Django Without Borders: A 10-Year Journey of Open Source Impact in Namibia with Ngazetungue Muheue

Speaker 1: Good day everyone. Today I'll be talking to you about Jungle Without Water, our 10 years journey of open source community in Namibia. My name is Gadetungwe Muhewe. I'm a software engineer for a company in Japan. I do remote job, but I'm based in Namibia. I'm a founder, co-founder and contributor of Django in Python Namibia. I'm an open source advocate. I participate in different open source projects, Ubuntu Summit or Ubuntu community, Python and Django community.

Speaker 1: And I'm one of the co-founder, I contributor of DjangoCon Africa and PyCon Africa. It's really both conference. The whole idea of PyCon Africa and DjangoCon Africa started in Namibia. after our first uh after our third or fourth conference. Then after the conference we decided that we have to start uh start with the Pan Africa conference Like other conference like JacobCon US, PyCon US. Then 2019 started with PyCon Africa in Ghana, Accra. 2023 Then Tanzania San Ziba for Jugokon, Africa. Okay, I'm from Namibia.

Speaker 1: Namibia is just a small country in uh Southern Africa Next to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Usuana, and Angola. We are about 3 million people. We are not a lot in Namibia. And the rest you can read it for yourself. I don't need to promote Namibia. It's okay. Good. Um, how will it be an open source community in 10 years? We started with the PyCon Namibia twenty fifteen. Actually it was the initiative of PyCon of University of Cardiff in UK and the University of Namibia. And after our first

Speaker 1: conference, we started with a Python Namibia That is a society that is now looking after everything they have that have to do with Python in Amoibia. And uh this is the society or the associations now that is uh organized that organized PyCon Namibia. And uh through under this uh society we created a different initiative that is um where we have in Django Namibia. We have Pinum Scholars, we have Pandita 's and any other initiative like kind of like AI robotics. And also we have Education and Day, that is one of our our programs that we work on at PyCon

Speaker 1: Namibia and Python Namibia. And we have a Django Namibia. Django Namibia is also part of the Python Namibia associations. And the one that uh helped us to create a jungle day, which became part of our PyCon Namibia. And we have different uh community projects that we came up with. Okay, I'll start off with Peganaibia. Actually we We are not a lot in Namibia and this number we we can we estimate that we got uh 5,000 and more than okay more than 5,000 participants And

Speaker 1: 50 of these are women. And also we created inclusive space for people to take part into our conference And we have got people from different uh marginalized communities. And this is the reason why we why we always have uh 50% women, because we do this on purpose. In most cases, if we see that uh maybe out of maybe forty people apply to give a talk We make sure that maybe ten of these or fifteen of these are women unless if they did not meet that uh criteria Okay, during PyConamia, we introduced what we call education anti.

Speaker 1: We are very much aggressive when it comes to this. This is part of our community. Actually, what is happening here is that this is a special day that is dedicated to students in the high schools. Our learners. What happened is this. We have a program called a Pynam Scholars. We spoke with different schools within Namibia and then we created like a branch of Python. Namibia society at those schools. Now during our conference they give us students to participate at our conference. Then the problem that we had before is that we use it to have like a normal three-day conference

Speaker 1: But at the end of the conference, all these students were not getting anything at the end of the like after we are done with the conference. Now we decided no, it's okay, it's better for us to have education and that is dedicated to high school learner and university then we can teach them the the basic of Python Django and other tech related tools or anything that they are interested in Then our goal is just to inspire the next generation of developers in Nibibia, provide students with the practical quoting skills expose learners to open source ADI and IOT and connect education with the white tech abd. Some of us will go through the same process.

Speaker 1: When I started with Python, I was a students Today I'm a developer. That's what we are trying to do with uh uh education at the at PyCon uh Namibia. These are learners that nobody participate at our conference. I know Lydia and uh Goodsey they've been part of these. I know at Jakob Malengo. uh secondary school. It's a different school. Some are from the coastal town of the country. They travel like more than 500 kilometers to come and participate at the conference. And uh we do have like uh people from different countries.

