as last year’s; the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center at the University of Texas campus in Austin (AT&T). This location is central and allows easy access to Austin’s terrific attractions; good food, music, and dancing (6th Street is the place to go, and don’t forget to eat barbecue and wear some cowboy boots!).

Sixth Street Austin by Larry D. Moore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

The full schedule of talks and speakers will be posted to the SciPy website later this month (SciPy2015).

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx.