[EuroPython] Re: EPC 2005 and 2006

[Benedikt Hegner]

On 09.06.2004, at 23:38, Christian Heimes wrote:

> Laura Creighton wrote:
>> I think that, for the future, it would be a good idea if people who
>> want to host a future EuroPython made their intention known
>> before the current EuroPython.  First of all, people might not
>> have been as enthusiastic about Göteborg if thye knew they
>> had Geneva as an alternative.  Second of all, EuroPython is
>> _the place to find the organisiers you want for your conference_.
>> You want to start building your team at the conference, not between
>> times.
>
> Blame it on me :)
> I got the idea on Saturday evening while having a beer with Dario and  
> some other guys. We had a brain storming about the future of EP and I  
> remembered that a friend of mine has told me about the usage of python  
> at CERN.
>
> I had a little conversation with him over ICQ. He is studying at the  
> same university as I but he is at the CERN right now doing some  
> research.
Christian - a short update for you: I am not a student any more... :-)

> He started asking some people very inofficially and we got positive  
> results at the beginning of this week.
> We decided not to make it public over all because we didn't had a yes  
> from either the EP team nor the official CERN staff.
> On the other hand it's very good that you didn't announced it at the  
> last key note. Having the EP 2005 at CERN won't be easily possible  
> because the time is too short but EP 2006 is likely possible.

Just to give you some information about the possibilities at CERN:

Accomodation:
There are two on site hostel buildings:  
http://housing-service.web.cern.ch/housing-service/hotelrates.html and  
CERN gets special rates for several hotels. But I don't know anything  
about this special rates. The on site hostels are in principle only for  
students and scientific/academic staff. Maybe we can arrange something.

Conference Rooms:
Our idea would be to have the conference in this building:  
http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/MUON/Logistics/photos/ 
build40.jpg. This is the main building for the experiments ATLAS and  
CMS (no - definitly not what the plone people would think).
There are four rooms for parallel sessions with equipment for video  
conferences and several smaller meeting rooms (20 or 40 people). All  
rooms have at least one beamer (don't ask why you need more than one).

Computer infrastructure:
Every room has network outlets for 100MBit or sometimes 1GBit. Of  
course there is WLAN in the hole area around.

Public transport:
 From Geneva main station it takes 25 minutes by bus to get to CERN  
(about 2,30 SFr). From airport you need about 30 - 35 minutes.

Social activities:
You have the possibility to go to Geneva or to enjoy the countryside  
around. The Jura Mountains are not far away. For sports we have one  
football and one rugby field available at CERN.

CERN specials:
We can arrange special introductions for you to learn more about high  
energy physics and the role of cern in this business.

I found many important people supporting the idea of conferencing at  
CERN. There are more and more things here python is used for. For  
example grid computing tools or hiding C++ code from users which can  
easily access C++ libraries via a python interface (  
http://seal.web.cern.ch/seal/snapshot/work-packages/scripting/ 
index.html ).
Nevertheless it is still very unofficial since this idea is not that  
old (it raised four days ago) and in such a huge organisation things  
can take some time. But if the official people agree I have no doubt  
that we get everything I listed above.

As Dario already pointed out in his email a conference at CERN would be  
good publicity for python!

Ciao
Benedikt