Call for Proposals

PyMCon Web Series Summary #

The PyMCon Web Series consists of events proposed and co-led by members of the PyMC community. We are looking for folks like you to share your cool tricks, best practices, general knowledge, and methods with the wider PyMC community. First time speakers are welcomed and encouraged. Please feel free to reach out with questions about submitting a proposal. You can find us on the PyMC discourse.

Key Dates #

Submission deadline: Ongoing

Series begins: February 2023

Scheduling of individual events will be coordinated between the contributor and PyMCon Web Series Event leads and are anticipated to occur monthly (appoximately).

How to Submit #

Please fill out the submission form available here.

Conference Specifics #

Submitted proposals will be reviewed and each contributor whose proposal is accepted will be teamed with a PyMCon Web Series Event lead. Together, the contributor and the lead will work to turn the proposal into a full-blown PyMCon Web Series event. The Event lead will provide support and guidance along the way and ensure the event fits PyMCon Web Series guidelines.

Event Format #

The PyMCon Web Series encourages community members to be creative when proposing events. One community member may propose a hackathon focusing on Bayesian models in a particular application or using a particular data set. Another might propose a poster to visualize a new ArviZ functionality. Traditional presentations are welcome too! These are the tried and true formats such as talks, and tutorials as we saw in PyMCon 2020. Regardless of the format, we will work with contributors to craft an event that is accessible asynchronously, but which presents different opportunities for audience members to engage. The data set for a hackathon could be posted ahead of time and participants could discuss their work on discourse. A poster or presentation could be shared with the community and accompanied by a follow-up Q&A on discourse.

Proposals need not be specific to PyMC or the PyMC ecosystem (e.g., Aesara, ArviZ, Bambi), but should be relevant to the PyMC community. For example, events focusing on new sampling diagnostics or Bayesian workflow would be acceptable.

What we are looking for #

Originality. Proposals should be original on some dimension. This can be originality in the event’s approach, the visuals, the math, whatever! Be creative and show it off! Proposals that are already publicly available or similar to published videos have a low probability of being accepted.

Relevance to PyMC community. This doesn’t mean you need to give a talk about PyMC. But it does mean that you should think about the broad, diverse PyMC community and how your event would elevate them.

What to avoid

• Sales pitches: We are a community of open source developers and users of open source scientific computing tools. You can reference your closed-source product or platform, but the audience will find the talk more interesting if they can utilize your techniques within the PyData ecosystem. Your problem definition, proposed techniques, broad issues you solved, and business domain might be interesting, but sales pitches and “how to use our product” talks will be of less interest.
• Redundant content: We have a strong preference for new material and fresh faces. If your submission consists of content that is already available online (e.g., at prior conferences, in the PyMC example gallery, etc.) it is less likely to be accepted.
• Irrelevant to the PyMC community: PyMC represents a growing ecosystem of related packages (e.g., Aesara, ArviZ, Bambi), so discussing libraries other than PyMC is expected. That being said, submissions that move too far away from the library that unites the PyMC community (i.e., PyMC!) are less likely to be accepted. The proposal should be interesting to the PyMC community!

Submission Guidelines #

Submitting a proposal to the PyMCon Web Series will require the following information about the speaker:

Contact email. It will be confidential and only accessible to PyMCon Web Series organizers

Name and a short bio. This will be used when advertising your event. The bio should not be longer than 100 words.

Time zone. It will not be taken into account when reviewing the proposal. It may be used to schedule activities related to your event (depending on the format you propose) and identify a PyMCon Web Series lead best able to coordinate with you through the development process.

Title Proposed title of your talk

Event Format As explained above.

Level (e.g. beginner, intermediate, advanced)

Abstract A detailed description of what will be covered in the event. It should provide information about the audience: “What specific concepts will be needed to follow the event? Will libraries other than PyMC and its dependencies be used?” and a detailed outline of the event: its objective and key takeaways, and the general structure of the event. Include links to relevant source code, articles, videos or other information that add context to your proposal. To ensure the integrity of the review process, submitters are asked to avoid any information that might permit reviewers to discern the identity or affiliation of the submitter.

Other comments. The PyMCon Web Series aims to be an inclusive conference and we are ready to cover any specific need we may have missed.

The review process #

Each submission will be reviewed by multiple committee members. The review process will be double blind: submitters will not know who the reviewers are and reviewers will not know who has written the proposals they review. We want to make sure the selection process is as unbiased as possible so that everyone has the same chance of being selected as a speaker at PyMCon.

Submission outcomes

The review process will ultimately determine whether each submitted proposal meets the goals of the PyMCon Web Series. Contributors whose submissions are accepted will be contacted. Subject to scheduling constraints, these contributors will immediately be paired with a PyMCon Web Series Event lead and together will work to turn the proposal into a full-blown PyMCon Web Series event (or given a rough timeline for doing so).

Who are PyMCon Event Leads The event leads will be long time PyMC community members who are available to help guide and refine accepted proposals and ultimately launch them as Web Series Events. Their role is to be a resource to contributors to great event. They will help contributors set up any infrastructure that’s needed, such as Discourse topics, as well as some backend details such as defining and enforcing the Code of Conduct.

What if my proposal is not accepted?

There are two circumstances in which a proposal is not accepted: rejection and deferral. For proposals that would not be a good it for the community, you will be notified. We aim to make the submission process valuable for everyone involved. Thus, even if your proposal was not accepted, you will still receive valuable feedback from the reviewers. We hope that this feedback will help you to learn and grow. If your proposal is deferred it’ll be retained for future consideration in the next cohort of the web series.