Keynote: DjangoGirls: It takes a Village

Speaker 1: Um, hopefully everybody can hear me. Hi everyone. Welcome to this keynote. I just want to start by really appreciating the organizers who could like put things together last minute. for me to still be able to give my talk virtually. Um I'm so sorry I couldn't be there in person. It really hurts. Um you know lit literally last minute. couldn't travel uh and that's why I'm doing this. So thank you so much for joining. I do realize that I'm what's standing between you and lunch. So I'm gonna try to make sure uh you know this is interesting but also uh make sure there's there's enough time so that you know you get to lunch early so let us begin Okay, so I have a clicker

Speaker 1: here, I had to have to okay. So um hi everyone, my name is Aisha. For those um who don't know me. I'm I'm part of the Board of Trustees for Tango Girls. I really like this picture because Um, this was in 2015 at Django Girls Bilbao and and I still was attending EuroPython as well as the conference. Um, I literally um really love this picture because this is literally the day I would say my life took a turn and you know there was just endless possibilities. Uh so a little bit about myself I work as a cloud solutions architect for AWS. I'm also a board member for, you know

Speaker 1: Django girls, you know, said that before. I also co-host the Django Girls podcast as well as the Robot Lind podcast. I was one of the co-founders for Pilates Nigeria and the Python Nigeria community and what started out as Python Africa. And I'm also like an ex-board member for the Python Nigeria community. I love conferences. Like I said, so bummed that I'm I can't be there. But like I used to, I also used to co-organize conferences like Pike on Nigeria and help with Pike in Africa as well. um have some news about that at the end. So stay tuned. So what would we talk about today? So on today's agenda, um

Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk a little bit about Django Girls Impact. It's really has been a while since our last impact impact uh report. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about the the impact. Um I'm gonna talk about you know John Girls podcast and you're gonna hear like some of the stories. I'm also going to talk about what it means to have like a sustainable Django village, because it takes a village. So I and then I'll give an example of like what my village looks like, an example of my village. We would also talk about, you know, what does the future hold for Django girls? What does it look like? And finally, we'll discuss like how to get involved. Alright. So let's start with some history, right?

Speaker 1: Um, for those who don't know, Django Girls was actually founded in 2014 At the then European by two Polish women, Ola and Ola, because the because of their own personal experiences at that time and you know what they went through while they were starting their programming journey. And they wanted to like, you know, do things different. They wanted to create like an exciting curriculum that that was not just fun and exciting, but also created like a safe um and and safe environments where anyone who identifies as you know a woman non-binary um could actually come and learn and fall in love with with with programming. So this was how Django Girls started. And since 2014 Um, you know, a lot has happened.

Speaker 1: You know, we did live through a pandemic, uh, but a lot has has has happened. So um just to talk a little bit about um the impact that we've had so far. Since 2014, we've had an army of over 2,000 volunteers organize over a thousand events in 580 cities. Um it and 108 countries all over the world. I mean I was looking at the map and I I think the only thing I didn't see was um Antarctica. So like say let's say everyone every other place but except Antarctica. Um so and I think apparently we've also had well actually close to uh 23

Speaker 1: ,000 attendees. That is that is people who have actually attended not coaches, not mentors, not organizers. twenty two twenty-three thousand people almost who have actually been to a Jago Girls event. I'm one of such people and my story really has changed, so I can just imagine me times 23,000 and what that looks like all over the world. So super excited about these numbers and where we're going and you know what we'll continue to do. I really want to talk a little bit as well about our Django Girls tutorial. Now, during the pandemic, we're not having any events. We were not um you know everything everything was shut down. One of the things that you know that people started to turn to was to have the general girls tutorial

Speaker 1: And I think I saw um on YouTube I sort of browsing randomly and literally I saw like there were there were like multiple YouTube tutorials of Django Girls that Django of the Django tutorial that you know just that broke it down by like, you know, using a Chromebook, you using a Windows, a Mac, like and it was so so amazing and people actually turn to when do I know even turned more to using the tutorial. So as at um 2017 when we published the last impact um report. We had 14 languages. Now we're at 20. We have a ton of language that are still not like published because we haven't um sort of like verified. I personally would like to see more African languag um indigenous languages as well like you know

Speaker 1: show up on the tutorial. So by the way, if you're if you're here, you're listening And you don't see your language on the list when you go to tutorial website. This is your call to make it happen. We're always looking for people to help and volunteers And as of 2017 as well, when we published our impact report, 2017 and 2023, I don't know, camera. Like that's what three or six years apart. We had one million people who had used the tutorial. So you could literally say we had to we we had you know that many people use the tutorial But as at two days ago when we when we did run another query, the number had actually gone up to four million, over four million people. who have actually read the tutorial tutorial or use the tutorial.

Speaker 1: This is like unique users. This is not like this is like four million people unique users who have actually used our Django Ghost tutorial. Can you imagine? And it just goes to show like how, you know, beyond events, beyond um, you know the events that we run, the impact we have, even you know, when people don't attend events or do not they don't have an event in their city Um up next, I'd like to talk about the Django Girls podcast. So when um in at the end of 2021, when things started to like pick back up Um and we and I my course, Leona, we're ideating about, you know, you know, you know, what should we do differently?

