Python's now standard in Queensland secondary schools, but there's still a gap between what schools teach and what industry expects. Matt Collyer on the Digital Solutions syllabus, Fri 28 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/QCW... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

8 years as an SRE responding to major incidents, 20+ years training horses. Zoe compares how you teach people, and ponies, to problem-solve under pressure, Thu 27 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/BZ9... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Does your scale-up really need Chaos Engineering and a 10-tier severity matrix, or just a spreadsheet? Shaun O'Keefe on finding your product's Critical User Journeys, Thu 27 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/V9U... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

How do you know your RAG system actually works? Ravi Vats walks through a level-by-level framework for evaluating retrieval, from keyword search to hybrid retrieval with reranking, Thu 27 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/XWL... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Charli Posner and Will Cohen built a pose-tracking art installation in two weeks of after-hours hackathons, using Claude Code as a build partner. What worked, and what AI still can't do, Thu 27 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/GFG... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Your code works great on your machine. Getting it into someone else's hands is a different problem. Russell Keith-Magee (BeeWare, Django, CPython core) walks through the options, with a deep dive into Briefcase, Sat 29 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/AVC... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Making live music with custom tech means wearing a lot of hats. Jesse Manser, a musician turned engineer, on building control surfaces and real-time performance frameworks in Python. Sat 29 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/HH8... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Finding coding projects that click for neurodivergent kids is hard. Maddie Mackey on the technical, physical and emotional considerations that help them succeed. Fri 28 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/M9H... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Owning your whole stack from switch plane up is still viable, and Luke says it rocks. A tour through running on-prem infrastructure with a 4-person team since 1999. Thu 27 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/8VS... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Most of Python defaulted to Sphinx for docs while other ecosystems moved to Markdown. Kattni on why Markdown is finally up to the job, with MkDocs and a real migration case study. Sat 29 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/ZYS... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Time is of the essence if you're looking to connect with the Python community around Australia! Production deadlines mean several sponsor opportunities close next Tuesday! Learn more at 2026.pycon.org.au/sponsor/ and drop us an email ASAP so you can join us next month at #PyConAU !

Python is slow, yet NumPy makes numerical code fly. Kai Striega, a SciPy maintainer, pops the bonnet: strides, broadcasting, and the mental model that makes it click. Sat 29 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/A3X... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Women and girls leave STEM three times: primary school, subject choice, first-year engineering. Gwyneth De Guia turns her own fear of coding into a way to keep them in the room. Fri 28 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/CGG... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

We've just extended our t-shirt deadline until 9am AEST next Tuesday 4 August! 👕 There's a few extra days to update your t-shirt size, cut and to request your shirt in purple! 💜 Details on how to update your order: 2026.pycon.org.au/posts/t-shir...

No job title required. Gabi Amaral and Katie McLaughlin host an open-space unconference: attendees pitch and vote on DevRel topics live, Sat 29 Aug. Not recorded. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/AJQ... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Moving scientific algorithms to serverless cloud infrastructure breaks a lot of assumptions. Alex Zinovev shares how his team hit 3-10x speedups across Python, C++, SIMD and GPU, Sat 29 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/NF9... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Ashley Lamont built a working file system that stores files as Slack emojis, just to learn how file systems actually organise bits and bytes. Weird, but it works, Sat 29 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/Q7L... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

It's time for our eagerly awaited final keynote announcement of #PyConAU 2026. Join us and @cameronwilson.bsky.social on Friday morning for his keynote presentation "Slop, jobs and Elon Musk: why Australians don't trust AI and what that means for all of us". 🔍️ 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/BYL...

Python 3.13 shipped a free-threaded mode with the GIL disabled. Adarsh Divakaran benchmarks it against the GIL-enabled interpreter across CPU- and I/O-bound tasks, Thu 27 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/RQ7... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

When do dictionaries stop being enough? Arshia Sharma walks through the move from dicts to TypedDict, dataclasses and classes, and when more structure actually helps, Thu 27 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/TYX... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Damian Brady has built demos for Microsoft and GitHub keynotes, and even a TED talk. He shares what makes a high-stakes demo land when features are still coming in hot, Sat 29 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/MDS... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

If anyone can ask an LLM for a personalised tutorial, what's left for DevRel to build? Brett Morgan looks at designing interactive coding environments that still add real value, Sat 29 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/S9A... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

RMIT's rocketry team built a Python ground control system for their competition rockets, running at under 1% CPU on a Raspberry Pi 5. Amber Taylor and Freddy Mcloughlan explain how, Fri 28 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/9KB... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

AI-generated code is landing in production faster than anyone can review it. Nicky Ringland and Ash look at how vibe-coded PRs are reviving old vulnerabilities, Fri 28 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/RQR... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Passwords keep failing because they rely on humans managing reusable secrets. George Coldham explains how passkeys close that gap for good, with two real-world phishing examples, Fri 28 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/K3M... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Aviation makes good decisions under pressure using simple checklists. Chelsea Finnie applies that to platform engineering: when to commit to a risky prod change, and when to abort. Thu 27 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/QRN... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Type annotations catch bugs early and make big codebases easier to reason about. Abby Mitchell (Meta) runs a hands-on workshop from first annotations to typechecker setup, Wed 26 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/GGC... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

Are you balancing speed of delivery with the need to build robust and maintainable software? We're looking forward to hearing from Jay Stein & Sergio Pintaldi's experience with their talk "AI-assisted coding, Python and dbt: taking Chronos live in two days"! 🔍️ 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/VHX...

Reading an AI's answer and building muscle memory are different things. Graham Dumpleton, creator of the Educates platform, on workshops that still earn their place, Sat 29 Aug. Talk: 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/ASS... Tickets: 2026.pycon.org.au/tickets/

We're very excited to announce our next keynote at #PyConAU 2026! Please join us in welcoming Justin Warren for "The Care of Software: Ethics and Ecosystems" on Saturday morning! 🔍️ 2026.pycon.org.au/schedule/X79...

The Care of Software: Ethics and Ecosystems

The Care of Software: Ethics and Ecosystems • By Justin Warren • Friday 28 August 2026 • Tickets available now!

2026.pycon.org.au