Disclaimer: I am one of the organizers of PyCon India 2011. I’m doing this as a volunteer to further the cause of Python and software development activities in India and Pune. Neither I nor PuneTech gain anything financially from promoting this activity.

PyCon India, the International Python Conference that happens in India every year, will be in Pune this year on September 16-18, 2011. Early Bird Registration – Rs. 300 (includes lunch, 3 days) is open until the end of the week August 15. Register now!

If you need convincing as to why you should attend Pycon, here are some reasons:

• Raymond Hettinger, one of the top pythonistas in the world is the keynote speaker. Raymond (@raymondh on twitter) is a Python core developer. He is the author of the itertools and set modules and most of the collections modules in the standard library, the peephole optimizer for Python, and dozens of ASPN cookbook recipes. It will literally be many years before you get a chance to hear a technologist of this calibre.
• Learn Python: This is your chance to learn Python. Start learning Python right now, and by September, you’ll be ready to get maximum value out of the tutorials in the conference (including Twitter/Facebook/Linked-in/Google Data hacking, web scraping, image processing, and functional programming using Python). If you need arguments on why everybody must learn python check here, here and here.
• Excellent Talks: There are 24 high quality talks, on all kinds of interesting topics including Data Analysis and Business Intelligence, Python-to-Javascript cross-compliation, Telephony apps, Robotics, Web Apps, Python in Biology and Life-Sciences, Cloud Computing, Android, testing, GIS, and much more. There is also one talk on using Python to do your homework.
• Meet Smart People: Even if you don’t agree that people who choose to work with Python are smarter than most others, you will have to agree that this will be one pretty darn interesting bunch of 500+ developers from all over India and outside. Rs. 300 to get a chance for that kind of networking is nothing.
• Hire Smart People: If you are having trouble hiring top quality technology talent for your company, you definitely need to be at PyCon, handing out your card, and telling everybody what a cool company you work for. Far better use of your time than going through resumes sent to you by your recruiter.
• Just Rs. 300: Early Bird Registration closes on 1st15th August, so act now. That’s only Rs. 300 for a high quality conference and it includes lunch and snacks for the 3 days of the conference. That’s right, you’ll be paying less than the cost of the food! And, unlike the other, regular tech events that happen in Pune, this is not a cheapo event – there will be swag – T-shirts and other stuff being given away. Did you realize that PyCon sponsors are paying for the privilege of giving you free stuff?
• Make PyCon Pune the biggest PyCon: Pune now has a reputation to keep up – whenever any tech event that happens in different cities, invariably, the biggest turn-out is for the Pune instance. PHPCamp with 1000+ registrations and 700+ actual attendance is probably the biggest ever tech unconference/barcamp style event in the country. DocType HTML5 in Pune had far more registrations than other places and the organizers had to close registrations. Recently GizmoMeet had their biggest turnout in Pune. The Python community in Pune is far younger than the Python community in Bangalore, so it will be tough for Pune PyCon to beat the Bangalore PyCon, but we definitely need to give them a at least a tough fight.

What are you waiting for? Register now

(We’d like to mention here that amongst the various sponsors of PyCon (including Google and GitHub), are these cool Pune companies/institutions: Venue sponsor: Symbiosis, Gold: Vayana, Silver: Druva and GSLab)