From a414727e9638652b6a9d52b1d396c09803423436 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Evan Mattson <evan.mattson@microsoft.com>
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2026 11:19:54 +0900
Subject: [PATCH] Bump Python version to 1.44.0 for a release

---
 python/semantic_kernel/__init__.py | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/python/semantic_kernel/__init__.py b/python/semantic_kernel/__init__.py
index 00fafbc1bae6..42ef8a7d80d7 100644
--- a/python/semantic_kernel/__init__.py
+++ b/python/semantic_kernel/__init__.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 from semantic_kernel.kernel import Kernel
 
-__version__ = "1.43.1"
+__version__ = "1.44.0"
 
 DEFAULT_RC_VERSION = f"{__version__}-rc9"