Opening Remarks with Logan Kilpatrick

How's it going, everyone? Welcome to DjangoCon US twenty twenty two. Thanks so much for being here. My name is Logan Kilpatrick. I'm the chair for DjangoCon US 2022. I'm also on the board of directors of DEFNA, which is the organization that helps nonprofit organization that helps put on DjangoCon US every year, along with our amazing group of organizers. I'm just going to run through tons and tons of logistical stuff at a rapid fire pace. There's going to be a bunch of QR codes as well, so if you want to prepare your phone to scan QR codes or type links into your computer. Be ready. Before we dive into all of the logistical stuff, I also want to thank Kojo for the wonderful orientation. That was super cool.

I'm feeling very relaxed after that. So I appreciate that, Kojo. And again, thank you all for coming. I think the last day and a half of getting this conference ready has made me realize how much it really takes. Everybody, the sponsors, the the hotel staff, the volunteers, the speakers, all the attendees to make this happen. So thanks again, everybody, for being here and playing your part. Before, um one one quick uh piece to acknowledge is the traditional landowners where we're gathered today, the the cumie, and I'd like to recognize the continuing connection of the Cumier people to their land, waters, and culture. and payment respect to the elders, past, present, and future. And if folks want to scan this QR code, you can learn a little bit more about

the history. I'll also make a really important note about masks. Please keep the masks on. It will make uh life so much easier. Um and the the sort of frame of thought is as you're in the building, please keep the mask on. There's signs reminding you. I think the biggest point is when you're coming back in from lunch. to remember to toss the mask back on. We're doing our best to try to limit the spread of COVID. So appreciate the cooperation from everybody. On the mask front. And of course, outside of the conference venue, when you're physically outside or doing something else, you're all responsible adults, so make your make your own decisions. But again, as you're inside of the conference venue, please keep those masks on We have a amazing lineup of speakers over the next couple of days. The thing that I wanted to point out really quick

is We have live captioning happening over here on the left hand side. So if you intend to make use of this, um please just make sure make sure to sit close to that so that you can actually see. And if you don't plan to make use of it, which is actually perfectly happening just by default right now, try not to take up those first couple of rows there, if at all possible. That way folks who who need to make use of live captioning can can see that clearly. The conference conversations are all happening on Slack. So if you are not on the attendee Slack, please scan this QR code. Yeah, please scan it. And the the online folks are going to be chatting there. In-person folks are going to be chatting there. So we want to try to push as many conversations to the Slack as possible. That way we can

do our best to to sort of bridge that hybrid gap between our our online folks and our in-person folks. And we have something close to 500 people watching right now, in-person and online total. So a huge, a huge group of folks, and we're we're super excited. The schedule, again, another quick QR code. Make sure to check that out. The important thing I want to note is there's actually another room where there'll be talks happening, which is to the left, I think, behind these walls. If you go out those doors, take a left, my left, take another left, you'll be able to get in there. Um so make sure you check out the schedule if your someone else starts speaking and you realize it's not what the talk you were there for. it's in the other room um so make sure you plan accordingly uh where where you want to be

another exciting thing opening reception tonight Um happening at 5. 30 as soon as the last in-person talk ends. We'll be out on the West Lawn, which is where we're eating uh breakfast and lunch. Um so if you want to come socialize, hang out, there'll be light appetizers, non-alcoholic drinks. So you can say hi to people and enjoy the company of in-person folks. Lactation room is Santa Fe 4, which is again in that hallway to our left. If you need to make use of that, please see somebody at the registration desk and they will get you a key card to have access. Um Kojo, oh this sorry, this is the lactation room is Santa Fe 3, Quiom is Santa Fe 4. Quiet room you can just walk into and Kojo mentioned this already. Octation room, please see the the front test for that. I'll make another plug for lightning talks and I I don't know what the spreadsheet looks like now, but they could be going like hotcakes, so make sure you scan the QR code, go to the link.

sign up um it's an awesome opportunity to just give a a quick very very very very quick presentation The DjangoCon U uh DjangoCon or DjangoCon US hashtag is going to be the place to see all the cool stuff that's happening. I've already seen a bunch of awesome tweets coming in from folks. uh sharing cool pictures of of the tutorials yesterday or themselves flying in for the conference. So please make use of this hashtag and that way folks can can sort of see the aggregate of all the exciting experiences. If you are posting to social media, make sure to remind uh remind yourself to look at people's lanyards. If you have the blue lanyard, that means you're okay with your picture being taken and being in these pictures. Yellow means to to ask you and red means please don't take my picture. So just be mindful of that if you're taking pictures of other folks

throughout the conference. We also have pronoun badges at the registration desk which are optional to use if you want to use one. Feel free to, if you missed it, they're at your the registration uh desk which is right out the door. Um so feel free to grab one Some important stuff on food, which is we'll have the two sort of standard lines. Again, if you ate breakfast with us this morning, you you saw the food. If you have very specific dietary restrictions and you noted those restrictions to us, um We have that food separated so that people don't accidentally grab your food with the special dietary restrictions and we have a limited amount of that. So see the wait staff who will be out there at all times and say, hey, I have X, Y, and Z dietary restriction, and I let the conference folks know and they'll be able to get you that

food. And there's also there should be labels for vegetarian and vegan stuff as well as gluten-free food as well. We're also still looking for a few, a couple of volunteers to do various things like session chair and and sprint volunteers and other things like that. So if you're interested in helping out, it's an amazing way to sort of meet new people and uh participate and get involved and there's there's always tons of volunteer opportunities and we need as many people as we can get uh because it it takes a tremendous amount of effort to put on the conference so um please check out this this link and uh volunteer if you if you are so inclined. Another quick reminder about code of conduct stuff. Please just Be be a good person, be friendly.

If you see something happening that's uh doesn't feel right to you, please let us know. You can shoot us an email conduct at DjangoCon. us and the organizers will get a text message, we'll know right away, and we'll be able to address the issue hopefully very soon. And same thing goes for our for our friends who are online. If you see something happening, please screenshot it or uh send a mess screenshot it and send a message uh with the link url to this address and we'll we'll take a look on on slack right away. With that, I also wanted to give a couple of quick shout-outs to all of our diamond sponsors, sixfeet up, platform. sh. Summer Technology Group really appreciates your support of the conference and we wouldn't be able to do this if it wasn't for all of our amazing sponsors. So say hi to them outside. Yeah.

And also our Platinum sponsor, RevSys, appreciate them as well, along with all of our gold sponsors who you will see represented outside, and you'll actually hear more about these gold sponsors as the as the week progresses. And with that, I think we are slightly ahead of schedule, so