Congratulations to Our New PSF Fellows: Kanin Kearpimy, Jonas Obrist, and Sony Valdez

When the Python Software Foundation announces a new batch of Fellows, my habit is the same as everyone else's. I scroll through the list looking for names I recognise. Most quarters I find one. Sometimes none.

The Q1 2026 batch had three.

The PSF announced the latest cohort of Fellows in April, and three of the people on that list are from our part of the world:

• (James) Kanin Kearpimy from Thailand
• Jonas Obrist from Japan
• Sony Valdez from the Philippines

Three Fellows from East and Southeast Asia, recognised in a single quarter. If you have been counting (and on this site, we count), you know that is not a normal distribution.

Congratulations to all three. The recognition is earned.

Why Three In One Quarter Is Worth Noting

I want to be careful here, because I do not want this post to read like grievance. PAO's framing is opportunity, not diversity, and I am sticking to it. But the numbers are the numbers.

As I wrote in 2024, East, South, and Southeast Asia together account for roughly 4% of all PSF Fellows and 2% of Community Service Award recipients, against a developer population that is, by any reasonable count, much larger than that share. China, India, and Japan alone make up about 52% of the world's Python developers. The recognition has not been keeping up with the work.

So a single batch with three Fellows from East and Southeast Asia is not just a nice headline. It is a noticeable shift in a percentage that has moved very slowly for a very long time. Whether it sustains depends entirely on whether more of us keep pushing the names of our peers into the relevant inboxes.

Which brings me to the part I actually want you to read.

Recognition Is Decided By Us

When the PSF gave me a Community Service Award at the end of 2024, my first reaction was that I did not deserve it. I still partially feel that way, some days stronger than others. There are people in our region whose work has been more impactful and more difficult than mine, and they are the ones I think about.

But I had to give myself the same advice I have been giving other people for years: this is not something for you to decide. We, the community, are the ones who decide. So do not sweat it. Accept the gift, say thank you, and pass the invitation on.

That last part is the one I want to emphasise. If you are reading this and you are part of the Python Asia community, there is a very good chance that you know somebody around you who has been doing extraordinary work and has not been recognised for it. A meetup organiser. A library maintainer. A teacher running free Python classes. A volunteer who shows up at every PyCon and quietly fixes things. The person who answers questions on the local Discord at 2AM (You should get an award for this but please don't do it).

You know who they are. The PSF, the PyLadies Global Council, the wider international community, mostly do not.

So nominate them.

How To Nominate Someone (Five Ways)

There are at least five ways to put a person's name into the international Python recognition system. None of them are hard. All of them require somebody to actually do it.

1. PSF Fellow. Submit a nomination via the PSF Fellows page. The PSF Fellow Workgroup decides. This is the recognition the three people above just received.
2. Community Service Award (CSA). Details on the PSF Awards page. The PSF Board makes the final call. This is for sustained volunteer work — running events, building educational resources, organising the local community.
3. Outstanding PyLady Award. Process at the PyLadies Global Council award page. For people advancing diversity in Python through mentoring and event organising. The PyLadies Global Council decides.
4. PSF Distinguished Service Award. Process at the PSF Distinguished Awards page. The Foundation's highest honour. Only seven people have ever received it since 2012. None from our region. Yet.
5. PSF Board Directorship. Not an award. A responsibility. But getting more of our people on the ballot matters for governance and for whose voice is in the room when decisions get made. Information at the PSF nominations page.

If you have never written a nomination before, the trick is that it is mostly an exercise in writing down what your nominee has actually done. Specific events. Specific contributions. Specific years. Names of projects they touched. The committee is not asking for poetry. They are asking for evidence.

If you want help drafting one, or if you are not sure which category fits the person you have in mind, get in touch. PAO can help. That is one of the four things this organization exists to do.

This is something I originally wrote in my article here, but I think it's worth to mention it again.

What I Want You To Do After Reading This

Three things. In order.

1. Send a congratulations to Kanin, Jonas, or Sony if you know them, or even if you only recognise their work from a distance. The recognition lands harder when it comes from peers.
2. Write down the name of one person in your local Python community whose work has been overlooked. Just one. On a piece of paper. In a note on your phone. Wherever.
3. Nominate them, in one of the five ways above, before the end of this year.
4. Be Visible: This is specifically for you. If you're doing work for the community, publicize it. Write a short blog post. Post it in a community channel. Send it to our community mailing list. Don't be shy: No work is too small, its your work and no one else would do it for you. Write an English version of it if you can (I know it's not ideal, but that's the current state of the world that we're in and we need to slowly change it).

That is how the percentage moves. Not through awareness campaigns or panel discussions. Through a few hundred of us, scattered across the region, each writing down one name and submitting it.

Congratulations again to our three new Fellows. We are proud of you, and we are watching to see who you bring up next.