Speaker 1: Um if you if you probably know we used to run an active blog called your Django story or my Django story and basically we would interview um sort of attendees who had been at the event, we would ask them like you know, you know, what their favorite framework or la uh framework was, you know, like we would ask all these questions and it was in blog format, like it was it was written And I and I just we just thought about, you know, how cool would it be if people could actually tell their stories in their own voice And we're like, oh, should we do like we talked about it? Okay, should we just do like a YouTube channel? Which would be cool. They're like, oh man, that's like too much work. And so we ended up like going for like a podcast And you know, literally

Speaker 1: that was literally what what happened. And so in 2022, last year, we actually started or started to publish um um sort of like episodes for the for the um podcast and and just in 2022 as well I just wanted to share like you know some of the things we did so Um and I think one of the things that we wanted to learn beyond the Django Girl story was, you know, what are some of the challenges starting out? Like what was your life outside of attending or being or or being involved with the Django with Django Girls? um, you know, what are what are like just stories returning to tech, changing career, who are the people that helped along the way, things like that. We really wanted to hear firsthand from um you know people you know their experience with Django

Speaker 1: girls and as last year we actually published eight episodes that is like over 200 minutes sort of content Um we actually have had a thousand five hundred plays or you know people listening across um 74 um countries so if you don't know about Django girls podcast this is your cue to go on your favorite podcast platform Do a search for Dragon Girls podcast, subscribe, follow, um, really, literally. Um, and and support and and listen and share, because you you never know who needs to hear that story. And it's something such something powerful about people actually telling their stories in their own words in their own voice um

Speaker 1: in spite of right Um I so I literally so one of the things I also want to do is uh to do is share um you know some of the stories from the podcast. By the by the way, I'm not gonna give you all the details, no spoiler alert, so that you actually go and actually listen to the episodes. But basically Um when we um you know you know just thinking about the hashtag I am a jango girl, I don't know if anyone remembers, but in July of 2017, it was our third birthday By the way, we're gonna be nine years. The foundation is gonna be nine years this July. Just one year shall have a decade. That's so cool. I can't believe that you know we've been a foundation that long Um, but but basically we had, you know,

Speaker 1: on our third birthday 2017, but actually, you know, asked our Twitter community to share their experience on how Django Girls has impacted them and basically what happens when, you know, if you actually still do this hashtag on Twitter, you see many people's stories of like, you know, what happened to them and how they like changed or what they did differently once they attended an event. Um so I I do want to use this as I am a Django girl. Um, you know, this this hashtag uh just to preface like you know the podcast and some of the stories um gonna be telling all right So um let's start with Maria. So during the pandemic, um, you know, Maria

Speaker 1: was even before the pandemic, well, Maria had like an was an occupational therapist um and you know she actually decided to go into that role because she really wanted to help people Um and you know, you know, then during the pandemic, like most people, you literally, you know, lots of people had, you know, there was more time on their hands, people started to rethink. you know, what they're gonna do. And I think in that moment Maria wasn't having like a lot of joy in her present career. Um and, you know, she was just thinking like what would she do? What would she do differently? Or what could she do that she could find? She could go back to finding joy, right? Um and then she, you know, if anyone knows Rachel as well, Mary and Rachel are actually friends, longtime friends apparently.

Speaker 1: And Rachel is is actually also a board member, Rachel Calhoun. She's also a board member. Um, and she actually transitioned um from a software to a software engineer She used to be an awesome teacher. So from an awesome teacher to an awesome software engineer. So basically, um, so you know, Rachel apparently had been trying to convince Maria to you know, pick up like, you know, attend an event to actually attend an event then when an event used to happen. And you know, Mar just kept putting it off. It's like, yeah, yeah, one day, one day, that's okay. But during the pandemic, there's this opportunity So like, okay, what about what I'm really thinking about, you know, what to do next. So, you know, what's the harm? And so Rachel actually so by this time it was already during the pandemic. So there were no events, right? nothing was happening and it even took us a while before we started to approve virtual events, you know, and those were far and few in between.

Speaker 1: Um not like it was in person. Um so you know Rachel uh sorry Maria on her own actually went ahead To the Django Girls tutorial and went through tutorial, got some help from Rachel as well. And you know, and as she went through the tutorial, she decided to see, oh, this is something that I could I could do. Um, you know, and especially, you know When you're trying to switch a career, especially switch to a different career, especially if you've done that career for a long time, you question yourself a lot in the beginning. It's like Like, you know, what could I possibly know? I do not have a computer science or computer engineering background. Um, you know, and and she did act Maria actually found out that there's actually tons of transferable skills as an occupational therapist that would make her an amazing or better software engineer.

