Are you a seasoned speaker and want to mentor new presenters? Are you considering submitting a proposal to PyCon US 2026 and would like guidance on your proposal?
If you answered yes to either of these questions, this mentorship program is for you!
Deadline to participate in the Proposal Mentorship Program is November 21, 2025!
Mentees
The purpose of this program is to pair experienced proposal submitters with those who are seeking guidance. Proposals could be for Talks, Charlas, Tutorials, and Posters. Mentees may be in different stages of their proposal writing and may need help with different aspects of their proposal.
If you would like to be paired with a Mentor, please be sure to check the box in Pretalx when submitting your proposal in the ''tell us more about yourself" section.
Mentors
We need mentors!! We typically get twice the number of mentees seeking support than we do for volunteer mentors.
If you are interested in mentoring, please fill out this form by November 21, 2025.
Roles of a mentor include:
- Help answer questions folks may have about their proposal.
- Help proposal submitters better understand what information goes into the proposal form.
- Help review proposal drafts.
- Help identify where information is lacking or excessive.
- Guide mentees to online resources such as the ones listed here:
How will this work?
Our goal is to have one mentor per mentee. We are looking to find pairs in the same timezone or even in the same country to make meetings a bit simpler.
Once folks are paired up, we will introduce mentors and mentees via email, ask mentees to share prepared material, and recommend that reviews happen asynchronously.
We are asking mentors to communicate asynchronously with mentees during the two weeks of December 1, 2025, through December 15, 2025. We know folks are busy, so we are recommending everyone start with asynchronous review and take it from there. If folks want to schedule video calls or virtual check-ins, they can do so on their own.