Speaker 1: This is uh what is the name of the lady? I forgot about her. The one from Czech Republic with the blue hair, I think is known in the Yeah , yeah, yeah. And also we have Vincent from Catif, yeah Jungle Day. Actually we because some of us we are into jungle And we had an issue whereby we have jungle girls at our conference, but it seems that we leave some part of our community which is awesome now. And they didn't like that. And we thought, no, why can't we have a Jaguar day where we can include both

Speaker 1: gender now? We have like uh girls and boys and whoever want to participate in the conference. And then we introduce Jangwand at our conference. And Jangwand actually we have like a workshop for Django girls, and at the same time we also have talks for Django developers now. so that for those people who are interested into Django itself, they can also give talks during a jungle day at PyCon Namibia. And also the me one of the reasons why also it we introduced in Jangwand at PyCon Namibia is that we try to avoid the issue of uh having maybe one sponsor sponsoring jungle day and at the same time sponsoring Pyconamibia.

Speaker 1: We don't want to exhaust our sponsors. It's better to get like sponsor once. And then from that we we see what we can do. Hmm. Okay, these are the uh Jago Diago Dei Jango Namibia website. This are the participants of Jung Our First Jaguar Day at Baikonamibia 2025 And after the conference, we came up with our own website for Django Namibia. If you were searching on Django Namibia, you can find the website. Yeah, I think time is a bit okay. Uh building open source without borders. Yes. We do have many projects that is happening now

Speaker 1: where most of our people are contributing to. We do have a white uh white animals tracking system that we are currently working on. Actually, what is happening here is that where I came from is the northwest part of Namibia. That is where I came from. We have the issue of wildlife and human conflict where um wild animals are roaming around but then they have that conflict with uh people because our area is not fence The white animals kills kill livestock and then they end up losing their life Because it's obvious if you give my goat, then I will deal with you. That's what they say. Okay?

Speaker 1: Now what happened is that we have also noticed that there is Now if you look at like 2014 and 2020, the number of these wild animals reduced. Which means that somewhere somehow people are killing these animals. But then there are those people who look after these white animals who are rangers now. But then if you ask them what happened, they don't have this status. And we tried to know, we we should try to come up with like uh a platform at least that will help these people to capture some of these data. so that in maybe in ten years they'll be able to know how many Robots, Springburg, Kudu, James

Speaker 1: or James Burg, which is Orix now in this case was key in this time. And then what we did first we came up with the database This one it this one was necessary because we wanted to start off with the first phase with of rangers and members. Rangers are those people who look after white animals And member are those community members now who are the owner of livestock. Now we we are done with this database. And um we 'll be able to we to we'll be able to get the the member details, the ranges And also the the the white animals that the one that we have within our boundary

Speaker 1: now. Yeah. What are the benefits now of having this wildlife conversation uh conservation? Anti-poaching support because what happened is that we With this system we'll be able also to capture people who are committing some of this crime because even if white animals uh kill your animals Kill your livestock or your goat and you kill that uh maybe elephant or but still you are doing illegal stuff. It's not allowed And then we have to with this system we'll be able also to have like uh maybe a different water point. We are going to have like different cameras or devices that we are trying to

Speaker 1: implement and put it in some water went so that they can also capture us because most of these illegal activity happened at the water went and they will be able to capture those people who are Doing some of this illegal stuff at the water wind. And we have a local research and education. A local research and education is that we if we have these data we'll be able to provide students in different universities also to to have a data of different uh animals at those those areas and we we are going to also to empower um community community member And uh by providing jobs because now for now they will be they will be able to go out there, they have the system, they have an app, they can also capture this number of