Speaker 1: So um so if you think about Um so if I if I just think about what Maria said and we we asked Maria and you know I was like what is what if you could go back in time what is we we usually always ask this question if you could go back in time and change one thing, what would you do? And Maria is like I should have done this sooner. I should have done this like 10 years ago. I should have transitioned sooner. And that was like, you know, super awesome. So yeah, so that's my real story. A bit about it. Go listen to the full episode Um the next story I want to talk about, you all know her. She was she just did a keynote, Don Wages. I always tell Don, I'm like, your name, your first name and your last name is the It's a it's like it's a it's like two of my favorite things. It's like the dawn so it's beautiful with the with a nice sunshine uh you know when the sun

Speaker 1: comes up and wages because we all have to make money right uh so so uh so Don um journey started way back you know she she remembers thinkering with like you know stuff with a home computer way back when she was in high school, but you know, Hajnie, you know, as taking like different waves because she started out wanting to do finance right after school. Um and then she was like, okay, maybe she'll pivot to being an uh a data analyst and started to try to do some things, but nothing really like stuck. So it wasn't until um Django Khan 2016 in Philadelphia I actually was at that event. Uh it's funny I didn't see done, but like literally we're like we were both at the same conference at the same time.

Speaker 1: Uh but literally uh so it wasn't until she actually attended that event that you know she she actually deployed a website, uh sorry, a blog. by herself um during the workshop and she's like oh my gosh like if I can do this what else can I possibly do like Hear me now, I'm all powerful, hear me, Raw. And then and then it just kickstarted like that push she needed to finally get into the space. Um and I think she still had roles in like projects, you're still working as a project manager. Um and then You know, because of like the community she met at the events and even outside of that with like the meetup communities as well She was able to really take a career to the next step and do something that she really loves to do

Speaker 1: and the people and people literally gave her the space to learn and to grow and to make mistakes And you know, Dawn is here today. She knows she was a keynote speaker. How great is and how cool is that, right? You know, we take no credit, just say Um so that's like super awesome. Um the next couple of stories I do want to talk about um is Anne Ba. Like if anyone knows Anne, Anne is such She's amazing. She's like she's like a mentor to many of us. She supports the community and you know and also came on the podcast and told us about her story about how you know she literally you could you can literally trace and story to way back as the days of basic and pascal when that was still

Speaker 1: when people still cared about those languages Um and you know she used to work at a job that required her to travel a lot and you know as she started to like grow her family she just realized that she needs to take a step back because the logistics just didn't quite work out Um, and you know, Anne actually takes us on her journey on what it what it felt like and what it was like returning to tech after taking a long time off, right? But it's so amazing because in that time when Anne was Technically away from tech. She started a business. She got a psychologic uh a psychology degree Um and you know and she she did tons of stuff and then returned it and then returned uh back to tech as as a developer. Now she's a consultant and uh you know last

Speaker 1: I checked last year, PyCon UK, she was actually the conference um director. So, yeah, that's a bit of our hand story. You have to go listen to the full episode yourself, no spoilers. Um, the next story I want to talk about is Hara. Um, let me see. Okay So Kara is like a bundle of joy. Like even when you hear her talk, she's like, she's like, she just wants to change the world. So she's like a big advocate for for STEM, for diversity, for getting more people into tech. But Hara actually started as a survey engineer, right? Um she actually studied bioinformatics. Um, and you know, she she was she was working as a survey engineer and she just you know you know it's just something I

Speaker 1: as it's always it's like something was missing. She needs to, you know, take it to the next um level. And then that was when she attended like a Django Girls event and that was how it journey started and now she's actually on the board of trustees for Django Girls Advisory Board. She's a huge advocate for the team supporting. Um you have to go listen to that episode because she takes us through how now she's she's she's a software engineer as a satellite operator. And I was like You you work with satellites every day is like whoa. That is so cool. So that is Hara 's story So I want to, you know, transition from like some of the stories we've had. Hopefully, like, you know, y'all go and listen to the episodes and and I mean as a co-host, like I personally have been blessed, inspired

Speaker 1: uh you know, by these stories. All right. So it takes a village to raise a child. It's an African proverb. What this means is that it it means like an entire community of people must interact with children for those children to grow in a sail safe and healthy environment. Um this proverb actually became even more popular when Hillary Clinton back in 1996 actually wrote a book, It Takes a Village. uh and she you know she wrote the book in the context of what it meant for like the American society. Um and and I just want to preface

Speaker 1: this by saying Um I there was a time I I think I would call myself a pythonist a a a child pythonista, a baby jangonaut, right? And I think where I am today is as a result of the entire community that have helped and have shaped my career, my progress, my growth. in every way, shape and form, right? So one of the things I want to go into is talk about who makes up the village. What is what is the vill what does the African village look like? And how do we translate that to the Django village? All right. So, I mean, ideally, when you think about a village, you probably would start with, like, well, I mean, technically

Speaker 1: a child village very we pretty much starts with like the parents, siblings, um, cousins maybe. And if you're fortunate you probably had grandparents and many times there's tons of knowledge that I passed from like grandparents, you know, like you know, just personally, I just remember, you know, just sitting with my grandma and just hearing all the stories from way back when and how how things used to be, right? Um and you know, this is by far not exhaust exhaustive because the village actually transcends the nuclear units um it uh uh and even the extended unit the village has so many people so To start with, like the village primarily consists of the neighbors, the residents, the people who live in the village.

