Overview
On July 24th, 2026, Black Python Devs hosted their 2nd Leadership Summit, this time extending beyond the BPD community and serving as a resource for the Python community leaders.
Approximately 30 of Python's conference organizers, meetup leaders, authors, business owners, and those inspiring to fill their shoes someday gathered at Cleveland State University on the eve of PyOhio. There we shared, our burning questions, experiences, successes and failures hoping to learn from one another.
Keynotes
International speaker, author, and data-monger Bonny Mcclain gave a wonderful lesson on how to tell unique stories around open search data. We explored the movement of bears, the sounds of rice whales, and the biology of islands threatened by millionaire investments, and how humanization and polarization in the AI conversation can skew our opinion of information that may be flawed from the original prompt.
In the afternoon, we heard from Joy Hopkins who shared with us how we can lead from the front, or the middle. And how we can prevent the overload with quantification. She reminded us that humans are pack animals and how we could lead, even when no one is following.
Both talks emphasized the importance of trying to form a complete picture using data and presenting in a relatable, and digestible way.
Community Talks
This year, we opened our community talks to a CFP. We had amazing community presenters Jon Banafato, Lazouich Ford (BPD's North American Executor, 2026), and PyOhio organizer Kattni.
Jon kicked off the talks with a metaphor about chairs, where we learned how the jobs that focus around stacking, unstacking, and setting out chairs, and other volunteer services become a way for people to get involved in your event. He reminded us the power of "Wanna help?".
Lazouich shared with us how the wisdom of his parents helped with him taking the reigns as the North American Executor for Black Python Devs. He reminded us that "It's who you know", and when being a leader has us going to "Crazy," we should "Just Keep Living".
Kattni gave a powerful talk about how to let your community be self-sufficient on things. She also covered how to help those who are the "face" of a project, be able to get out of that celebrity space.
Chop it Up Session
Is the main event for me. Something we did differently this time around was that, as the host, I tried to capture thoughts from the people speaking.
As the image above shows. There was a lot of focus on burnout. We also learned about resources/volunteer opportunities for non-profits like Cleveland Give Camp. We also learned about fighting self exclusion and a wonderful reminder that all the things that we do are (or at least should be) about people.
Acknowledgements
This would not have been possible without our amazing speakers, and our engaging audience. I also want to recognize, the work done by our wonder master of ceremonies, Abigail Mesyenrame Dogbe. As well as the logistics help from our volunteers, J.R., Jon Banafato,Mike Pirnat, Derek Arnold, the CSU tech staff.
Plans for the future
We announced at the end of the event that our next summit in the US will be at PyTexas, 16 April 2027 in Austin Texas. We'll have more information regarding the event and CFP.
The talks will be made public once they are received from our amazing videographer, Elaine Wong. Likely around the same time that PyOhio releases their videos.