Speaker 1: animals that they That they made halfway because normally if you go out there you'll be able to record that and send them to to the range and say that I made maybe five Akutus and now that's how they count animals Hmm okay Django with how Django going to help us with this with uh uh data storage, reporting, and also um We'll be able to also to open the whole project to the community outside there to contribute to it so that we can also improve the system. Okay, um now we want you to help us to contribute to the Django website. And also at the same time, we want you also to contribute to contribute to Python Amibia

Speaker 1: website That is now that is where we going to find where you are going to find the project that I was talking about. It will be under the the GitHub account of Django Namibia uh Python Namibia and also Jumbo Namibia, both. This is a personal project. This is more of about uh I have a football club at the village And we I've also come up with a system. I think I'm going to open source the whole project so that people can also help me to contribute to this Um I think we when it comes to here it's just that we are a small community that is trying to create bigger things, create different projects

Speaker 1: and also to keep the the community alive, the Python Amymia and I just need you to contribute to open source and also help us to create a next generation of quotas. Because actually at this stage some of us we are getting old now and I have started these things f since twenty fifteen And I'm still here and I'm powered to go down now. I think we need you to support us at least to have more projects. And also to create documentation, especially the documentation. We need documentation to most of our project and uh at least maybe in two or five years. Our young one

Speaker 1: will be able to use some of this documentation. I thank you. Um

Speaker 2: thank you Gadetungwe have uh eight minutes for questions. Um

Speaker 1: I thought

Speaker 2: I'm sorry if I read you wrong.

Speaker 1: I thought I just I don't have time even for questions. That's why I was rushing like this. Um

Speaker 2: did you have anything else you wanted to say first? No, it's okay. Um

Speaker 1: otherwise I'm going to just ask questions then I will answer.

Speaker 2: Any questions?

Speaker 3: I have a question that maybe it seems obvious and simple, but um how what do you feel like are the best ways that folks in other countries can contribute to what is happening locally in your context. Uh

Speaker 1: when it comes to the project or the now the community? Okay, with the With the community itself, we okay when it comes to even PyCon Namibia, we accommodate everyone to organize our conference. That is one way of contributing to it. Whether you want to work on the website or maybe any other things that you feel like we are lacking, you can also assist us on that. We are open. Most of our organizers are from different parts of the world. When it comes to the project, the project you need to understand. The local people. Uh

Speaker 1: especially when it comes to like in Namibia we Soft, kind of soft people, I can put it that way, in such a way that sometimes even if they don't want something, they will just keep quiet. They know that you are doing wrong, but they are just quiet. We are not that aggressive. You need to understand them so that that's the only way that you work with them. But then if you coming there and you are saying that I'm going to work on this, sometimes they'll just sit and look at it like this and say that. Okay, let's wait and see. Maybe he he will finish that.

Speaker 1: But it's better for uh for you to understand the the our behavior, the way we behave. Because we are coming from different parts of the of the of the country, especially where I came from. The culture is totally different from the northern part of the country or the eastern part of the countries. And most of our people they are more marginalized. They don't understand most of the things that you are talking about. Especially even this project that I'm talking about currently now It took me a year to convince my own people. Imagine someone from the same house He's a ranger. He do most of this stuff on paper, but when you are telling him that I'm going to create this proje uh

Speaker 1: system to help you so that you can use paperwork This person don't understand this. You need to convince them to work with them. It's not that they don't want, they don't understand. Yeah, you don't understand some of the things. But it's very easy to to work with them as long as if you come to them and tell them that we are going to do this MPNC uh uh you can work with them. And also sometimes with the project itself, you are let's say you are contributing the project to the project, you are not going to deal with them. It's you and the project and the developers. Yeah.

Speaker 4: I'm curious with the uh education days and the young people at the conferences. Do they show up excited about doing software development or is that something you have to build for them?