Speaker 1: So I remember Um I 'm gonna tell y'all a story. So growing up, um I have my siblings, you know, as part of being a teenager, we would, you know, we we didn't have a driver's license, we didn't know how to drive. Uh but we would we would take our dad's car because we would be if if we figured we'd watched enough movies, we'd seen our dad drive. um a ton of time and we figured like well we could actually probably do this. It doesn't look like record science. So we literally took our dad we had been taking our dad's car out, you know, when obviously he's not home and you know, he he leaves the car keys. And I remember this one time we went we went out to the car. We always check, we always make sure nobody's there. It's like it's like the it's like we go during when there's nobody at home, even

Speaker 1: even within the the the area uh because most people have gone to work or something and so we me and my siblings take out this car we come back you know when you you take the car out you like you know how you took the car you know where the stair how the steering was aligned, you know, you you you know exactly the where the the the parking space where the car was parked. So we sort of like had it to a detail and we took the car out, we brought it back and make sure we you know put everything so that nobody would notice, right? We're gotten away with this quite a few. times and I remember my dad coming back home from work and he's like tell me the truth what did you guys do like just uh what did you people do Just confess, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to tell me what you've done. And then we were like, oh my gosh, this man must know. Does he have magic? How did he know? Like we're also

Speaker 1: very careful. But it turned out that we had a neighbor who saw us sneaking out without dad's car and coming back and you know eventually like give my dad the heads up and you know it's and that's really literally what the characteristic is of an of a village Um, you know, everybody is like, you know, including your neighbors, brings up the child Um there's no such thing as, oh, everybody minds your business. In fact, it's actually really normal for a neighbor, an adult in the village to actually see you and reprimand a child if they see the child doing something wrong. So it wasn't uncommon to, you know, for like the whole anybody, any adult could see a child maybe not crossing the road well

Speaker 1: or just doing something wrong that will put the child in harm's way. Um, you know, everybody ever it's so that child is everybody's child. Everybody comes together and continues to look out for the child regardless of whose child is it it is and the village by definition usually you know signifies like a a community a tightened community um and you know in a neighbor will not see something wrong and actually keep quiet. So this picture I like uh so this Umoja village is actually a village out in Kenya is actually a if a women-only village and it was founded by women who were fleeing um abuse and persecution and and they founded this village and it's actually a refuge um they have an entire system. Like it's it's actually a refuge for many women who are fleeing similar um

Speaker 1: things. And so how does that what does that look like in the when we think about the context of our Django community, right? And our Python community. Everybody, everybody, every community member, where you're whether you're a baby jangot, a baby Pythonista, whether you're uh you know an OG and you've been around like as long as the language, um, whether you're in the in in between um every single person makes up the village right I really like this picture it's amazing it's like it's a Brazil Dragon Girls Brazil super cool so let's look at some of the other residents of the village We also in African village we also have the Council of Elders. The Council of Elders have

Speaker 1: usually have many roles. In many cases, they settle family disputes, they reconcile members, maybe there's like a land dispute, for example. They usually take um decisions that benefit the the community. Um usually most um the monarchs, the kings um usually would uh delegate they have like uh elders council of elders or chiefs for example that they delegates you know you know, decision making to so that you know the the the king, for example, is not overwhelmed. Um so it's only when an issue cannot be solved or rectified by the elder that they take it up to like um to like the king. So Elders can also serve as mentors as well. You know, they offer similar to the Afghan village, they offer like wisdom and advice

Speaker 1: based on their life experiences in the same way. Elders, we we elders play the function of making sure that our st the history, the culture, the stories are passed on from generation to generation. Right. Um and when I think about what the elders are in our in our context, I think about um the community leaders, like the board members. Even, you know, people who come together, they're usually mentors as well, right? Because, you know, Naomi, for example, is an amazing, you know, was an amazing mentor of mine as well when I started out. Um So community leaders literally, you know, they provide guidance, moderation, they provide direction to members. Um and just like elders um of a village, they

Speaker 1: also make decisions for the community. But they always take that and we always say like you know, uh we have this saying that what an elder sees sitting down A child can tr climb to the highest Iroco tree and still not see it, right? Um and you know, which just signifies it's because of the term experience, you know, elders usually have they have the vision, they see the vision, they see well into the future. um and you know make decisions to benefit that future that they that they're looking for. So when I think about how that translates for um our community, the board members, they take feedback from everybody else and they use that to make informed decisions about the direction of where our village, our Django village, our community is headed.

Speaker 1: All right, let's go to another member of the community. Um See, okay. Um when we think about the founders of the village, right? These are all founders of you know African village, and we think about our ancestors And our village ancestors usually they have the role of helping to preserve the cultural heritage and traditions of the community. Um the the kings, the founders, for example, uh, you know, usually kings would from a village usually probably come from the lineage of like the founders, right? And the and the leader. So What happens is like those generation, those cultural beliefs are actually passed on from generation

Speaker 1: um to to generation. Um so while like um you know the concept of like you know the ancestors for example I always think about the ancestors, I always think about founders as we stand on the shoulders of giants. We are where we are today. We are who we are today because of the people who have come before us. and have paved the way and have created something um that we have turned into a community and we've turned into this um global um concept. So When I think about what that means for like our community, right? You know, you'd be like, oh yeah, I sure super easy. You know, if you think about the founder of Python, Gaido Rasam, if you think about um you know the founders of Django as well and how that started.

