Opening Remarks (Monday) with Keanya Phelps

Well, welcome to Chicago. DjangoCon 2025. My name is Kenya Phelps. I am honored to be the chair this year. Bear with me. I I'm gonna take it a little slow, drink it all in, and we're gonna get through this together, okay? Before we start, let's do a land acknowledgement. We are sitting on hold on. Oops. The land acknowledgement in Chicago recognizes this city is situated on the traditional homelands of the Ojibwe, Otawa, and the Pottawatomi.

This acknowledgement honors the indigenous peoples who have historically inhabited the area and continue to practice their traditions here in the land. So I just wanted to Shout out the tribes and do that. Alright, let's go. All right, down to the good stuff. Welcome to DjangoCon US 2025 and welcome to Chicago, my hometown. My name is Kenya Phelps. I am a technical project manager at Cactus Group based in North Carolina. That is the only town Durham. That's the only town that I am I uh uh just love to cheat on Chicago with. Durham is amazing. So I I um I love me some Durham.

It is such an honor to stand here today as your conference chair, and I am deeply grateful to kick off this year's gathering. Okay. Hosting DjangoCon here in Chicago is especially meaningful to me. This city is known for its resilience, its diversity, and its creativity. Qualities that I think mirror what makes the Django community so special. Just like Chicago, this conference thrives because of the people who come together, they contribute their ideas and build stronger, they build something bigger than themselves. And that is really why we're here. DjangoCon is about more than just code. It's about creating a space where everyone feels welcome, included, and valued It's about building tools that make the world better

and building community that reflects the world that we want to live in. That spirit of open source, of sharing knowledge, lifting each other up. Leaving the door wider open for the next person. That's what that fuels this conference. Before we dive in, I wanted like to give a special shout out to my fellow Django Knot, Tim Schilling. He asked me if Graham, my pit bull, would be making an appearance at DjangoCon. Unfortunately, Graham, his schedule was way too full this week, but he sends his best. He's normally my coworker when I'm doing some work and then He's a worker dog. He likes to get dressed up and and go out and do things.

So that's Graham. He says hello. Thank you. Okay. First off, I want to ask how many people how traveled more than or between six and eight hours to get to Django Khan today. Oh wow How about between let's say eight and ten? Because I think I heard like maybe about ten to fifteen hours. Oh, all right. Thank you. I am so glad you made it here. We appreciate everyone. Yes Cool.

Part of how we make sure that this is such a positive space in what was is with our code of conduct. We want this to be a fun experience and a stress-free experience for everyone. That means a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, background, race, or religion. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other people or even other frameworks. Please let us know if you see or experience harassment by emailing. Or any any of those way you can call or email, or

you can pull me to the side, you can pull pull Don Wages to the side, or Peter. Yeah, or in Slack DM one of us and we'll take care of it. That is something that we really take very seriously. I am a happy person. I'm bright and cheerful, but if you want to see another side of me, You're gonna come up to me and say, Oh yeah, I'm bullied. You don't want to see that side of me. So I'm just wanting to say we take that extremely serious. Be kind to others. It's not hard. So and I and I trust that everyone here is kind Okay. All right. So hey, we don't do that here. We don't make stereotypes.

We don't make exclusionary jokes. We don't insult or make fun of people or groups. We don't harass others. We don't assume anyone isn't a programmer. And if you see something like that, you can just use the phrase, hey, we don't do that here. Um we don't assume anyone is not a programmer just because someone doesn't look, sound, or seem technical. Does not mean that they aren't technical, case in point. You get the idea, be kind. It's the responsibility of everyone here to help this conference continue to be a great space. Okay, and this is the the side on how to report

any um code of conduct issues that you might have. Those are the names, and if you want to write down the conduct at DjangoCon. us. All right. Right now, the only announcement I have is that we do have mask-only seating sections in both ballrooms. These sections are reserved for mask-on sleeting, please, and they will be there's a sign, they'll be marked so you'll know if you're you want to to to do sit where as a mask it's marked for you Okay. This is the Wi-Fi information.

Have any questions about that? It's been pretty it's been able to handle all of the stuff that's going on, so I think we're in good hands. Quiet spaces, American House If you're speaking and you need to get prepared, the green room is Shakespeare. The wellness room, we ask that one participant at a time in the wellness room because we're kind of using it for another another thing as well, please use the do not disturb signs. And then there's also space for open meetings at Western Stage

House. So the Lake House is for wellness and that is one participant at a time. Use a do not disturb signs so no one barges in. Okay. Where do we eat? In the Soganosh and Wolf Point Ballroom. So this bar this ballroom and on the fifteenth floor. Throughout the week, the rest of the conference, there will be buffets set up and you can just grab your food and either eat in the Soganache or Wolf Point. Swag and t-shirts will be available tomorrow. I don't know what time and where. Um we're still working out the logistics, but we will have some.

pretty nice t-shirts and swag bags. The tote bags are really nice this year too, so I know that's a thing. Yes. And let's shout it out on social media. Here's the handle, like let's share with the world how great we are. Um all day, every day, please. And our lovely photography policy, check your linear uh lanyard colors, blue. It's okay. You're gonna see a bunch of photos everywhere of you if you have on the blue. And then orange, ask, red, no.

And let's give a shout out to the Platinum sponsor, Six Feet Up, Repsis and MongoDB. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Yes. Gold sponsors, yes, authentic, uh JBS, Link and Loop, and Kraken. What's that little and I'm sorry, I don't know that icon, the last one. Who is that? Cindy. Thank you. And our silver sponsors, Cactus, Two Rock, Foxley, and Wagtail, thank you so much.

Century is also our bronze sponsor. We're able to get opportunity grants this year. Yes. Django and Python, we thank you so very much. And a special thanks to DEFNA. They are amazing event planners, yes indeedy. And then Django and Python. Board game night. That's tonight between seven and ten in this ballroom. So if anyone wants to teach me how to play Dungeons and Dragons, I'll show up. I don't know how to play it

at my big age, but maybe, yeah, maybe it's a lost cause. But board game name board game night is tonight. Lightning Talks, that is the Lightning Talks form to fill out if you have a talk that you want to give, you know it's five minutes. Um the Lightning Talks uh form is pinned in Lightning Talks. So yeah, just um if you have something, just go in and um fill that form out. Fighting talks. And those are everyday Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at twelve ten. And Sprints. So that is also linked. The link is pinned in Slack in the Sprints channel.

There's a form. We understand that most people might want to work on Django, but if there are other projects, please submit in that form. Sprints are Thursday and Friday, 9 to 5 in the LaSalle bat um in the LaSalle ballroom. in the venue here, but yeah, 905. And if you have any questions about like the the sprints, throw them at throw those questions in the Slack channel. Because normally I think it it last year was a little different than what we're doing this year. Video recordings posted a couple of weeks after the event, so we can all make our way over to YouTube after in a couple of weeks and see all of the

relive all of the the conference glory and bask in that glow and you know um just support by liking your the the the meetings and the talks that you loved. And I just want to thank everybody for being here. Do we have any questions before I go into our keynote, our first keynote speaker? Yes. I can't hear it. I think are are all the talks being recorded? Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Any other questions? No? Thank you. Well, I'm gonna announce our keynote speaker. Thank you. Like I said, I am deeply honored to be the chair. If you see me around and have any questions, if I can help, I am a native Chicagoan. I Um a wealth of knowledge if you need me to suggest house music. Uh if you want to go see some really good EDM Let me know any recommendations. I'm here for everyone.