At this year’s EuroPython Society General Assembly (GA), planned for 1 October at 19:00 CEST, we will vote in a new board of the EuroPython Society for the term 2023/2024.
List of Board Candidates
The EPS bylaws require one chair, one vice chair and 2 - 7 board members. The following candidates have stated their willingness to work on the EPS board. We are presenting them here (in alphabetical order by first name).
We will be updating this list in the days before the GA. Please send in any nominations or self-nominations to board@europython.eu.
Please note that our bylaws do not restrict nominations to people on this list. It is even possible to self-nominate or nominate other candidates at the GA itself. However, in the interest of giving members a better chance to review the candidate list, we’d like to encourage all nominations to be made before the GA.
The following fine folks have expressed their desire to run for the next EPS board elections: Alessia Marcolini, Alexander Hendorf, Anders Hammarquist, Angel Ramboi, Artem Kislovskiy, Artur Czepiel, Daniela Cialfi, David Vaz, Dido Grigorov, Diego Russo, Laís Carvalho, Omotola Eunice Omotayo, Sangarshanan, Sebastiaan Zeeff, Stefania Delprete, Theofanis (Fanis) Petkos, Vaibhav (VB) Srivastav.
Alessia Marcolini
Pythonista / Software developer
Alessia is a Python Development Engineer at LUMICKS, where she is developing and testing AI algorithms for Cell Avidity. However, her passion for Python extends far beyond her professional life.
Since 2017, Alessia has been a dedicated volunteer within the Italian Python Community. She has been an integral part of the core organizers team of PyCon Italia, a role that has provided her with invaluable insights into community-driven event organization. Since 2018, she has been in the organization committee of EuroSciPy, the European Conference for Python in Science, while she also helped with the organisation of PyConDE & PyData Berlin in 2022. Throughout these roles, her main responsibilities included chairing the Financial Aid program, providing year-round assistance to attendees via the general Helpdesk and social accounts, and managing the media partners.
When not coding, she loves dancing, drinking black tea and good gin.
By joining the EuroPython Society Board, she hopes to bring perspectives collected during the years across the different organizations, and act as a reference point for the community, especially for newcomers and underrepresented groups. Secondly, through her extensive experience, she has observed that various Python conferences frequently face common challenges, like attracting a diverse audience or speaker lineup, or establishing protocols for the Financial aid programs. While she believes in providing local organizers with the autonomy they need to shape their events according to their unique contexts and requirements, she recognizes the value of shared knowledge and best practices across the different Python communities in Europe.
As a board member, she will actively work to facilitate open channels of communication and collaboration among these diverse groups, allowing us to learn from one another and collectively tackle common challenges. Her vision revolves around empowering local organizers through the EPS, granting them access to a network of resources, expertise, and support.
Further reasons to vote for her: she is a cat person, she loves to write unit tests, and she is a big fan of 90s italo dance music.
Alexander Hendorf
Pythonista / Data Guy / Serial Organiser
Alexander joined the EPS spontaneously as auditor at EuroPython 2014 in Berlin when no one else felt like it. In the following five years he was an integral part of the EuroPython team, in particular as program chair, and for two years as board member incl. co-chair.
Alexander was elected 2nd chairman of the German Python Software Association (PySV) in 2018. In this role, he is responsible for the German conference PyConDE, which he has co-organized since 2016.
To support Open Source Software in academia he was invited to join EuroSciPy in 2018. The Pandas documentation sprint was a good reason to establish the local PyData Südwest chapter thriving with more than 1600 members today.
In 2018, Alexander was named a PSF Fellow by the Python Software Foundation for his contributions to the community. In 2021 he was named a EuroPython fellow.
Alexander is responsible for data and artificial intelligence at the boutique consultancy Könisgweg. Through his commitment as a speaker, he is a proven expert in the field of data intelligence. He has many years of experience in the practical application, introduction and communication of data and AI-driven strategies and decision-making processes. He is very grateful that everyone at his company, Königsweg, in which he is also a partner, is in support of so many community activities.
