Call for Papers, Open Now
Speak at PyCon
Namibia 2027
Submissions close 21 September 2026, 01:59 (Africa/Windhoek).
What We're Looking For
Welcome to the twelfth edition of PyCon Namibia. Whatever your experience level, if you have a Python story worth telling, we want to hear it, and we welcome more than one proposal from the same speaker.
Topics
Ready to Submit?
Proposals go through our Pretalx call for proposals page. You'll set up a free speaker account as part of the process.
Submit a Proposal NowBefore You Submit
Proposal Guidelines
Key Dates
A Welcoming Stage
Keep slides and delivery suitable for a general professional audience: no sexual content, and nothing that puts people down for race, gender, religion, orientation, appearance, ability, or anything else that makes them who they are. Our Code of Conduct applies to speakers just as much as anyone else, give it a read before the big day.
Advice
Writing a Strong Proposal
A little extra care while writing your proposal goes a long way toward getting it accepted. Here's what our committee looks for.
Finding Your Topic
Some of the best talks come from ordinary developer frustrations: what took far longer to figure out than it should have, a mistake worth saving someone else from, or a project you've been building, breaking, or arguing about with your team. You don't need a novel discovery, you need a story attendees can walk away and actually use.
Strengthens a Proposal
Submit early. The sooner we see it, the more time we have to help you sharpen it.
Know your audience. "Python developers" isn't specific, say exactly who should be in the room and what they'll leave knowing.
Sketch a real outline. List the points you'll cover and roughly how long each takes.
Leave room for questions. Your slot includes discussion time, so plan for a few minutes short of the full slot.
Aim for broad appeal. We lean toward talks that speak to a good cross-section of our audience.
Back it up. Link to code, articles, past talks, slides, or recordings.
What to Avoid
Product pitches. A talk on a problem you solved is welcome; a "how to use our product" walkthrough isn't.
Vaporware. We're wary of proposals built around code that doesn't exist yet.
Pure status updates. A "state of our project" talk needs a clear case for why it'll draw a crowd.
Relying on reputation. Write as if reviewers are meeting you for the first time, in the first round, they are.
A note on how we review: the first pass is blind, speaker names are hidden from the committee, so a detailed, self-contained proposal matters more than who's submitting it.
More Help
Further Reading
Several long-time conference speakers have written about the proposal process. Worth a read while you draft your own:
On Conference Speaking
Hynek Schlawack, 2017
How to Get Your Talk Into PyCon
Ned Jackson Lovely, PyCon talk selection chair 2016 and 2017
Rejected PyCon Proposals
Allison Kaptur, 2014
Example PyCon Talk Proposals
Brandon Rhodes, 2013
Pro Tips for Conference Talks
Craig Kerstiens, 2012
How I Review a PyCon Talk Proposal
Doug Hellmann, 2011