The Django speaking tour 2022
Being a conference speaker gives me the opportunity to meet people, make new friends and visit new places. Having this opportunity is something I am truly grateful for. I tried to tell about my latest trip through Europe to talk about Python, Django and Community.
Stories of a speaker (3 part series)
- Speaking online at EuroPython 2020
- The Django speaking tour 2022
- The PyCon Italia 2022 multiplicity
Introduction
Being part of the Python community brought me in April to make an incredible tour around Europe to talk about Django in some conferences in the presence, after months of isolation for everyone.
It took me a month to reorganize the ideas and I would like to tell you about my experience, in the hope that it will inspire someone else to embark on a similar or even more ambitious experience.
The beginning
In April 2019 I participated for the first time as a speaker at a DjancoCon Europe in Copenhagen, my first abroad conference as a speaker.
I remember an atmosphere so full of enthusiasm that it helped me to present one of my most successful talks and in fact his video is the most viewed on the DjangoCon Europe YouTube channel.
In the conferences you meet fantastic people and in that case I also met the organizers Benjamin and Emil who invited me to hold an opening keynote of DjangoDay Copenhagen 2021 which unfortunately was later canceled.
The plan
In early 2022 some in-person conferences began to be announced again, so after months of online conferences alone I submitted my talk proposal for PyConDE 2022 which was accepted.
In the meantime I was invited again to give a keynote for DjangoDay Copenhagen 2022.
I was also invited to propose my talk on Django and PostgreSQL at CitusCon 2022 organized by CitusData.
In practice, within 5 days in April I would have held 3 talks on Django.
The travel
I live in Pescara, a city in central Italy on the shores of the Adriatic sea and my journey has led me to cross the entire Abruzzo region in the direction of the Rome airport, from one bank to the other of Italy through the Apennines.
I shared the photos of the nature I passed through on social media and at the same time I followed the journey of other speakers who traveled to Copenhagen from other parts of Europe.
Copenhagen
Two years after the last trip, the one to Denmark was liberating and returning to Copenhagen was like returning to a familiar place after a long period of isolation.
After being in contact during the trip, we met live with Juhis, Marijke, Joseph and Michael in central Copenhagen to find a restaurant to have dinner together.
After discovering that in Copenhagen the kitchens of many restaurants close before 9 PM we had a very pleasant dinner at “Hereford Beefstouw” in Tivoli getting to know each other better and exchanging our experiences as speakers and active members of the community.
DjangoDay Copenhagen 2022
DjangoDay Copenhagen 2022 opened with great enthusiasm, broadcast in particular by Benjamin and Emil, but also due to the fact that for many it was the first in-person conference in two years.
I gave my first opening keynote about how to make the most out of Django by getting involved in the project and I was very happy with the many positive feedback I received.
The conference went on with very interesting talks, coffee and slices of cake and ended with the lighting talks in which I briefly presented the PyCon Italia 2022 for which I am collaborating in the organization.
For a more detailed account of the talks presented during the day you can read Juhis’s article on the conference that I linked in the links.
DjangoDay Copenhagen 2022 party
After the conference we took advantage of a quick dinner near the conference venue with other speakers and participants where we got to exchange our impressions on the various talks and joke a little.
The final party at the conference venue was a great way to end the day in the company of the other participants, drinking some excellent craft beer in company and trying out the Django pub quiz.
From Denmark to Germany
The morning after the conference I took the opportunity to rest for a while and take a long walk in the center of Copenhagen, then we met with Marijke and Joseph to have lunch together in the open despite the cold.
When I organized my tour I chose to travel from Copenhagen to Berlin by train, to have less impact on the environment and travel more slowly in these two countries.The
The journey in fact lasted a total of 9 hours, I made a stop in Hamburg where I had dinner, and then I left for Berlin where I arrived at midnight.
Despite the tiredness it was very nice to admire the landscape of Denmark and Germany passing through the window and I took beautiful photos of the landscapes.
Berlin
Despite the uncertain weather, the day before the conference I took the opportunity to take a short walking tour of the center of Berlin. A positive aspect of the in-person conferences is also to visit new places in the world.
In the afternoon I registered for the conference and was hired at the last minute by the organizers to volunteer as a session chair the following day because they were short of volunteers.
During the day we met with Ernesto, Alessia and Valerio, other organizers of PyCon Italia traveling to Berlin like me.
In the evening we had dinner with Christian and Antonio to celebrate his new adventure in Anaconda with a good barrel of beer and various anecdotes about PyPy.
PyConDE 2022 volunteering
On the morning of the first day of the conference, a very long queue formed which I could see from my hotel, which made me realize how many people were finally waiting for an in-person conference.
Having registered the day before, I avoided the queue and was able to participate in the training session for the volunteers at the session chair.
After years of helping me present my talks, it has been very instructive to help other speakers present their talks.
With the help of the room manager, Martin Borus, I helped Travis Hathaway and Martin Christen present two very interesting talks on the GIS track.
The rest of the day I followed other talks, but I had the opportunity to meet other people with whom I was in contact only via social media in recent years.
The other organizers of PyCon Italia also collaborated in various ways to the success of PyConDE 2022 and as a prize for dinner we allowed ourselves a typical Neapolitan pizza at Zola’s in the center of Berlin.
PyConDE 2022 speaking
On the second day of the conference I took advantage of the common areas to chat with the participants, other speakers and even the sponsors.
I found the Silence Room very useful where you can isolate yourself from the confusion for a few minutes and be able to finish the presentation of my talk by reviewing my slides.