Alexander is convinced it's time for EuroPython Society to take its mission to the next level - to act as a roof and institution of the European Python community - beyond the EuroPython conference. The EPS should become better at supporting local communities at a variety of levels in the future: e.g. diversity & outreach, organising community events, mentoring opportunities or infrastructure. With his candidacy, Alexander offers his expertise, experience and implementation power to make this a reality.
Anders Hammarquist
Pythonista / Consultant / Software architect
Anders is running his own Python consultancy business, AB Struse, since 2019 and is currently mostly involved with using Python in industrial automation. He has been using Python since 1995, and fosters its use in at least four companies.
He helped organize EuroPython 2004 and 2005, and has attended and given talks at several EuroPythons since then. He has handled the Swedish financials of the EuroPython Society since 2016 and has served as board member since 2017.
Angel Ramboi
Pythonista / Software Engineer / Gamer / Geek / Wanderer
Hi! My name is Angel Ramboi, I’m a seasoned engineer with more than 15 years experience designing and building software and web applications. I’m currently working mainly with Go, though Python and its community is where my heart is. ☺️
My first EuroPython was in Florence 2012 where I was blown away by the amazing community gathered around the conference and Python in general. It was like nothing I've ever experienced before and the energy was palpable in the air.
Since then I've attended eight EuroPythons, I've been an on-site volunteer in 2019 and 2023, and I was a remote volunteer and (briefly) part of the board of organisers for the 2020 edition. Looking forward to an amazing conference next year. 🚀
Artem Kislovskiy (nomination for Vice Chair)
Pythonista / Software Engineer / Life Enthusiast
Artem Kislovskiy is a polymath with a passion for physics, mathematics, programming, and more. In the past, he utilised Python to uncover unseen physical phenomena, and he currently employs it professionally to integrate various software components. He is a dedicated learner who enjoys imparting his knowledge to others, ranging from school children to professionals at conferences.
Artem became involved with the EuroPython 2023 organising team after attending and volunteering at last year's Dublin edition. He aspires to join the EuroPython Society Board to enhance and standardise the administrative and technical procedures, making them easily shareable and reusable for others. He believes that, working together with the community, we can collectively tackle common challenges and free up headspace for genuinely significant and creative tasks.
Artur Czepiel (nomination for Chair)
Software developer
I started using Python in 2008 and attended my first EuroPython in 2016. In 2017, at the conference in Rimini, I learned that help was needed with the website. I started contributing patches, and eventually refactored most of epcon – the conference website engine we used at the time.
Through that process, I noticed other areas that could be improved in the organisation. That led me to taking more responsibitilies and eventually joining the board in 2018. And then again in 2021, and 2022. In each term, I focused on refining our internal infrastructure and tooling, eventually replacing most of the software being used for both the EuroPython Conference and Society.
Additionally, I helped in the venue selection and negotiation processes for the 2019 and 2023 events. In 2022 and 2023, I contributed by also drafting the conference budgets.
Recently, the EPS has experienced significant growth. Hence, I believe this is the right moment to transition into a new phase, by expanding our horizons and actively seeking additional projects. Beyond solely managing the conference, my aim is to focus on important community aspects, automation, and potentially outsourcing parts of administrative tasks related to conference organisation.
Daniela Cialfi
Pythonista / Data Scientist /
Daniela Cialfi is a poly-maths and poly-economist with a passion for economics, physics, mathematics, programming, and more. In the past and until now, she utilised Python to uncover unseen both economical and physical phenomena, and she currently employs it professionally to integrate various perspectives from economics and physics.She is a dedicated learner who enjoys imparting her knowledge to others, ranging from student, at all educational levels, to professionals at conferences.
Daniela became involved with the EuroPython as a community member several years ago during my PhD period. She aspires to join the EuroPython Society Board to enhance, standardise and push forward the administrative, technical and organisational procedures more easily, shareable and reusable for others, from newcomb to expert and professionists. She believes that, working together with the community and external experts, we can collectively tackle common challenges and free up headspace for genuinely significant and creative tasks and more.
David Vaz
Pythonista / Entrepreneur / Conference Organizer
Software developer for over 20 years, fell in love with python almost at the beginning of his journey. Django developer since 2007. He loves Python and Django so much he has been bringing developers to the community since then, ended up starting his consultancy firm around these technologies.
