Schedule

Thursday, October 15, 2026

Time	Belmont 3	Belmont 2	Belmont 1
08:30 - 09:00	Registration & Tea/Coffee
09:00 - 09:15	Welcome
09:15 - 10:15	"the loop of joy: learning environments, open source... and AI by campey
10:15 - 10:30	Sponsor Talk: Thinkst Canary
10:30 - 11:00	Tea / Coffee
11:00 - 11:45	Improving Agent Behavior Using Reinforcement Learning from Traces in Python by Brayan Mwanyumba	Asyncio patterns by Bruce Merry	The Gap Between Tutorials and Production: What Nobody Tells Developers by Vuyolwethu Mfidi
11:45 - 12:30	LLMs as Mutation Operators: Building an Evolutionary Search Harness in Python by Gianluca Rizzo	uv, ruff, and ty: Tools You Should be Using by Jeremy Thurgood	Empowering the Next Generation of Computer Programmers Through Python Education by Robson Kanhalelo
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch
13:30 - 14:15	Best Practice for Collaborating with Jupyter Notebooks by JohanVanRooyen	I wrote it once, I can write it again. Some observations & lessons from rewriting an interactive graphical tool in Python 30 years on. by Grant Hillebrand	Python on Supercomputers: Lessons from Scaling Bioinformatics Workflows by cynthia mukhanu
14:15 - 15:00	Python Polars for Practitioners: When to Drop Pandas by Tarun Jain	How rock climbing made me a better engineer by ashtonhudson	FITS Batch Cutout Generator: Automating Data Workflows for the Era of Next-Generation Telescopes by Mfundo Mdwadube
15:00 - 15:30	Tea / Coffee
15:30 - 16:30	CPython 3.15: Updates Rivals Will Use: Profiler, JIT, noGIL, Lazy Imports, UTF-8 by Petr Andreev
16:30 - 16:35	Sponsor Talk: NITheCS
16:35 - 17:20	Lightning Talks
17:20 - 17:30	Closing

08:30 - 09:00

Lounge / Makers Room

Registration & Tea/Coffee

09:00 - 09:15

Belmont 3

Welcome

09:15 - 10:15

Belmont 3

"the loop of joy: learning environments, open source... and AI
by campey

10:15 - 10:30

Belmont 3

Sponsor Talk: Thinkst Canary

10:30 - 11:00

Lounge / Makers Room

Tea / Coffee

11:00 - 11:45

Belmont 3

Improving Agent Behavior Using Reinforcement Learning from Traces in Python
by Brayan Mwanyumba

Belmont 2

Asyncio patterns
by Bruce Merry

Belmont 1

The Gap Between Tutorials and Production: What Nobody Tells Developers
by Vuyolwethu Mfidi

11:45 - 12:30

Belmont 3

LLMs as Mutation Operators: Building an Evolutionary Search Harness in Python
by Gianluca Rizzo

Belmont 2

uv, ruff, and ty: Tools You Should be Using
by Jeremy Thurgood

Belmont 1

Empowering the Next Generation of Computer Programmers Through Python Education
by Robson Kanhalelo

12:30 - 13:30

Lounge / Makers Room

Lunch

13:30 - 14:15

Belmont 3

Best Practice for Collaborating with Jupyter Notebooks
by JohanVanRooyen

Belmont 2

I wrote it once, I can write it again. Some observations & lessons from rewriting an interactive graphical tool in Python 30 years on.
by Grant Hillebrand

Belmont 1

Python on Supercomputers: Lessons from Scaling Bioinformatics Workflows
by cynthia mukhanu

14:15 - 15:00

Belmont 3

Python Polars for Practitioners: When to Drop Pandas
by Tarun Jain

Belmont 2

How rock climbing made me a better engineer
by ashtonhudson

Belmont 1

FITS Batch Cutout Generator: Automating Data Workflows for the Era of Next-Generation Telescopes
by Mfundo Mdwadube

15:00 - 15:30

Lounge / Makers Room

Tea / Coffee

15:30 - 16:30

Belmont 3

CPython 3.15: Updates Rivals Will Use: Profiler, JIT, noGIL, Lazy Imports, UTF-8
by Petr Andreev