Speaker 1: They show up because it's one of the because that day it's uh It's for learners and students. That is number one. And we decided to take the we we don't host that educational day at the main venue of the conference We took it to the like uh those under preverage schools in our township Then what happened is that we get people from the local community, a student from local community, and we bring to this conference. And what happened is this. During that Etukeshina day, you are going to have like a different maybe game. You know young people are

Speaker 1: interested in gaming You have like devices. That's let's say you are talking about the robots. Some of those some of our people they never seen the robots. And for them if they see something that hard way working and it's they are more already they are interested on that. And also you teach them like the basic Python. Uh as long as you explain to them that no, I have uh let's say a Facebook, the it was built with jungle and uh At least they will start questioning now how did you guys come up with this? This code and and you have this application that is working. People are communicating from different parts of the world. Our people they are more curious when it comes to this.

Speaker 1: And sometimes when you are giving presentation to them, you must expect a lot of questions that you feel like they are not necessary, but They want to know what you are talking about. But if let's say for Pycon Arabia, maybe you decide to give a talk there and you want maybe to participate in the education and if you have those projects that involve divisors, I would advise you maybe to take it because they want to see some of these things with your own eyes Talking like this sometimes uh it's okay, but uh yeah. Uh

Speaker 2: we have time for maybe one more question.

Speaker 5: Um yeah, so I remember uh this year as PyCon Namibia, um you guys had high school students during the conference. And one moment that sticks out to me is there was a little high school girl. who got very emotional at the end of the conference and thanked everyone, the organizers, everyone for putting together the conference because she just felt like she had found something that she could move forward with in her life and career. And I was curious what do you guys as the PyCon Namibia organizers do to maintain that momentum? Because obviously when the conference ends, she doesn't have anywhere else to experiment with Python and everything. So what do you guys do to help sustain that level of interest in someone who's in high school?

Speaker 1: Yeah, you know one thing that we did is that if you look at it, uh if you remember After what's it the last day of the conference, we gave away the banner for the conference. And mostly what we normally do is that If there is something at their school that have to do with Python, it's like they are always motivated that in our lab we have something from the Python community. Now what they normally do, their teacher, what they do is that they always talk to us and say that we want to have like a meetup. Please assist us with the resources. The resources is us going to them, talk to them

Speaker 1: Is us giving like maybe we have we maybe we got books, we sent them to school. It depends now And some schools used to have like events. Then we can go there and talk about maybe Python. That's how it works But we 've been doing well because we started this 2016 like a Pynam Scholars because the whole project is called a Pynam Scholars. Yeah, we started this 2016 and we have we had different schools. Some of us gone through the same process and we are here and We do have people in like in China who are doing maybe doctor nursing and all this. They're going through the same process.

Speaker 1: It 's but it's not easy. You are dealing with uh people that belongs to other people. Sometimes you you invite these tune in And you have to convince the parents. Sometimes the imagine now this year I I applied to Bacon Africa, in South Africa, for one student for more feast pay. I had to convince the parent. Still there's no green light. It's very d the lady's young, I understand. And she was part of Bacon Namibia, but to go to South Africa, uh, the parents don't understand that. He needs to trust me.

Speaker 1: And it's very difficult to convince our people. That's one thing that is like you find like some students they take part in our conference. But after a year they are not part of it. Because sometimes parents they do not want their kids. They feel like no, you you you go to this event, you you missed like a week uh with your schoolwork then next day you are not going to go to that event. But now you find like after maybe high school, you find maybe a student coming back to to us saying that, no, I'm done with high school, maybe now I can start taking part in but still we accommodate them. They are part of us. Yeah. And the good thing also is that uh we involve them into organizing the conference

Speaker 1: Not at the high level, but when it comes to the maybe going out there, we have flyer, they can post it around the city or the town. These are like they can't do anything. They can't deal with international people, but at least putting a flyer around the the city it's it's easy. It's yeah. Those are their their contributions. Even if they are not doing other those technical stuff, but at least they contribute in that way.

Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Gadetungwe. That is all the time we have. Please give him another round.