During DjangoCon Europe 2019 at Copenhagen he decided to take the next step helping the community, proposing to organize DjangoCon Europe 2020 in Portugal. He got more than he bargained for, ending up co-organising the first virtual-only DjangoCon Europe, repeating in 2021, and finally a hybrid DjangoCon Europe in 2022. His effort, together with the team around him, was rewarded with success, the last edition in 2022 had record breaking attendees with 500+ in person and 200+ online. To keep things going he is also co-organising DjangoCon Europe in 2024 in Spain Vigo, hoping to bring the Spanish community closer.
David is also contributing to the Portuguese Python Community, starting in 2022 the very first PyCon Portugal. His drive is to bring The Portuguese community forward, with a different city every year to increase the reach of the conference. The first edition was in Porto, leveraging on DjangoCon Europe 2022, this year it was in Coimbra, with participants from over 25 countries, and we are already preparing the next edition.
David is enthusiastic, committed and pragmatic. Throughout his personal and professional journey, he has always had a positive impact in every process he puts his mind on, influencing, building and empowering the people around him. He hopes to put his experience to good use in EuroPython Society.
Dido Grigorov
Pythonista / Software Developer
Dilyan Grigorov, shortly Dido, is a software developer passionate for Software Development, Data Structures and Algorithms and Generative AI. He is an advocate for open source and the Python language itself.
Dilyan has nearly 16 years of industry experience programming in Python and has spent 5 of those years researching and testing Generative AI solutions. His passion for them stems from his background as an SEO specialist dealing with search engine algorithms on a daily basis.
Dilyan has been currently a Computer Science student at the International University of Applied Science in Germany. He enjoys engaging with the software community, often giving talks at local meetups as well as larger conferences.
He is a dedicated learner who enjoys sharing his knowledge to others, ranging from newbies (beginners) to professionals at conferences. He has currently founded a small start-up called Algominder, which is building an interactive platform for interview preparation for software engineers.
In April 2022, he gave a talk at BrightonSEO about creating NLP programs with Python for content analysis and strategies for Search Engine Optimization. He also gave a talk in July 2023 about the newest features of Python 3.11 at EuroPython 2023 in Prague. He also has been part of the organisation process of different events for 10 years - from local meetups to different kinds of conferences.
Diego Russo
Pythonista / Principal Software Engineer
Hello, I am Diego Russo and I have been a software engineer since my career started in 2006: for the whole time I have been using Python in a variety of environments (web, automation, ML, scripting, etc..), I love open source and care about software quality.
I have been attending EuroPython since 2011, as this conference represents my annual appointment with the Python world. In 2022 I decided to give something back to the community and I have been helping with the organisation of EuroPython, specifically in the comms, programme team and with mentorship programme.
Within my company (Arm Ltd) I started and have been running a Python Guild for almost 3 years with almost 1000 people in it: we organise biweekly presentations, workshops, summits, external speakers, etc... I am originally from Italy but I have been living in Cambridge (UK) since 2011.
I have a bachelor and master degree in computer science. Outside of work, I have a beautiful family with 4 kids. I like music and Cuban salsa dancing.
Laís Carvalho (lah-ees)
Software Engineer / Speaker / Diversity Advocate
Laís joined the EuroPython team of volunteers in 2020, a month before The Plague. She fell at home and came back to help more in 2022 and 2023. Beforehand, Laís was a Board member in Python Ireland. She helped organising several Python events such as the first FlaskCon, Pyjamas, PyCon Ireland, PyData Dublin meetups and others.
Laís works as a Software Developer using Python to build system's monitoring tools. Previously, she worked as a developer advocate for open source software.
Laís is passionate about supporting the generations of newcomers and making the Python Community in Europe a safe space where people can be themselves without fear or shame. More than a community of developers, we are a conglomerate of different people (and perspectives) united by our passion for Python.
As a board member, she would like to help make the organisation more sustainable. She is also interested in discovering ways the organisation can support more of the existing community around Europe, always keeping in mind values of honesty and kindness.
