Simon Willison's Weblog: conferences

Join us at PyCon US 2026 in Long Beach - we have new AI and security tracks this year

2026-04-17T23:59:03+00:00

This year's PyCon US is coming up next month from May 13th to May 19th, with the core conference talks from Friday 15th to Sunday 17th and tutorial and sprint days either side. It's in Long Beach, California this year, the first time PyCon US has come to the West Coast since Portland, Oregon in 2017 and the first time in California since Santa Clara in 2013.

If you're based in California this is a great opportunity to catch up with the Python community, meet a whole lot of interesting people and learn a ton of interesting things.

In addition to regular PyCon programming we have two new dedicated tracks at the conference this year: an AI track on Friday and a Security track on Saturday.

The AI program was put together by track chairs Silona Bonewald (CitableAI) and Zac Hatfield-Dodds (Anthropic). I'll be an in-the-room chair this year, introducing speakers and helping everything run as smoothly as possible.

Here's the AI track schedule in full:

11:00: AI-Assisted Contributions and Maintainer Load - Paolo Melchiorre
11:45: AI-Powered Python Education : Towards Adaptive and Inclusive Learning - Sonny Mupfuni
12:30: Making African Languages Visible: A Python-Based Guide to Low-Resource Language ID - Gift Ojeabulu
2:00: Running Large Language Models on Laptops: Practical Quantization Techniques in Python - Aayush Kumar JVS
2:45: Distributing AI with Python in the Browser: Edge Inference and Flexibility Without Infrastructure - Fabio Pliger
3:30: Don't Block the Loop: Python Async Patterns for AI Agents - Aditya Mehra
4:30: What Python Developers Need to Know About Hardware: A Practical Guide to GPU Memory, Kernel Scheduling, and Execution Models - Santosh Appachu Devanira Poovaiah
5:15: How to Build Your First Real-Time Voice Agent in Python (Without Losing Your Mind) - Camila Hinojosa Añez, Elizabeth Fuentes

(And here's how I scraped that as a Markdown list from the schedule page using Claude Code and Rodney.)

You should come to PyCon US!

I've been going to PyCon for over twenty years now - I first went back in 2005. It's one of my all-time favourite conference series. Even as it's grown to more than 2,000 attendees PyCon US has remained a heavily community-focused conference - it's the least corporate feeling large event I've ever attended.

The talks are always great, but it's the add-ons around the talks that really make it work for me. The lightning talks slots are some of the most heavily attended sessions. The PyLadies auction is always deeply entertaining. The sprints are an incredible opportunity to contribute directly to projects that you use, coached by their maintainers.

In addition to scheduled talks, the event has open spaces, where anyone can reserve space for a conversation about a topic - effectively PyCon's version of an unconference. I plan to spend a lot of my time in the open spaces this year - I'm hoping to join or instigate sessions about both Datasette and agentic engineering.

I'm on the board of the Python Software Foundation, and PyCon US remains one of our most important responsibilities - in the past it's been a key source of funding for the organization, but it's also core to our mission to "promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers".

If you do come to Long Beach, we'd really appreciate it if you could book accommodation in the official hotel block, for reasons outlined in this post on the PSF blog.

Tags: conferences, open-source, pycon, python, ai, psf

PyCon US 2026 call for proposals is now open

2025-11-02T19:22:46+00:00

PyCon US 2026 call for proposals is now open

PyCon US is coming to the US west coast! 2026 and 2027 will both be held in Long Beach, California - the 2026 conference is set for May 13th-19th next year.

The call for proposals just opened. Since we'll be in LA County I'd love to see talks about Python in the entertainment industry - if you know someone who could present on that topic please make sure they know about the CFP!

The deadline for submissions is December 19th 2025. There are two new tracks this year:

PyCon US is introducing two dedicated Talk tracks to the schedule this year, "The Future of AI with Python" and "Trailblazing Python Security". For more information and how to submit your proposal, visit this page.

Now is also a great time to consider sponsoring PyCon - here's the sponsorship prospectus.

Via @pycon.us

Tags: call-for-proposals, conferences, pycon, python, psf

The XOXO 2024 Talks

2024-10-15T22:11:46+00:00

The XOXO 2024 Talks

I missed attending the last XOXO in person, but I've been catching up on the videos of the talks over the past few days and they have been absolutely worth spending time with.