16:30 - 16:35

Belmont 3

Sponsor Talk: NITheCS

16:35 - 17:20

Belmont 3

Lightning Talks

17:20 - 17:30

Belmont 3

Closing

Friday, October 16, 2026

Time	Belmont 3	Belmont 2	Belmont 1	Lounge / Makers Room
08:30 - 09:00	Registration
09:00 - 09:45	Python people and projects by Dirk Uys	Python, AI Agents, and the Future of Infrastructure Automation by Binjamin (Binyamin) Barsch	The Calculator Is Not the Problem: Why Beginner Projects Matter More Than Ever in the AI Era by Joao Futi Muanda
09:45 - 10:30	Python at Spotify: Twenty Years of Evolution by gijsm	Applied AI for Urban Governance: Practical Use Cases from Open Cities Lab by wasimcmoosa	From Localhost to Production: Deploying Python Web Apps on Ubuntu by Shaun De Ponte
10:30 - 11:00	Tea / Coffee
11:00 - 11:45	Super Effective: How Pokémon Explain Python's Class Hierarchy by kudzayibam	Suprise! It's Server Rendering! by Schalk Venter		Open Spaces / Maker Exhibition
11:45 - 12:30	Too Complicated to Model? Missing Female Athletes Data by Hilal Işık	Identity and access with python in AWS. by Ron Maravanyika		Open Spaces / Maker Exhibition
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch
13:30 - 14:15	Agents think , let's make them act : Integrating open-weight LLM into a system for autonomous deterministic operation by brandonbande	Supporting a charitable organisation as a 1-person developer/sysadmin team - pragmatic lessons from a variety of projects by Kim van Wyk	Building the Mars yard - in the open. by campey
14:15 - 15:00	Zero Dependencies, Including the AI: Coding Python on a Local Model by Andre van Zuydam	Using Python To Solve My Wedding by Sebastien Williams-Wynn	Open Source, Open Partnership: Building NITheCS on Plone and Volto by Alex Zeeman
15:00 - 15:30	Tea / Coffee
15:30 - 15:40	Sponsor Talk: Thinkst Canary
15:40 - 16:25	Lightning Talks
16:25 - 17:25	Was, Is, Will Be: Python History, Software Engineering, And AI Our Way by Paul Everitt
17:25 - 17:30	Closing

08:30 - 09:00

Lounge / Makers Room

Registration

09:00 - 09:45

Belmont 3

Python people and projects
by Dirk Uys

Belmont 2

Python, AI Agents, and the Future of Infrastructure Automation
by Binjamin (Binyamin) Barsch

Belmont 1

The Calculator Is Not the Problem: Why Beginner Projects Matter More Than Ever in the AI Era
by Joao Futi Muanda

09:45 - 10:30

Belmont 3

Python at Spotify: Twenty Years of Evolution
by gijsm

Belmont 2

Applied AI for Urban Governance: Practical Use Cases from Open Cities Lab
by wasimcmoosa

Belmont 1

From Localhost to Production: Deploying Python Web Apps on Ubuntu
by Shaun De Ponte

10:30 - 11:00

Lounge / Makers Room

Tea / Coffee

11:00 - 11:45

Belmont 3

Super Effective: How Pokémon Explain Python's Class Hierarchy
by kudzayibam

Belmont 2

Suprise! It's Server Rendering!
by Schalk Venter

Lounge / Makers Room

Open Spaces / Maker Exhibition

11:45 - 12:30

Belmont 3

Too Complicated to Model? Missing Female Athletes Data
by Hilal Işık

Belmont 2

Identity and access with python in AWS.
by Ron Maravanyika

Lounge / Makers Room

Open Spaces / Maker Exhibition

12:30 - 13:30

Lounge / Makers Room

Lunch

13:30 - 14:15

Belmont 3

Agents think , let's make them act : Integrating open-weight LLM into a system for autonomous deterministic operation
by brandonbande

Belmont 2

Supporting a charitable organisation as a 1-person developer/sysadmin team - pragmatic lessons from a variety of projects
by Kim van Wyk

Belmont 1

Building the Mars yard - in the open.
by campey

14:15 - 15:00

Belmont 3

Zero Dependencies, Including the AI: Coding Python on a Local Model
by Andre van Zuydam

Belmont 2

Using Python To Solve My Wedding
by Sebastien Williams-Wynn

Belmont 1

Open Source, Open Partnership: Building NITheCS on Plone and Volto
by Alex Zeeman

15:00 - 15:30

Lounge / Makers Room

Tea / Coffee

15:30 - 15:40

Belmont 3

Sponsor Talk: Thinkst Canary

15:40 - 16:25

Belmont 3

Lightning Talks

16:25 - 17:25

Belmont 3

Was, Is, Will Be: Python History, Software Engineering, And AI Our Way
by Paul Everitt

17:25 - 17:30

Belmont 3

Closing

Schedule

Thursday, October 15, 2026

Friday, October 16, 2026

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