Omotola Eunice Omotayo
Community Manager/DEI and Tech Empowerment Advocate
I am Omotola Eunice Omotayo, a resident of Nigeria in Africa and a Computer Science graduate student pursuing an M.SC. in Program Management. I have over five years of experience as a community manager; I'm currently the community manager and one of the organizers of the Outreachy program. I have been leading the community team at She Code Africa for almost five years as a volunteer.
I advocate for DEI, Open Source, women's empowerment, and tech. I enjoy empowering underrepresented populations, developing initiatives, and supporting the tech community.
I have actively built and led diverse and inclusive community DEI events over the years, managed developer communities, and organized global physical, virtual, and hybrid events. With a strong track record, I value integrity, communication, and providing support.
I was a speaker at EuroPython 2023, where I spoke about "Career development through open source and community involvement" and facilitated the day two lightning session. It was a wonderful experience as I connected with wonderful people from Euro-Python, including the volunteers who worked hard to plan and make the event successful. This made me enthusiastic and interested in becoming a member, and I pledged to participate actively in the planning and organization using the knowledge I have gained over the years.
With my experience as a member of an underrepresented group, my career, my volunteer work, and my interests, I am excited to contribute my best expertise to the success of the EuroPython community and beyond.
My involvement in this board will promote inclusion and facilitate more involvement from underrepresented groups, as we have limited participation in leadership roles in the open-source community. I will present new initiatives to encourage their participation and methods for overcoming any obstacles individuals and the community may face. The result of my participation will be a change in the narrative and a positive outcome.
Lastly, I will bring in my perspective, gain from others. I will also help manage the active participation of everyone in the assembly.
Sangarshanan
Developer/ Pythonista/ Meme maker
I am Sangarshanan, a Developer from Bangalore India! Right now my main passions are distributed systems and live coding music. I have volunteered for EuroPython during the 2020, 2022 & 2023 editions primarily in the comms team and on-ground. Also helped run Pydata Bangalore before 2020 and a bunch of other local conferences since then.
As a young developer I found conferences to be a revelation because it opened the way for a whole new community of people I thought I would never meet and being part of conversations that would shape projects used by NASA!! Also being around such kind and curious souls make me feel wholesome. I consider myself very lucky for that so now I would like other young passionate developers from different parts of the world to experience the warmth I did basking in the great glory of the Python people.
As a Society Board member I would really like to be involved in getting more and diverse voices in the conference. I would also really like for EuroPython to have more fun events by catering to after-work musings of Pythonistas by making some common open space events official!
Sebastiaan Zeeff
Software Engineer / Pythonista / Community Enthusiast
Sebastiaan first joined the EuroPython Society during the pandemic as a volunteer for the financial aid team. What he found was a community that made him feel right at home. As he feels that everyone should be able to participate in the EuroPython community, he has been a member and team lead of the Financial Aid team ever since. This year, he also joined the Code of Conduct Committee.
In his daily life, Sebastiaan is a Software Engineer for the Ordina Pythoneers and one of the three founders of Python Discord, a large online community of Python enthusiasts. In 2021, he was named a Fellow of the Python Software Foundation for his contributions to the Python community. Sebastiaan has a passion for teaching, knowledge sharing, giving talks, playing board games, reading books, and creating music.
As a board member, he would love to increase and promote diversity in the European Python community. Sebastiaan believes that a community can only truly be a community if we value the participation of everyone. That’s why he thinks that it’s important to amplify underrepresented voices and promote representation.
He would also like to explore the identity of the EuroPython Society beyond organizing EuroPython: What role can the EPS play in strengthening the Python community in Europe? One important aspect of that is fostering and maintaining relationships with local community organizers. There are already a lot of beautiful community initiatives in Europe; what can the EPS do to support them?
Finally, he thinks that it’s important to think about ways to make organizing EuroPython sustainable. With the increasing scale of the conference, it’s important to think about the scalability of the volunteer organization behind it to prevent burnout and the need for individual heroism. This may require making some difficult choices but he thinks that it is essential for the health of the organization in the long run.
Stefania Delprete
Pythonista / Data Scientist
Stefania has been involved in many free/open source projects and communities since 2010 (such as Linux and Mozilla), volunteered for PyCon Italia since 2017 and has been part of the NumFOCUS ambassador program.