This year was a single day with ten speakers. Andy Baio explains the intended formula:

I usually explain that the conference is about, more than anything, the emotional experience of being an artist or creator on the internet, often covering the dark, difficult, painful challenges that they’ve dealt with, or are still struggling with, as a creator. “Big idea” TED-style talks don’t work well, and we avoid anything practical or industry-specific because the audience is so interdisciplinary.

Tags: andy-baio, conferences

Themes from DjangoCon US 2024

2024-09-27T23:36:02+00:00

I just arrived home from a trip to Durham, North Carolina for DjangoCon US 2024. I’ve already written about my talk where I announced a new plugin system for Django; here are my notes on some of the other themes that resonated with me during the conference.

Growing the Django Software Foundation (DSF)

Jacob Kaplan-Moss gave my favorite talk of the conference, asking what the Django Software Foundation could do if it quadrupled its annual income from $250,000 to $1 million dollars, and then mapping out a convincing path to get there.

I really liked this diagram Jacob provided summarizing the foundation’s current income and expenditures. It’s pretty cool that $90,000 of annual income comes from individual donors, over a third of the total since corporate donors provide $160,000.

Top priority would be hiring an Executive Director for the foundation, which is currently lead entirely by an elected, volunteer board. I’ve seen how useful a professional ED is from my own experiences on the Python Software Foundation board.

Having someone working full time on the foundation outside of our current fellows - who have more than enough on their plates already - would enable the foundation to both take on more ambitious goals and also raise more money with which to tackle them.

A line that Jacob used repeatedly in his talk about funding the foundation was this: if you or your organization wouldn’t want to sponsor Django, he’d love to know why that is - understanding those blockers right now is almost as valuable as receiving actual cash. You can reach out to him at jacob at djangoproject.com.

Could we fund a Django LTS accessibility audit?

Django fellows and the Django Accessibility Team have been focusing significant effort on the accessibility of the Django admin. I found this very inspiring, and in combination with the talk of more funding for the foundation it put an idea in my head: what if every Django LTS release (once every two years) was backed by a full, professional accessibility audit, run by an agency staffed with developers who use screen readers?

Imagine how much impact it would have if the default Django admin interface had excellent, documented accessibility out of the box. It could improve things for hundreds of thousands of users, and set an excellent precedent for projects (and foundations) in the wider open source community.

This also feels to me like something that should be inherently attractive to sponsors. A lot of agencies use Django for government work, where accessibility is a requirement with teeth. Would one of those agencies like to be the “accessibility sponsor” for a major Django release?

Django fellows continue to provide outstanding value

The DSF’s fellowship program remains one of the most impactful initiatives I’ve seen anywhere for ensuring the ongoing sustainability of a community-driven open source project.

Both of the current fellows, Natalia Bidart and Sarah Boyce, were in attendance and gave talks. It was great getting to meet them in person.

If you’re not familiar with the program, the fellows are contractors who are paid by the DSF to keep the Django project ticking over - handling many of the somewhat less glamorous tasks of responsible open source maintenance such as ticket triage, release management, security fixes and code review.

The fellows program is in its tenth year, and is a key reason that Django continues to release new versions on a regular schedule despite having no single corporate parent with paid developers.

Unsurprisingly there is always more work than fellow capacity, hence Jacob’s desire to further expand the existing program.

The fellows program launched with a policy that fellows should not work on new feature development. I believe this was partly related to interpretation of IRS nonprofit guidelines which have since been reconsidered, and there is a growing consensus now that this policy should be dropped.

Django needs feature champions

Django has a well deserved reputation for stability, reliability and a dependable release process. It has less of a reputation for constantly turning out ground-breaking new features.

Long-time Django contributors who I talked to all had a similar position on this: the challenge here is that big new features need dedicated champions to both lead design and development on them and to push them through to completion.

The pool of community members who are both willing and able to take on these larger projects is currently too small.

There are a number of ways we could address this - most notably through investing financial resources in sponsoring feature development. This has worked well for Django in the past - Django’s migrations work was funded by a Kickstarter campaign back in 2013.

The Django Software Foundation will shortly be announcing details of elections for both the DSF board and the Django Steering Council. These are extremely influential positions for people who want to help solve some of these larger problems.

htmx fits Django really well

htmx is an incredibly good fit for the uncodified Django community philosophy of building for the web. It came up in multiple talks. It feels like it may be a solution that the Django community has been seeking for years, as a very compelling alternative to writing everything in SPA JavaScript and using Django purely as a backend via something like Django REST Framework.

