The 2024 NumFOCUS Project Summit was a huge success! Held over two days, it brought together project contributors, leaders, industry innovators, and NumFOCUS staff under one roof to network, collaborate, and plan.
A first-time attendee, Max Jones, from Pangeo, had positive things to say about the event.
“The NumFOCUS Project summit was a wonderful experience,” he said. “It was so valuable to learn more about all the resources that NumFOCUS can provide, re-connect with existing collaborators, and meet many new people in the NumFOCUS and broader open source ecosystem!”
Lightning Talks and Unconference Sessions: A Hub for Collaboration
Contributors from all corners of the open source ecosystem took to the stage, sharing updates through lightning talks and Unconference sessions. These presentations gave a window into the latest developments in various open source projects and addressed critical changes and challenges within the broader open source ecosystem.
“It was a fantastic event full of great people, interesting talks about open-source software, and even doors that fail to comply with the laws of physics,” said Ferran Brosa Planella, representing PyBaMM. “It was extremely helpful to talk to other developers about the challenges of open-source projects and learn from their experiences.”
Attendees discussed everything from new features to ongoing issues that are shaping the landscape of open source in scientific research. These discussions were on big topics: what’s happening in the open source world, what’s changing, and where we’re headed next.
Mars Lee, one of the NumPy representatives, thought that the 2024 Project Summit was a valuable place to learn how NumFOCUS and other contributors are sustaining themselves and their projects.
“We all have stories to tell,” Lee said. “Whether that’s from a maintainer gushing about the most powerful feature of their project or how a volunteer balances their time to open source and other commitments.”
Updates from NumFOCUS
NumFOCUS staff members also presented crucial updates on our efforts and priorities. Key presentations included information on:
Finance and Grants: Updates on funding streams and resources available to projects, along with future plans to support sustainability.
Fundraising: New plans to help increase the financial health of sponsored projects.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Highlighting recent DEI initiatives and setting the vision for making open source more inclusive.
Organizational Growth: Sharing insights into NumFOCUS’s strategic direction for the coming year and beyond.
Open Source in Action: Building the Future Together
Collaboration was a major part of this year’s Project Summit, with everything from short conversations in the hallway to longer brainstorming sessions, with every session and conversation pointing toward building a stronger open source ecosystem.
Lucas Colley from SciPy shared some of the collaborative highlights of the event:
“The conference brought together representatives from across the Open-Source Scientific Computing community to collaborate and learn from each other,” he said. “We worked on SciPy and Scientific Python Ecosystem Coordination in real-time with some amazing minds. It was an unforgettable experience.”
Looking ahead, the ideas from the 2024 Project Summit will shape the next steps for NumFOCUS and its community, where we can continue advancing open source scientific computing.