She has a background in physics and worked as a data scientist and as a tech mentor/tutor for data-driven projects for non-profit organizations and in the public and private sectors.
She has experience coordinating local and national groups and cares about how people's attitudes and preferences match the tasks/projects.
Stefania is involved in social impact initiatives and would love to bring that attention to the EPS, ensuring that the resources available will serve the greater good, from promoting diversity and inclusion to addressing how technology can improve social issues.
She's passionate about jazz, animal welfare, consciousness studies, and lucid dreaming.
Theofanis Petkos (Fanis)
Software Engineer / Pythonista
Fanis is a software engineer, a pythonista and an open-source enthusiast who also loves devops and software engineering. He enjoys camping in nature, a long hike and a cold beer.
Fanis became involved with the EuroPython Society in 2020, when he was a speaker for EuroPython Conference. He joined the organizing team in 2021 when he was involved in the Financial Aid team and also served as a mentor. He hasn't stopped since then: since 2022, he has been the main drive behind the EuroPython Speaker Mentorship Programme & The Support Team. He will remember always last year with a smile, as he invited, welcomed and onboarded more than 70 volunteers to the EuroPython team.
He works to ensure that EPS, as a volunteer-led community, is connecting other communities, providing resources & knowledge to other organizers while ensuring diversity & inclusion for all of its members. He is also interested in expanding the EuroPython Society community, that's why he is passionate on welcoming new & existing volunteers in the team with a warm hug & a freezing joke :D
Vaibhav (VB) Srivastav
Basically a Labrador
Vaibhav (VB) is a Machine Learning Engineer at Hugging Face. VB democratises machine learning through Open Source in his day job and more. He has worked with Python and adjacent scientific communities for over a decade. He is an open-source enthusiast and thrives on building and running open-source communities. Python has been an integral part of VB's career and life.
He started by organising Python meetups in Delhi in 2016. He then volunteered for various PyCon across APAC (India, Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and Indonesia). At the pandemic's peak, VB moved from India to Germany to pursue his master's and research in speech and natural language processing at the University of Stuttgart.
After a brief hiatus from volunteering, he joined the EuroPython 2021 volunteering team to help with the Sponsors team. He renewed his commitment to EuroPython by volunteering for the communications and programme team for the year 2022. Last year, he was elected to the board and served in the communications and programme team.
Through each chapter of his volunteering journey, VB has been lucky to have gotten the opportunity to work with some truly exceptional people. He thrives on the incredible people that he volunteers with at EPS. He finds joy in bringing people together and ensuring everyone finds their voice in the community (should they choose to). He has found life-long friends through EPS, for which he'll forever be grateful.
Should VB make it to the EuroPython Society board again, he'll spend his time and energy on making the EPS sustainable and bringing more accountability to the board. He'll strongly advocate for *everyone* on the board to be open and for us to take more responsibility toward supporting volunteers than in past years. He'd also work on EPS's relations with other European Python communities. Lastly, he'd like to use this year to work closely with volunteers and ensure that EPS has a steady stream of volunteers comfortable taking charge for the coming years.
Whether VB gets on this board or not, he'll continue to serve as a volunteer for EuroPython and work on the projects mentioned above as much as he can.
It is time to bring the saghetti back to life! (Watch this nervous 4 minute LT from Dublin)
What does the EPS Board do ?
The EPS board is made up of up to 9 directors (including 1 chair and 1 vice chair); the board runs the day-to-day business of the EuroPython Society, including running the EuroPython conference series, and supports the community through various initiatives such as our grants programme. The board collectively takes up the fiscal and legal responsibility of the Society.
At the moment, running the annual EuroPython conference is a major task for the EPS. As such, the board members are expected to invest significant time and effort towards overseeing the smooth execution of the conference, ranging from venue selection, contract negotiations, and budgeting, to volunteer management. Every board member has the duty to support one or more EuroPython teams to facilitate decision-making and knowledge transfer.
In addition, the Society prioritises building a close relationship with local communities. Board members should not only be passionate about the Python community but have a high-level vision and plan for how the EPS could best serve the community.