Speaker 1: I just particularly want to call out a one of the earliest um pioneers for the Django community Malcolm Tradinick. For those who don't know, Malcolm was a pioneer. He was one of the very earliest contributors, core contributor to Django. He was a um he was a um he was a huge part of of of um the community he was he was actually one of the earliest mentors as well from Many people who were, you know, starting out with Django, even as far back as the earliest versions of two scripts of Django, uh, Malcolm was part of um, you know, was literally part of

Speaker 1: people that helped and reviewed as well. Um it's actually super important to recognize um Malcolm because Um every year we have an award that was called the Malcolm Trednik Award. It's the way we used to honor his memory and honor all the contributions he's done for the community. And basically we are standing on the shoulders of the giants and the people that came before us Um so yeah, just you know, so when I think about, you know, some of our oh some of the pioneers, um, you know, who's really really were a huge part of the Django village Django community you cannot really go without you know bringing up Malcolm's name

Speaker 1: So let's move to next set of people who make up the village. I think about um teachers in a video tradespeople and their job is literally day-to-day is to make sure that they're impacting knowledge um based on their experience, based on their skills. Because so even before the concept of formal training Teachers would come to sorry, uh we had tradespeople, you know, blacksmiths, craftsmen, we had people who were you did sculptures and art and textiles And these people had apprentices and you know would pass on that knowledge to the next to the youth to the next generation. And it's very important. Like it's It's almost like it's it's super important to make sure that the knowledge, the stories

Speaker 1: are being passed on from generation to generation. Um so when I think about that in the concept of our Django village, I think about our coaches, our mentors, I think about like all the skillful people as well and even business people who create those opportunities for people to learn as well. And sorry, for for people for either the the baby janganos or the child Django to expand their skills and knowledge to grow and provide guidance and and encouragement, especially when things get hard, because they're coming from and talking from experience. Um the final set of um people I'm gonna talk about, by the way, this is not an exhaustive list.

Speaker 1: This is just you know some of the major people that make us make up the village, makes up the village. Um I'd like to talk about um the vigilante, the warrior. So Way way back there before the concept of like police officers and the army and the navy and all of these things, um, whenever there was a security issue in an African or in a village Um, depending on what the issue was, you would have maybe the youths band together and they will form, you know, the warrior group. You would have maybe you know, people like the hunters or the farmers come together depending on, you know, if it was theft late at night, they would actually have this watch nights and have like a roaster and in turns they like do like a walkabout, they they walk around and check and you know with their own arms as well making sure that you know whoever is doing the crime is caught

Speaker 1: or you know is scared by virtue of you knowing that people are gonna be out watching for you and and not do the crime. Um so I really like this picture. If you've ever watched Woman King Um the Woman King is literally based off of the Minos, um, you know, in Dahome in the Dahomey Kingdom, present-day Bene Republic. And this was an all-female warrior group, especially during the transatlantic. um slave trade and and they fought many battles and won many um and i I just you know some people call them the Amazonians, some people they're the Minos um they are gojays. You know they have the case they went by very differently, but they were very revered fair female warrior group in West Africa. If I translate that to what looks like to our community, I mean

Speaker 1: like it goes without saying our code of conduct. Everyone here has to sign and acknowledge the code of conduct. Even for us doing presentations, we had to present our slides ahead of time. so that it goes through code of conduct review. The code of conduct is how we ensure that everybody just like the warriors and the vigilante group had to make sure that the safe the streets were safe and crime was non-existent, um our code the code of conduct team comes together and makes sure that you know during an event or gathering such as these um you know we're keeping um we're making sure that we're providing an enabling community that is safe for everyone that that that that includes everyone and creates a positive environment for everyone and that's why you know when you break the code of conduct it's taken very seriously and it's violations and it's consequences.

Speaker 1: Um so yeah so this is the Django con code of conduct we all had to sign it we all had to go through it Uh just wanted to to to point that out. So I want to pivot now and now that we know all the people that make up a village, a successful village, and how that applies to our village, I want to talk about What a healthy Django village looks like. What a healthy village looks like what a healthy Django community. I'm gonna be using the terms um intertwine. So when I when I think about a village, I also think I think about how everyone's voices is heard and taken seriously. Remember how I talked about the elders of the village always passing on information to the youth to the younger generation? It was also as

Speaker 1: as much as that was being done and you know the elders had a lot of wisdom and they also had to learn. from the other so the youths the children of the community um you know we've all we've all sort of had experiences where we've sp had engaged in a conversation with a five year old and literally learned something like It's it's how it's it's how because of that, because learning is a two-way street. Like even when as mentors, as coaches, we have men, you have mentees You actually find that you're learning just as much from that interaction as the mentee is actually learning from the mentor. So it goes without saying that it is very important that everyone's voices be heard, including the baby. the children or the babies of the of the village.

