python zimbabwe africa djangogirls django women in open source community

Trailer: Episode 7 with Anna Makarudze

Cheuk Ting Ho, Mariatta · Nov 21, 2024

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00:05 It's been a great change to

00:06 what I'm used to in Zimbabwe.

00:08 When you say, I want to buy a bed, you buy a bed that

00:11 is completely already assembled with a mattress.

00:13 But I was shocked to find out

00:15 the bed comes in a box and,

00:17 you have to, like, assemble everything.

00:18 I had to buy a drill.

00:20 I now have a screwdriver, and I have a hammer.

00:24 We don't have to mention the name, but

00:26 if we see, let's say, like, Swedish furniture,

00:28 we know you have to assemble it yourself.

00:30 You're just learning, and already you're contributing

00:34 back to the community, you're leading.

00:36 the Django Girls, you know,

00:38 I felt like a beginner.

00:40 I couldn't understand, like, most of

00:41 the things they were talking about.

00:44 I couldn't understand things that are

00:46 going on at DjangoCon

00:48 We traveled, like, 33 hours by road to get there.

00:51 There were other women who were,

00:52 like, almost my age or younger.

00:55 Then there were mature women who

00:56 were, like, older than me, almost.

00:58 Almost like the same age as my

01:00 mother, you know, who were learning to. Yeah.

01:03 Who were Learning.

01:03 Python and Django through

01:04 a Django Girls workshop.

01:06 I was surprised when I walked into the room

01:09 for the first time and I could count the

01:11 women who were there at the event.

01:13 And that's when I realized what Django Girls

01:15 means to the tech community globally, not just

01:19 for me as a Zimbabwean in Zimbabwe.

01:21 Hi, everyone.

01:22 My name is Anna Makarudze.

01:24 I'm the fundraising coordinator for Django Girls.

01:26 I'm excited to be here at PyPodcats.

01:29 So I'll be talking about my work with

01:31 Django Girls foundation, as well as my journey

01:34 and my work within the community.

Sneak Peek of our chat with Anna Makarudze, hosted by Mariatta Wijaya and Cheuk Ting Ho.

Since discovering Python and Django in 2015, Anna has been actively involved in the Django community. She helped organize PyCon Zimbabwe, and she has coached at Django Girls in Harare and Windhoek.

She served on the Board of Directors at Django Software Foundation for five years, and she is currently a Django Girls Foundation Trustee & Fundraising Coordinator.

Anna became aware of the lack of representation of women in tech industry, something that became more evident as she attended Django Under the Hood in 2016 where most of the attendees were white men, and only a few are women. That’s when she realized the importance of communities like Django Girls in supporting more women in the Django Community.

In this chat, Anna shared ways on how you can contribute and help support Django Girls+ Foundation.

Full episode is coming on November 27, 2024! Subscribe to our podcast now!

Get to know Anna Makarudze

Anna Makarudze

Anna Makarudze is a Software Engineer based in Harare. She has been working as the Django Girls Foundation Fundraising Coordinator since June 2017. She has also taken up the role of lead maintainer of the Django Girls website and resources since August 2020, when she became one of the members of the Board of Trustees for Django Girls Foundation. Anna is a former Django Software Foundation board member, having served on the DSF board for 5 years from 2018 to 2022 in the roles of Director, Vice President and President. She has organised PyCon Zimbabwe 2016/2017, DjangoCon Europe 2018, DjangoCon Africa 2023 and several Django Girls events in Harare, Masvingo, Heidelberg and Zanzibar. She has also spoken at many Python conferences and DjangoCons around the world.

Your hosts

Cheuk Ting Ho

Host

After having a career as a Data Scientist and Developer Advocate, Cheuk dedicated her work to the open-source community and working as a community manager at OpenSSF. She has co-founded Humble Data, a beginner Python workshop that has been happening around the world. She has served the EuroPython Society board for two years and is now a fellow and director of the Python Software Foundation.

Mariatta

Host

Mariatta is a Python Core Developer. In her free time, she contributes to open source, builds GitHub bots, fixes typos, and likes to tell you about Python's f-strings. As a public speaker, she has given her talks and keynotes wordwide.

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