I've been slightly resistant to embracing htmx myself purely because it's such a critical dependency and in the past I wasn't convinced of its staying power. It's now mature, stable and widely-enough used that I'm ready to consider it for my own long-term projects.

Django Ninja has positive buzz

I haven’t paid much attention to Django Ninja but it had a lot of very positive buzz at the conference as well, as a tool for quickly building full-featured, performative API endpoints (thanks to Rust-backed Pydantic for serialization) with interactive API docs powered by OpenAPI.

I respect Django REST Framework a lot, but my personal programming style leans away from Class Based Views, which it uses quite a bit. Django Ninja looks like it might fit my function-view biases better.

I wrote about Richard Terry’s excellent nanodjango single-file Django application tool the other day - Django Ninja comes baked into that project as well.

The three platinum sponsors for DjangoCon this year were REVSYS, Caktus Group and Valkey. Valkey were a late and somewhat surprising addition to the sponsorship lineup.

Valkey is the Linux Foundation backed fork of Redis, created in response to Redis ditching their Open Source license (which I took quite personally, having contributed my own free effort to promoting and improving Redis in the past).

Aside from expressing thanks to them, I usually don’t pay sponsors that much attention. For some reason this one hit differently - the fact that Valkey were ready to step in as a major sponsor despite being only a few months old has caused me to take that project a whole lot more seriously than I did before. I’ll certainly consider them next time I come across a Redis-shaped problem.

Durham has a world-class collection of tubas

My favorite category of Niche Museum is one that's available by appointment only where the person who collected everything is available to show you around.

I always check Atlas Obscura any time I visit a new city, and this time I was delighted to learn about The Vincent and Ethel Simonetti Historic Tuba Collection!

I promoted it in the DjangoCon US #outings Slack channel and got together a group of five conference attendees for a visit on Thursday, shortly before my flight.

It was peak Niche Museum. I’ve posted photos and notes over on my Niche Museums website, the first new article there in quite a while.

Tags: accessibility, conferences, django, djangocon, jacob-kaplan-moss, python, redis, dsf, pydantic, htmx

Quoting Jeremy Keith

2024-09-17T18:15:52+00:00

Something that I confirmed that other conference organisers are also experiencing is last-minute ticket sales. This is something that happened with UX London this year. For most of the year, ticket sales were trickling along. Then in the last few weeks before the event we sold more tickets than we had sold in the six months previously. […]

When I was in Ireland I had a chat with a friend of mine who works at the Everyman Theatre in Cork. They’re experiencing something similar. So maybe it’s not related to the tech industry specifically.

— Jeremy Keith

Tags: conferences, events, jeremy-keith

Katherine Michel's PyCon US 2024 Recap

2024-06-03T09:31:15+00:00

Katherine Michel's PyCon US 2024 Recap

An informative write-up of this year’s PyCon US conference. It’s rare to see conference retrospectives with this much detail, this one is great!

Via @katimichel

Tags: conferences, pycon, python

How to PyCon

2024-05-15T15:29:08+00:00

How to PyCon

Glyph’s tips on making the most out of PyCon. I particularly like his suggestion that “dinners are for old friends, but lunches are for new ones”.

I’m heading out to Pittsburgh tonight, and giving a keynote (!) on Saturday. If you see me there please come and say hi!

Via Lobste.rs

Tags: conferences, pycon, python, glyph

NICAR 2024 Tipsheets & Audio

2024-03-11T01:14:39+00:00

NICAR 2024 Tipsheets & Audio

The NICAR data journalism conference was outstanding this year: ~1100 attendees, and every slot on the schedule had at least 2 sessions that I wanted to attend (and usually a lot more).

If you’re interested in the intersection of data analysis and journalism it really should be a permanent fixture on your calendar, it’s fantastic.

Here’s the official collection of handouts (NICAR calls them tipsheets) and audio recordings from this year’s event.

Tags: conferences, data-journalism, nicar

Weeknotes: Citus Con, PyCon and three new niche museums

2023-04-23T04:46:25+00:00

I've had a busy week in terms of speaking: on Tuesday I gave an online keynote at Citus Con, "Big Opportunities in Small Data". I then flew to Salt Lake City for PyCon that evening and gave a three hour workshop on Wednesday, "Data analysis with SQLite and Python".