Speaker 1: Um because at the end of the day we make culture, we make tradition. Tradition doesn't make us. So it's important that the elders and you know the people the people of the village uh sorry the elders the founders all of that listen to the younger than not just the younger but like the next generation um the younger people in the village, um, so that with time the culture, the tradition would have to improve, it would have to change. Like when the Django when Django community started many years ago and what the Django community looks like, there's been tons and tons of changes in our bylaws and how things in in how you know we recruit um the Django court team and that's because the the the the elders, the people who are leaders

Speaker 1: have to listen to the community, take feedback, make informed decisions that benefit the entire community, but also out forward looking and outward looking to what the future of the community is. So everybody has it taken seriously. The next um point is that everybody cares and supports in various capacities sometimes it's you're not an elder or you're not uh sorry you're not a community leader you're not an organizer maybe all you do is just respond kindly to stack overflow questions Everybody has a role to play, everybody supports in the capacities that they can afford or they can whatever that they can do. I think One of the things that I wanted to mention was

Speaker 1: if we think about it, if everybody, every I mean I say everybody, I'm saying everybody, if everybody in the community does one small thing, one simple doesn't have to be simple, just does one thing. Um just think about what that would look like and how much growth that will come. But if only a few people have to do everything. You have burnout, you have people dropping out, you have people. It's not sustainable. That kind of village is not sustainable sustainable. So everybody doing everybody doing something, performing an action, you know, in contributing in all one way, shape, or form actually does help um the community in the large larger run. That is and and that's what makes it sustainable community. Um

Speaker 1: everyone is given an opportunity to contribute. So no gatekeeping. It doesn't matter where you're where you come from, it doesn't matter like you ever many people have transferable skills many people are able to contribute in one way, shape or form. Um not you you know everybody cannot be a you know everybody cannot Everybody cannot only do one thing, right? Because if everyone did one thing, you know, the other parts or aspects of the community wouldn't survive. So this is actually super important. And the final one is sharing isn't only caring. Sharing is actually how we survive. Um, I remember a story my grandma, you know, my grandma just used to tell me how growing up when they grew up like way, way, way, way back in the early 1900s

Speaker 1: or something. She used to tell us how, for example, like if you had a family of hunter hunters, for example, or gatherers or farmers, whatever is haunted that the the whole family takes part of. So if for example all the hunters go out but one hunter catches one animal That's what the entire family is, not just the nuclear family, the extended family. So it's usually like in a compound and there are different houses for different family members. Every single person gets a portion of that meat and nobody goes hungry. Um and even even when they will catch like a another will go and it will catch like a huge animal. Um I don't know, think about anything use, I don't know, hepple, for example. What would happen is that the entire village actually shares in that

Speaker 1: in that food. So there was no wastage. Nobody went hungry. Even things like homelessness wasn't possible because no matter where you go or how far you go, there is always they can always trace your roots down to your family home and you would you would have a place to sleep. You you never I would never I've never personally never been to my indigenous village but I know if I go there we have my great great grandfather there's a family house somewhere and there's a place for me to to to stay. Um so yeah, so just you know sharing is the only way we survive. And when we think about sharing in the context of our community, we think about how by virtue of who we are as an open source community literally everything that we do from the projects that we do the code that we write the our communities

Speaker 1: everything that we do is usually open source and available for free for other people to take and use it for their own personal purposes or for them to actually improve um improve it um for them to actually um you know utilize it anybody can access and and improve on it or reuse it right and that's that's how we we survive as we continue to share as we continue to grow and so you know beyond that like if you know on an individual level you know Sharing your time is actually as imp is also as as important as well, right? When we when we think about the collective. Alright. So I just wanted to quickly touch on what my village looks like. Um so

Speaker 1: Um very quickly, my village um when I asked Minister with Naomi. Naomi was PSF chair for for a while. She was my mentor. I met her at Europe Python and she was one of the very early supporters from the PSF who made sure that when we're starting the Python Nigeria community, the Python African community, we had everything that we needed to make sure that we were successful. I can tell you for a fact that up to today Naomi is still literally an admin on the Python Nigeria, Python Africa Mailing list, and actually still goes in every once in a while and like you know approves when nobody does it, right? Um, so you know, Naomi, if you've ever met her, she's super amazing. She's done tons of talks as well.

Speaker 1: Um, the next person in like community i want to talk about is a helen so super super early on it's sorry in my village by the way this is not an exhaustive list i'm just i'm just trying to highlight like different people in my village um and the different roles that they had when i was coming up When I think about Helen, Helen literally um when I was starting, I'd met Daniel uh in PyCon UK. He was he was doing he was organizing PyCon Namibia and I remember asking him, I'm like, whoa, is there a Django girls happening at Pycon Namibia? And it's like There could be meaning nothing had hap has started to happen. And I remember one time I was like, oh, we should do something about that. But I didn't have any experience organizing an event. And I was also trying to do the first Django Girls Lagos, the first event in Nigeria. And you know, Helen earlier on had some experience organizing. And even if you know she's like 10,000 miles away

