Invited Talk: Growing Communities with PyLadies from Around the World
Starting a community is the easy part. Keeping it alive is something else. How do you find the people who will build it with you? What keeps the events happening when everyone gets busy? And how do you create a space that makes a first-time visitor want to come back?
The invited talk at PyCon JP 2026 brings together members of PyLadies, who have spent years growing Python communities in different parts of the world. Soojin Yoon (Luna) of PyLadies Seoul and Maaya Ishida of PyLadies Tokyo will share what they have learned on the ground: how to find fellow organizers, what it takes to keep a community running over time, and how to build a space where everyone feels safe to take part.
Joining them as a special guest is Carol Willing, co-organizer of PyLadies San Diego and a keynote speaker at PyCon JP 2026. Seoul, Tokyo, and San Diego: PyLadies organizers from three very different contexts, together in one session.
What they will talk about is not specific to PyLadies. These are the questions every community runs into. If you already organize something, if you have been thinking about starting, if you support organizers from behind the scenes, or if you simply care about making events welcoming, these 45 minutes will be worth your time.
Date: Saturday, August 22, 12:00–12:45
Venue: Phoenix Hall
Meet the Speakers
Soojin Yoon (Luna)
Luna is a Python and Django backend engineer with more than five years of experience. Having started her programming journey at 42 Seoul, a software engineering program in Korea, she now works at SocraAI (formerly Riiid), where she develops backend systems for an AI-driven English learning platform.
Deeply committed to both local and global developer communities, she serves as an organizer for PyLadies Seoul, Women in Cloud, and DjangoKR. Within the open-source ecosystem, she is an Individual Member of the Django Software Foundation (DSF), an active participant in DjangoNauts Space, and a contributor to the Django project.
Luna actively shares her knowledge and technical insights on stages at home and abroad. She has spoken at PyCon KR (2023, 2026), PyCon APAC Tokyo (2023, lightning talk), and PyCon US (2024, lightning talk), and served as a workshop facilitator for AWS Community Day (2025).
Maaya Ishida
As an ops engineer, she has worked on CI/CD and automated documentation publishing, on making workflow and monitoring processes visible, and on improving the efficiency of batch systems. She is currently a presales engineer at Microsoft Japan.
Along the way she attended PyLadies Tokyo meetup #1, which was her first encounter with Python. Today she serves as a director of the PyCon JP Association and as staff for PyLadies Tokyo, helping to run the Python community.
In recognition of her contributions to the Python community, she was selected as one of the inaugural recipients of the Outstanding PyLady Award in 2024.
Her motto: life is improv.
Tickets Are on Sale
This invited talk takes place on the second day of the conference, so you will need a conference ticket to attend. Discounted tickets are available for students and for anyone aged 25 or under.
PyCon JP 2026
Conference: August 21 (Fri) – 22 (Sat) · Hiroshima International Conference Center
Sprints: August 23 (Sun) · Hiroshima University, Higashi-Senda Campus
Get your ticket on connpass
We look forward to seeing you in Hiroshima this summer.