Since then I've been mostly decompressing and catching up with old friends, and having lots of interesting conversations about Python (and a few extras about LLMs).

After a several month hiatus I've also added three new museums to Niche Museums:

To celebrate this flurry of museum visiting activity, I spent some time upgrading the display of the photo galleries on the site. They're now using PhotoSwipe, which I first experimented with on this blog.

Here's the issue, the full set of changes and a TIL describing what I learned about photo EXIF data in figuring out this project.

Entries this week

TIL this week

Interpreting photo orientation and locations in EXIF data - 2023-04-22

Tags: conferences, museums, pycon, speaking, weeknotes

Breaking Cliques at Events

2017-12-03T01:51:13+00:00

Breaking Cliques at Events

Eric proposes a new guideline for long-running conferences, which have a tendency to form somewhat insular cliques of the attendees who have been going the longest: “For every year you have attended the event, you should try to meet that many new people each day.”

Tags: conferences, eric-holscher

The Pac-Man Rule at Conferences

2017-11-17T02:34:34+00:00

The Pac-Man Rule at Conferences

This is such a good idea from Eric Holscher: at the conferences he organizes he tells his attendees “When standing as a group of people, always leave room for 1 person to join your group”—to encourage networking and inclusive converations.

Tags: conferences, eric-holscher

How the CIA Staged Sham Academic Conferences to Thwart Iran’s Nuclear Program

2017-10-12T00:20:44+00:00

How the CIA Staged Sham Academic Conferences to Thwart Iran’s Nuclear Program

“The importance of a conference may be measured not only by the number of Nobel Prize winners or Oxford dons it attracts, but by the number of spies. U.S. and foreign intelligence officers flock to conferences for the same reason that Army recruiters concentrate on low-income neighborhoods: They make the best hunting grounds. While a university campus may have only one or two professors of interest to an intelligence service, the right conference — on drone technology, perhaps, or ISIS — may have dozens.”

Tags: cia, conferences

How can I negotiate a free conference venue in London?

2015-05-24T13:22:00+00:00

My answer to How can I negotiate a free conference venue in London? on Quora

The two top options in my experience are universities (including student unions) and private companies with good meeting facilities.

In both cases, you will need a strong internal champion within those organizations. For universities a good option here may be a student union society of some sort. For companies, an employee who knows how to book rooms, work with the facilities team etc.

It goes without saying that your event will need to have a theme that strongly resonated with the group that you are asking to host it for free.

Tags: conferences, london, quora

Aside from Google I/O, does Google organize any other conferences?

2014-02-27T10:17:00+00:00

My answer to Aside from Google I/O, does Google organize any other conferences? on Quora

They run a whole bunch, but many of them aren't widely advertised - they have a lot of invite-only events for customers of their advertising tools, for example, and there are things like the Google Analytics Summit.

The Google Developers site has an enormous events calendar, but it includes events they are sponsoring or that their various user group communities are running so it can be hard to spot the events they are organising themselves in there.

Tags: conferences, google, quora, google-io

What are Good Conferences for SaaS Marketers?

2014-01-30T10:39:00+00:00

My answer to What are Good Conferences for SaaS Marketers? on Quora

Business of Software has a very good reputation.

Tags: conferences, quora, saas

Where can I find a list of web and tech business conferences happening across the world this year?

2014-01-15T09:52:00+00:00

My answer to Where can I find a list of web and tech business conferences happening across the world this year? on Quora

Our site http://lanyrd.com/ should be able to help you with this. We have a large crowd sourced directory of conferences and professional events - we should have most international events in the web/tech verticals, and you can add any that we are missing yourself!

Tags: conferences, quora

For a 2-day developer conference in SF, which two days of the week are best?

2013-10-30T15:02:00+00:00

My answer to For a 2-day developer conference in SF, which two days of the week are best? on Quora

It depends on the topic and the audience.

If you're expecting people from out of town, you should go with Mon-Tue or Thu-Fri to allow people the chance to tack on a weekend to enjoy the city.

If it's a conference for VCs, remember that they traditionally have their partner meetings on Monday.

If the audience are likely to be parents, don't schedule it over a weekend.