I presented my talk “Make the most of Django” in front of a room full of people and I was happy to also receive many questions about Django both during the QA session, but also after outside the room, something that happens only in in-person conferences.
At the end of the day I also participated with Alessia, Ernesto and Valerio in the lighting talks to promote PyCon Italia 2022 which will take place in Florence from 2 to 5 June 2022.
The evening ended with the social dinner sponsored by Anaconda in a beautiful location on the banks of the Spree river in central Berlin, which proved to be an excellent opportunity to meet very interesting people.
CitusCon 2022
Almost simultaneously with my talk at PyConDE 2022 the video of my talk “Django with PostgreSQL superpower” was released on the CitusCon 2022 platform.
As an online conference during the day I was able to be present on the online platform and answer the questions about the presentation.
I had done the real job on the talk in the days before my trip thanks to the support of Claire and Teresa of Citus Data and the Microsoft video technicians who helped me in recording the video of the talk.
PyConDE 2022 closing
The last morning of the conference I dedicated exclusively to meeting in person the many developers I have known over the years to chat, exchange impressions and ideas.
In particular, I greeted Mark Smith, who will also present his talk at PyCon Italia, I chatted with Markus Holterman who gave me some interesting feedback on some of my ideas for Django and I congratulated Jannis Leidel for the excellent work that Anaconda is doing in community support.
In the previous days I had the opportunity to greet many other people I knew online such as Martin Christen, organizer of GeoPython, and Sebastián Ramírez, creator of FastAPI.
Before leaving for the Berlin airport, I had lunch with some Italian pythonista friends and we said goodbye to meet again in Florence on 2 June for PyCon Italia 2022.
The return journey by train, plane and bus ended late at night and it was challenging due to the accumulated fatigue, but I found myself returning home with an enormous amount of encounters, experiences and memories.
Thanks
Such a tour would have been impossible without the many people I met, or involved in organization of conferences.
In particular I would like to thank Benjamin, Emil and the organizers of DjangoDay Copenhagen, I can say that I am now linked to this community for the many significant experiences I have lived.
I also thank the participants and other speakers of DjangoDay Copenhagen who made me appreciate again the beauty of being part of a live conference.
In particular, I thank Juhis, Marijke, Joseph and Michael, because with them I virtually shared the experience of travel, and in person also the experience of sharing the time before and after the conference.
Although we did not meet in person, but we only interacted remotely, I would like to thank Claire Giordano and Teresa Giacomini of Citus Data / Microsoft who supported me in the realization of my talk video for CitusCon 2022.
I thank the organizers of PyCon DE for making possible this great live conference after a long time, but also all the volunteers, the other speakers and in particular Travis Hathaway and Martin Christen whom I had the honor of helping in their presentations together with the room manager Martin Borus.
I also thank the conference sponsors who made the various conferences possible, in particular Anaconda who is hiring a lot of talented pythonista allowing them to continue work on very important Open Source projects such as HPy/PyPy and BeeWare.
I thank Ernesto Arbitrio, Alessia Marcolini and Valerio Maggio, all Italian organizers of PyCon Italia who have been away with me in Berlin, everyone has contributed to the conference as organizer, volunteer or speaker and it was nice to share this experience together with the other pythonista who joined us for the post-conference such as Antonio Cuni, Christian Barra, Artur Czepiel and Kátia Nakamura, each of them contributing to the community in different ways.
And finally, I thank 20tab for supporting me in this adventure and for believing in the value of the Python community.
Statistics
Maybe it won’t be interesting but I wanted to line up some numbers of this Django tour around Europe.
- ⌛ Days [7] (from 7 to 13 April 2022)
- 🗣️ Presentations [2]
- Make the most of Django
- Django with PostgreSQL superpowers
- 👥 Conferences [3]
- DjangoDay Copenhagen 2022
- PyConDE 2022
- CitusCon 2022
- 🏙️ City [2]
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Berlin, Germany
- 🚀 Transfers [3] (~30 hours)
- 🚍✈️🚆 Pescara - Copenhagen
- 🚆 Copenhagen - Berlin
- 🚆✈️🚍 Berlin - Pescara
- 🥳 Social events [2]
- DjangoDay Copenhagen 2022 Party
- PyCon DE 2022 Dinner
- 📷 Photos [~ 950]
- 🐦 Tweet [90] (~ 50k impressions)
- 🗺️ Distance [~ 4200 km] (✈️🚆🚍🚖🚶♂️)
Fun facts
- In Berlin you can eat a Neapolitan pizza as good as in Italy at Zola’s, but not if you are used to eating it with pineapple. 🍕️
- In the center of Copenhagen the kitchens of many restaurants close around 9 PM so you should hurry up for dinner. 🍽️
- After an hour of train travel from Copenhagen to Berlin, on the border between Denmark and Germany, all passengers had to wear a mask and the German police went up to check. 🚆
- I unexpectedly found a “museum” in Berlin dedicated to Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, they are two very famous actors in Italy in particular for their Spaghetti Westerns in the 70s and beyond. 🤠
- I made the photo collages for this article using only Python, specifically I used the PhotoCollage package which itself is based on Pillow. 🐍️
Links
- Paolo Melchiorre - Django Day Copenhagen 2022
- Paolo Melchiorre - PyCon DE 2022
- Paolo Melchiorre - Citus Con 2022
- Juha-Matti Santala - My trip to Django Day Copenhagen 2022 and Stockholm ↗️