Brisbane gets a taste for Software Carpentry

By Damien Irving.

I was lucky enough to head north to Brisbane last week for PyCon Australia. I’ve written previously about how useful it can be for researchers to attend programming conferences, however this year I had an extra incentive - our upcoming Software Carpentry instructor training event. We’ve got scholarships available to bring people from all over Australia, so PyCon represented a great opportunity to spread the word.

The week started with a bootcamp at the University of Queensland, which was very well attended. One of the attendees signed up for the instructor training course right away, so I was off to a great start. Next on the schedule was the PyCon Data and Science Miniconf, at which our very own Clare Sloggett (Hacky Hour regular and Python teaching team member) delivered a great presentation on Python for Bioinformatics.

When the main event did finally arrive, I gave a presentation about Software Carpentry activities in Australia. Another three Brisbanites and one Hobartian signed up immediately off the back of that talk, and I’m hopeful that registrations will continue to come in as the bootcamp and PyCon attendees spread the word throughout their own networks. No matter where you’re from in Australia (or New Zealand), we’d love to see you at our instructor training event in February 2015!