Speaker 1: she joined her and literally helped to organize from the very beginning to the very end. So I wanted to just give her a shout out. Um when I think about Catherine there was actually a time after after the after I had done the Django girls event that I was actually considering a career in data science and Kathleen was super amazing, walking me through, you know, just like helping me with some of the projects that I was working on. um, you know, encouraging me to speak up Pi Data back then and helping me look through my proposal. She just committed time and I always used to find it like Oh my gosh, like you know, she doesn't know me from anywhere and just because of the community, she's really need to dedicate her time and energy to make sure that I'm successful, right? So I just wanted to call Catherine out. The other person is Chuku, Chuku De Chuks, a

Speaker 1: great friend of mine. He was actually one of the co-founders of the Python Nigeria community. I mentioned truths because when I was starting the Python communities, like who's this baby Pythonista who just went to a workshop like you know two months ago and wants to start a whole community that is going to include like experts and people who have been doing Python for like a long time. Um truke's actually had tons of experience because he's been doing Python for a long time Um and he really joined and just you know make sure added credibility pretty much and you know make sure that we got everything working and bringing in some of his other colleagues as well to be part of the community Um, I want to talk about Lucy. Lucy was actually my Django Girls coach and then she went on to become a Django Girls awesome, awesome ambassador. And literally

Speaker 1: she um really helped when we were organizing multiple events, providing support. So I wanted to do a shout out to Lucy. And finally I want to talk about Daniel Roy Grimfield Daniel actually is a co-author of two scripts of Django. And Daniel actually in the beginning when we started the Python Nigeria community, Most employers were not really hiring, they didn't really do Python in Nigeria. Um so Daniel was actually one of the very first people who were encouraging you know Python developers and you know people who had skills in in Nigeria to actually get remote opportunities like providing support, donating books. to the conferences and you know personally like providing support for events as well. So I just wanted to give like a

Speaker 1: shout out to to Daniel So when I think about what a sustainable village looks like, I think about, you know, a story about this broomstick where if you take one strand you can, you know, cut it in You can easily break it a strand of broom. But if you take it together, it's very hard to break it at the same time. So there's this African adage as it the strength of the broom lies not in the power of a single front, but in the resilience of its united front. And I feel that's what a sustainable village is about. Um, so what does the future hold, right? We're gonna continue to do the giant gods podcast. We actually should start like um, you know recording episode you know in the next couple of months. Um we have a different plan uh for what we want to do this year for the podcast.

Speaker 1: um in terms of like focusing more on the different career options outside of software engineering that many Django girls attendees you know go on to do. We you know we there was a time when it was a taboo to have a Django girls event. sorry, when it was a taboo to host a conference like a DjangoCon a PyCon and not have a Django Girls event. Um so we need to change that. We need to make sure that we're doing more events and reaching out so that It it's an amazing experience when attendees attend an event, but it's even more amazing when they can also be part of a conference and be part of a larger community. And that's what really helped me in my journey. Um for the tutorial, we're always looking for People to help us with tutorial, new languages, update the existing ones if anything has changed. And we'll be really trying to think of ways that we can, you know, have more recognition

Speaker 1: for of people who contribute to the community. There are many ways you can help. We're you know constantly looking for volunteers, we're constantly looking for We all constantly have tickets on GitHub that needs to be resolved. Um, you know, there's just so many ways. You can be a mentor or coach, you can volunteer your time, you can actually support us by being a patron or sponsor us. We're always on the lookout for like corporate sponsorship, patrons, uh, or you can just spread the word, share the, share the tutorial, share the podcast. You never know who in your network needs to hear and needs that push that they let it be the push that they need to to do what they want to do. Um and finally I just wanted to add this as a plug. Django Khan Africa is coming this year in November.

Speaker 1: Uh if you haven't heard, go on to the website, sign up, it's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be in um Tanzania. So if you have any questions, actually, you can ask. Um you would see Anna is Anna is a Django girl. So Anna, if you can hear me, just raise up your hand. So Anna is um our financial everything for Django Girls organization. But she's also one of the key organizers for Django Corn Africa. You can ask her any question as well. I also want to call on Claire. Claire, if you're there, raise your hand um so if you have any questions about the community as well find claire and she probably uh if you ask if you have any questions claire we always say she's like the bank of all our knowledge bees.

Speaker 1: Also, if you're interested in coming on the Django Girls podcast Leona should be there. Leona, raise up your hand if you can hear me. Please talk to Leona. We're looking, we're actually recording in a couple of weeks and we're looking for people um to come on the podcast um to tell their stories so thank you every everyone um for coming to this um Talk. I hope it's been informative. Feel free to reach out. Um, you know, those are my contact details. Um, yeah, I will take questions. I have some of this. Sorry, this went on too long Uh but I'm happy to take any questions if if they exist. And I have the team on ground as well who can field any questions that I don't have the answer to.

Speaker 2: Aisha, thank you very much. I think that's worth a big round of applause. Aisha, you talk impact. I really love that. That's very impressive. We have time for questions. So there's still two microphones to the right and to the left, and there's one walking around. Questions, please There's go to the microphone here on your right. There's a microphone.

Speaker 3: Hi, Isha. It was a great talk. Thank you so much. Um, I wanted to give um or I have a question on how someone who may be interested in Django Girls or you know someone who may want to get into web development were already in Django and we want to encourage them to start or join a Django Girls What should they know when they first start, or how can we help them when they finish to be the Django knot that they're aspiring to be?

