Boldly Go, Building Worlds: Is there Room for me on the Bridge? with Dawn Wages

Star Trek made a promise to me that I grew up believing: the future would have room for everyone, and that the team we need to face that uncertain future together will look different from each other. Octavia Butler added color and friction to that promise, sharing a future that was written with specificity and honesty; and Black woman led. Speculative fiction, scifi and Afrofuturism are what first let me imagine myself in rooms I hadn't been invited into yet — and it shaped the aesthetic and the optimism and agency I still bring to my work today.

I've spent a decade plus building things in the Python community: as a conference organizer, maintainer, speaker, Chair of the Python Software Foundation Board, people manager, entrepreneur. Along the way I've learned that building a better future isn't just about imagining it. It's about doing the work in public, making room for the people who weren't handed a seat at the table, and staying accountable to the crew you're actually flying with.

This is a talk about what it takes to build worlds worth living in — as a queer woman of color, as an open source steward, as someone who still believes the promise Star Trek made us is worth fighting for. It's about mentorship, governance, and community infrastructure, and about the harder, more honest version of "boldly go" that marginalized folks have always had to practice: going first, so the next person doesn't have to go alone. And through it all, I still ask Is there room for me on the Bridge?

This talk was presented by Dawn Wages at DjangoCon US 2026 in Chicago, Illinois, USA
https://2026.djangocon.us/talks/keynote-monday/

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