Look out for other conflicting events too, as that's a bigger concern than if it should be on particular days of the week.

Tags: conferences, san-francisco, quora

What are good topics for panel discussions?

2013-10-29T15:34:00+00:00

My answer to What are good topics for panel discussions? on Quora

Anything that's controversial in your industry, especially if it's a recent debate. Just make sure that your panelists disagree - there's nothing more boring than a panel where everyone has exactly the same opinion.

As an example: the topic of building HTML5 mobile web apps as opposed to creating native iOS and Android apps is a perennial point of contention in the web development world. A panel with people who passionately represent both sides of that debate would be a good bet for a web conference.

Tags: conferences, panels, quora

Are there more annual TED and TED-related conferences than there are days in the year?

2013-10-29T12:33:00+00:00

My answer to Are there more annual TED and TED-related conferences than there are days in the year? on Quora

According to http://www.ted.com/TEDx there were 245 community-run TEDx events in 61 countries in just the last month, so yes it's safe to say there are considerably more annually than there are days in the year.

Tags: conferences, quora, ted

Did you submit a proposal for a conference before you actually learned/understood the topic you've proposed to talk about?

2013-10-20T13:56:00+00:00

My answer to Did you submit a proposal for a conference before you actually learned/understood the topic you've proposed to talk about? on Quora

I've submitted proposals for talks on subjects which I have familiarity with, but need to research more thoroughly before giving the actual presentation. Preparing to teach others is an excellent way of learning a topic yourself.

I know someone who writes technical books on subjects he himself is just learning, because he knows that doing so ensures his books make sense to people who are themselves new to the subject. His books are excellent.

Tags: conferences, quora

Outside of hotels, what are some good SF venues to host small conferences?

2013-10-20T09:35:00+00:00

My answer to Outside of hotels, what are some good SF venues to host small conferences? on Quora

There are plenty of tech companies in SF with good facilities who might host a small, relevant conference, often for free (as a venue sponsor).

Tags: conferences, quora

Is it normal for conferences to charge a registration fee from selected authors?

2013-10-18T14:58:00+00:00

My answer to Is it normal for conferences to charge a registration fee from selected authors? on Quora

It depends very much on the type of conference. I believe charging speakers is quite common in academic conferences - presumably because there are plenty of niche academic conferences where almost all of the attendees are speaking or presenting a paper.

For-profit commercial conferences are usually free for speakers, and often pay them a stipend. If they won't, it's worth being a little suspicious - some will tell you that it's such great exposure for the speaker to present at such a prestigious event that they don't feel the need to provide the ticket for free, but the event had better be VERY prestigious for that to be convincing to you.

Tags: conferences, quora, conference

Where can I sell the tickets of a conference I won't be attending?

2013-10-06T16:44:00+00:00

My answer to Where can I sell the tickets of a conference I won't be attending? on Quora

Most conferences are too niche to support a full scale online marketplace for unwanted tickets -it's not like concert tickets where millions of people might want to buy your unused Kylie tickets.

Some events refuse to allow transfers of tickets, so it's worth finding our if that is the case. Usually this is for logistic reasons - they might have ready printed up the badges for example - but for really large events this might be to avoid ticket touts.

In my experience it's worth contacting the organisers directly. Popular conferences will have a waiting list and will be thrilled to allow someone else to go rather than leaving an empty seat. They may refund your ticket or help you find someone else to sell it to.

Otherwise, there's always social media - out the word out in Twitter or on a mailing list or community related to the event it event topic that you have an unused ticket going spare.

Tags: conferences, quora

What are the conference/meet-ups on JavaScript that accept guest speakers?

2013-09-27T15:16:00+00:00

My answer to What are the conference/meet-ups on JavaScript that accept guest speakers? on Quora

We have a crowdsourced list of JavaScript events that are accepting speaker submissions here: JavaScript conference calls for participation

You can subscribe to that page via RSS to get updates on newly announced calls for speakers.

Tags: call-for-proposals, conferences, javascript, quora

When is a good day to hold a conference?

2013-09-23T18:34:00+00:00

My answer to When is a good day to hold a conference? on Quora

It depends on your audience.

If it's a conference that people will be attending on their own time (and with their own money) such as a hack day or an event about how to quit your job and start your own company it should be on a weekend.

