[Inpycon] Prizes/mentors for newbie track

[Noufal Ibrahim]

Anand Balachandran Pillai <abpillai at gmail.com> writes:

[...]

>
>  Should we have 3 or 2 ? If we say "Top 3" won't they expect all
> prizes to be the same ? I suggest keeping it "Top 3" if we get enough
> submissions (>=15 ?) and just one prize if we get less (<=10 ?).

[...]

While that's a good idea (deferred decisions), we won't be able to
publicise it effectively. We need to decide upfront whether we'll have
one or three and then pitch it. "SUBMIT YOUR TALK FOR A CHANCE TO WIN AN
HP NETBOOK! w00t!". 

If we *are* going with 3, I think "1st, 2nd, 3rd" is better than "Top 3"
which, like Anand suggested, carries with it the air of 3 same
prizes. Also, Top 3, at least to me, suggests that we're trying to not
hurt feelings etc. Sort of weak.

However, I'm not sure if we need to keep 3 prizes at all. The whole
scheme is to bribe otherwise shy people into delivering talks and so one
should be enough. Also, if we can pool our resources into a single
prize, we can make it a good one - Remember, our budget is limited. 

Apropos prizes, what do you recommend? I think a netbook is a good
option. Fancy phone? O'Reilly gift vouchers? Gaming console? Something
exotic from thinkgeek [1]? I don't like the idea of gift vouchers for
local stores (e.g. Croma) since the winner might be from a place which
doesn't have these stores.



Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/

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