Speaker 1: Thank you. That's that's kind of like a loaded question. Because really, after the event, there's a life after the event. Um, and you find that many people who attend the event actually need that support. And that has happened as a result of like organizations even as an organization I think about the trace people in the village um they provided job opportunities it's Very often you come to conferences and then they're like, oh, we're looking for experienced developers. But then there's this person who's come out from an event and who needs help. Who needs to put what they've learned in practice and need the opportunity to intern, you know, or join as a junior, right? So I think that's one of the ways that we can help provide more of those opportunities because at the end of the day, the senior engineers, senior developers all started out. junior I started from somewhere right so providing more of those opportunities would be super helpful.

Speaker 1: Um if you're new and you're trying to get into into the web development space, general girls will always say it's a nice fun way to start, but it doesn't end there um, you know, attending a jungles event or even just, you know, looking at the tutorial by yourself if it's not coming to your city. Or actually you don't actually have to have attended the event to actually organize one, right? Uh and to be part of one. So that really the ways I would I would you know recommend. Hope that answers your question.

Speaker 4: Is this on? Hello Aisha, it's Daniela here. I can see you. Nice to see you even if you can't see me.

Speaker 1: I know.

Speaker 4: Um Uh thank you very much for your thoughts on the village. Um towns and cities are important too because they bring a certain scale with them. How can we Develop towns and cities that still manage to have some of the values that you've talked about. In other words, how can we grow and develop in scale without losing those

Speaker 1: I think we need to. I think that 's a good idea. Um we want at the end of the day, we want a village, we want a town, we want cities that are big, that is big enough to accommodate everyone, but small enough to accommodate every individual need. I think that like as a huge community, there are many different, you know, like if I think about the Python community, for example, um, even though we have the broader Python community, and you would call that the maybe the town or the country, right? Um the villages are like the small groups that people can come together intimately for a purpose. So We always do not make things like jungles events more than 30 attendees and have a one-to-three ratio because it's not really about the numbers, it's more about the impact

Speaker 1: And you can do more when you can meet people at an individual level. Because even when you coach or you mentor, every single person is at different points of the tutorial throughout the day, right? Every person needs something different So creating an environment where you know pilot is they do small events, um, transcode do small events, general girls do small events, different meetup groups do small events that are intimate So making sure that the village that is close knit exists in cities and towns is how we literally continue to make sure that even the bigger cities are sustainable as well. That's that's my take.

Speaker 2: Thank you. There's one more question there. Yes.

Speaker 5: Uh hello. Thank you for the talk. Uh Your talk basically talked about uh the village and the village that you described is basically a global village. And it it really like comes off as a continuation of the uh previous question, like how can Django girls or any of our communities promote the local villages? Um

Speaker 1: if you see a gap as with anything open source, try and fill it in your local community. Like many times even for the events like it's literally somebody within that community or city that's like, oh, this doesn't exist here. We should bring it down here. There are many people who need it I think doing more of that and you know you don't even you don't even you don't have to have been a Django girl attendee to actually organize or you know, create an event, especially when you expert, when you're sorry, when you've been around for a while, when you've whether you're a mentor or a coach, um I've seen people do that with their companies, their small local companies, and do events within those small companies to make sure that, you know, they're locally, they're not just locally supporting and sponsoring.

Speaker 1: They're providing the people and the expertise to be there in person to mentor, you know, the up and coming, you know, people who are trying to make the to carry out change. Um I think we just always it's at an individual level we we all have a role to play Thank you.

Speaker 6: Yes. Thank you, Ayesha. So let's say if you know some people who use Python and Django, uh, but you wouldn't necessarily describe them as active members of Django. of the community or maybe they don't cons even maybe they don't even consider themselves as part of the community Do you have any ideas or strategies as how you could help someone open their eyes that they are actually a member of this community and that they could Get value from it themselves like you were saying before, but also um share their knowledge and their that their value to to the wider community

Speaker 1: Hmm, yeah. That's a tough question 'cause everyone is different and it depends on the person and their beliefs and Um and sometimes it's like it's such it could be such a big community or it could be overwhelming and people are like, yeah, I don't think anybody needs my help, right? Um many people who already are like Django nuts or pythonistas uh probably they probably do some sort of like um they would usually tend towards, you know, contributing to the language itself. Um, you know, like GitHub, you know, depending on the organization uh depending on the person. um and then some take next step and become like coaches. It's very it's a very packed question. I'm not even sure how to answer it. I think it really depends.

Speaker 1: I think them attending conferences like this, events like this you know, would open their eyes and that's why we always I mean the organizers always try to make sure there's a community focused talk in every keynote. Um and I think that helps open their eyes to see other ways that it could be be contributing that they didn't know about. Like I said, sometimes even just answering questions kindly or stack overflow is more than what any beginner, for example, could ask for. So they don't feel like they're asking a stupid question. Um yeah.

Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I think it's worth a great applause. Do I hear you? Yes, I do hear you. And uh since we're all at the conference right now. Some of us will eventually have to travel home. Maybe that's a good opportunity to listen to that podcast, the Django Girls podcast. I would appreciate it. Thank you very much indeed. And then