If it's a business event that will be treated as work and paid for by employers, it should be during the week - otherwise you make it hard for people to attend who wish to spend the weekend with their families (not such an issue for early 20s developers, a much bigger deal for 30+ professionals).

If people are likely to travel to it it's good to have it touching a weekend so attendees have the option to arrive early (or stay a few days after) and explore the area.

Tags: conferences, quora

I have an idea for a conference. What do I need to do to make it happen?

2013-09-22T11:49:00+00:00

My answer to I have an idea for a conference. What do I need to do to make it happen? on Quora

Read http://www.quirksmode.org/coh/

Tags: conferences, quora

Other than CL, Yelp and Eventbrite, what are some good online event calendars to post to?

2013-09-18T17:53:00+00:00

My answer to Other than CL, Yelp and Eventbrite, what are some good online event calendars to post to? on Quora

Make sure you are listed on http://lanyrd.com/ - and don't forget to add you event's speakers and tag it with the relevant topics (e.g. http://lanyrd.com/topics/social-... )

Tags: conferences, events, quora

Event Planning: What are some useful books and resources on professional events and conference planning?

2013-09-18T16:39:00+00:00

My answer to Event Planning: What are some useful books and resources on professional events and conference planning? on Quora

http://www.quirksmode.org/coh/ is fantastic. It focuses on running small tech conferences, but there's plenty of advice in there that applies to all sizes of event.

Tags: conferences, events, quora

I would like to attend a Big Data conference but I am short of funds. Is there any big data conference that helps students attend those conference through scholarship?

2013-09-14T15:09:00+00:00

My answer to I would like to attend a Big Data conference but I am short of funds. Is there any big data conference that helps students attend those conference through scholarship? on Quora

The traditional route for students who can't afford to attend a conference is for them to volunteer. Contact event organisers of Big Data conferences that look relevant and ask if they are looking for volunteers.

Tags: conferences, quora, big-data

Getting the most out of technical conference as a services provider?

2013-09-11T16:36:00+00:00

My answer to Getting the most out of technical conference as a services provider? on Quora

Leaving flyers out if you are not a sponsor will annoy both the event organiser and the other sponsors, and may give a bad impression to other attendees as well.

I suggest just talking to as many people as possible, and building relationships that way. You should see a much higher conversion rate from that than from leaving fliers lying around.

Tags: conferences, mobile, quora, outsourcing

Simon Willison's Weblog: conferences

Join us at PyCon US 2026 in Long Beach - we have new AI and security tracks this year

You should come to PyCon US!

PyCon US 2026 call for proposals is now open

The XOXO 2024 Talks

Themes from DjangoCon US 2024

Growing the Django Software Foundation (DSF)

Could we fund a Django LTS accessibility audit?

Django fellows continue to provide outstanding value

Django needs feature champions

htmx fits Django really well

Django Ninja has positive buzz

Valkey as a last-minute sponsor

Durham has a world-class collection of tubas

Quoting Jeremy Keith

Katherine Michel's PyCon US 2024 Recap

How to PyCon

NICAR 2024 Tipsheets & Audio

Weeknotes: Citus Con, PyCon and three new niche museums

Entries this week

TIL this week

Breaking Cliques at Events

The Pac-Man Rule at Conferences

How the CIA Staged Sham Academic Conferences to Thwart Iran’s Nuclear Program

How can I negotiate a free conference venue in London?

Aside from Google I/O, does Google organize any other conferences?

What are Good Conferences for SaaS Marketers?

Where can I find a list of web and tech business conferences happening across the world this year?

For a 2-day developer conference in SF, which two days of the week are best?

What are good topics for panel discussions?

Are there more annual TED and TED-related conferences than there are days in the year?

Did you submit a proposal for a conference before you actually learned/understood the topic you've proposed to talk about?

Outside of hotels, what are some good SF venues to host small conferences?

Is it normal for conferences to charge a registration fee from selected authors?

Where can I sell the tickets of a conference I won't be attending?

What are the conference/meet-ups on JavaScript that accept guest speakers?

When is a good day to hold a conference?

I have an idea for a conference. What do I need to do to make it happen?

Other than CL, Yelp and Eventbrite, what are some good online event calendars to post to?

Event Planning: What are some useful books and resources on professional events and conference planning?

I would like to attend a Big Data conference but I am short of funds. Is there any big data conference that helps students attend those conference through scholarship?

Getting the most out of technical conference as a services provider?