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Proposing a Talk

Remember to check the Proposal Guidelines, where you will find the steps and guidelines to submit your proposal. Please keep in mind that there is a limit of 3 proposal submissions per person.

Important Deadline:

The proposal deadline is 19 December 2025.

We are glad you are interested in speaking at PyCon US 2026!

Conference talks will be held May 15-17, 2026, at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center. Please note that PyCon US 2026 will take place solely in-person with no live streaming taking place this year.

Whether this is your first time submitting a proposal or your seventh, you can visit this collection of old proposals for PyCon US - both accepted and rejected - to help guide you through the process.

This document is a guide to help you submit the best possible proposal and offers tips to make your proposal more likely to be accepted. Please keep in mind that many more proposals are submitted for talks, tutorials, and posters than can be accepted. Following the recommendations provided here can increase your chances of acceptance.

Travel Grants

PyCon US does not want expenses to discourage you from submitting a proposal and offers speaker grants to ensure that if assistance is needed and your proposal is accepted, you can speak at PyCon US. When you create a speaker profile, check the box to indicate that you require a speaker grant.

Please note that there is a limit to one speaker travel grant per accepted proposal. For more information, visit the Proposal Guidelines page.

Although we wish we could give grants to everyone who applies, our funds are limited, and we receive hundreds of applications each year. We kindly ask that if you can attend PyCon US without financial assistance, please refrain from requesting a travel grant so that we can allocate funding to as many folks who require the assistance as possible.

Topics and Advice

What excites you about Python development or the community lately? What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out? What has been the slowest or most frustrating thing you’ve had to learn over the past few years, and could you put together a talk that would assist in that process for the next Pythonista who tackles the same problem?

There is no official restriction on the topic that you propose for a talk session. Talks about Python or the Python community are most likely to line up with the interests of PyCon US’s audience, and a key consideration that the talk selection committee will be thinking about is your talk’s ability to draw an audience. We observe a limit of one talk per presenter. There is a limit of three proposal submissions per person, but the committee will ask you to choose only one talk if more than one of your proposals is accepted.

Recent articles, blog posts, tweets, and open source projects from the community can be a good source of talk topics and ideas, as can your own experiences as a developer.

As you consider different topics, you might be interested in reviewing the slate of talks selected to appear at PyCon US in previous years:

There are also community members who have blogged about the talk proposal process. Here are a few of the most prominent resources, and a Google search will yield you several more:

NEW THIS YEAR: The Future of AI with Python Track and Python Security Track

This year, PyCon US is adding two dedicated tracks to the PyCon US Talk schedule. Each track will take place during the main conference days between Friday-Sunday, May 15-17, 2026.

  • Trailblazing Python Security – Python users – from enterprise users to individual tinkerers – deserve a safe, malware-free experience and tools to develop secure applications. Talks for this track should focus on how to make Python and the vast collection of libraries on PyPI safer and more secure for users in many different settings.
  • The Future of AI with Python – How will AI support the next generation of developers and learners? How can Python empower practitioners to make better code and better experiences for their users? Talks for this track could focus on building open source implementations for Python developers, AI as an educational tool, or the ethical responsibility that comes with building intelligent systems.

Submissions for these tracks are a part of the CFP. If you would like your proposal to be considered for either of these tracks, please select the “Talks” Track as usual and then either “Trailblazing Python Security” or “The Future of AI with Python” in the “Category” field during the submission process in Pretalx. All talk proposals submitted under the “Trailblazing Python Security” or “The Future of AI with Python” categories will be considered for these tracks.

Note: Space is limited for these tracks, and selection will be based on topics that are the most representative and diverse for anyone who is working with AI or Security. If your proposal isn’t selected for one of the tracks, that doesn’t mean it won’t be considered for another spot in the schedule.

Good Ideas

  • Submit your proposal early. Due to the competitive selection process, we encourage prospective speakers to submit their proposals as early as possible as it allows for participation in the Proposal Mentorship Program to receive proposal feedback prior to the CFP deadline.
  • Be sure to answer some basic questions:
    • Who is the intended audience for your talk? The audience selections in the proposal submission form are as follows:
      • Just starting out: introductory, anyone can follow along without previous context
      • Some experience: some background knowledge/context is required
      • Advance experience: attendees must know the material to follow the session
      • Note: These levels mean something different to everyone, however, we ask that you select the most accurate audience level so attendees can decide if it is a good fit for them to attend.
    • What will attendees get out of your talk? When they leave the room, what will they know that they didn’t know before?
  • Your outline should be an enumeration of what you intend to say, along with time estimates. In general, a two-level bulleted list format works best. Also:
    • It is not necessary to have completely written your talk already, but it is important that your outline be detailed enough for reviewers to understand how your talk will be structured. You should have an idea of what the points you intend to make are and roughly how long you will spend on each one.
    • If you are requesting a 45-minute slot, remember that these are in very limited supply. Be sure to explain how you will change your talk if we can only offer you a 30-minute slot.
  • Ensure that your talk will be relevant to a non-trivial set of people. If your talk is on a particular Python package or piece of software, it should be something that a significant number of people use or want to use. If your talk is about a package that you are writing, ensure that it has gained some acceptance before submitting a talk. If a tool you’re excited about is not used widely, consider shifting the focus of your talk to a related best practice or theme which will have broader applicability and a larger audience.
  • Include links to source code, articles, blog posts, videos, or other resources that add context to your proposal.
  • If you’ve given a talk, tutorial, or other presentation before, especially at an earlier PyCon or another conference, include that information as well as a link to slides or a video if they’re available.
  • It is important to ensure that the information provided in your talk title, description and outline do not contain information that allow reviewers to identify you as a submitter; during the first round of reviews, proposal author information is not displayed to reviewers.

Bad Ideas

  • Avoid infomercials.
    • That doesn’t mean you can’t talk about your work or company at PyCon US. For instance, we welcome talks on how you or your company solved a problem or notable open source projects that may benefit attendees.
    • On the other hand, talks on “how to use our product” (or similar) usually aren’t appropriate.
  • Avoid presenting a proposal for code that is incomplete. The program committee is very skeptical of “conference-driven development”.
  • Do NOT submit a proposal that is solely or to a large extent written or includes AI-generated text by a large-scale language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT. Your proposal will not be accepted and will be disregarded without a second chance to submit.
  • Avoid “state of our project” talks, unless you can make a compelling argument that the talk will be well-attended and that attendees will gain value from it.
  • Do not assume that anyone on the Program Committee will know who you are simply because you have presented at PyCon in the past. Everyone should submit a detailed proposal. During the first round of review, we won’t even see your name on the proposals!

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