Welcome to PyPodcats for our first episode of
2025 in the Hidden Figures of Python series.
The purpose of this podcast, as you
might know, is to highlight voices from
underrepresented group members of the Python community.
Today we have a special guest,
Mojdeh, who just joined our organizing
She's joining our organizing group.
And today's podcast is a little bit about
short recap of 2024, introducing Mojdeh and letting
you know what are our plans for 2025.
And also if you want to support
the podcast, how can you do that?
We are now five organizers and we did want to
have this one episode like we did last year.
Our first episode was with all the hosts
in one, kicking it off and everything.
But it turned out to be impossible to get all the five of
us in one time zone in one room at the same time.
We are so distributed all over the world.
So today is just Georgi, me, and Mojdeh.
We can start with a short round of introduction.
Maybe some.
Maybe some of you still remember
Georgi from the previous episodes.
Georgi, do you want to say what
are you up to these days?
Who are you these days?
Are you the same person like last year
or have you changed a little bit?
Yep, I still have my nose, my eyes and
my mouth and still doing the same thing.
One of the Directors for PSF and this year I pick up.
I think actually last year I picked up
a new role as the Treasurer too.
Actually, both me and Tereza, we are leading
the Diversity and Inclusion workgroup this year.
So that's something new on our side.
So Tereza, you want to tell everyone a little
bit about what you are doing this year?
Yeah, I guess for me a lot of things have changed.
I took a break from the Code of Conduct work
group and I also am experimenting with an unconventional, let's
say, work path, so to say I'm trying to become,
I'm working this year as a freelancer compared to the usual
9 to 5, which is hard because I live in Germany
and Germany is not a country that encourages freelancing.
So for a person that does not like
to do paperwork, this is a especially hard.
That is true.
Paperwork is kind of tough.
Yeah.
So I'm freelancing as a Data Career
Coach, in case people are wondering.
Right.
I actually took a break this year too.
I'm just really, really tired and I feel like I really
needed a break and sort things out and do some cool
projects which I'm not going to review right now.
Until when it's out, then we can talk about it.
But you know what?
We should talk more about Mojdeh
today because she is our new member.
And there's a lot about Mojdeh
that we should actually know.
So should we call you Moj or Mojdeh?
As you wish.
My close friends call me Moj, but.
And my full name is Mojdeh, so.
And Mojdeh sometimes is difficult, so Moj is fine.
Okay, Mojdeh, you could just tell
us a little bit about yourself.
Yeah, I am really happy to be
part of PyPodcats team this year.
So I'm originally from Iran.
I'm Iranian, I'm living in Paris and I'm 37.
Getting close to 40.
Then what about me?
I have a Bachelor in Electrical Electronics, master in
Computer Vision and PhD in Computer Vision and currently I'm working
as a data scientist project manager in Saint-Gobain.
And I love the community, so I try to
be part of the community whenever I can.
You are also part of the Code of
Conduct workgroup with The PSF, right?
Yes, I am part of the Code
of Conduct and thank you, Tereza.
You introduced me to the work group.
I think it's been two years now and
yeah, I'm still working with the work group.
I know what Saint-Gobain does, but maybe you can
actually talk a little bit because I have this
impression that they only do glasses, windows and glass.
So I was like, are you doing windows
and glass. Data about windows and glass?
Yeah.
So this year is the 360 anniversary of
Saint-Gobain and Saint-Gobain is umbrella that they doing.
They produce glass, originally started with that.
But any other construction materials.
As a data scientist, any projects for any other
business of Saint-Gobain that they require analysis
of their data or machine learning model.
So it can be for the glass furnace, it
can be for distribution, e commerce, you name.
Whoa, interesting.
So most.
There is one thing that I'm curious about a little bit.
So you said you are from Iran.
I think all of us here are not from where we live.
So we're from another place.
How did you get to Europe or
why did you come to Europe?
That's a nice question.
So I was fortunate enough to get a
scholarship and this scholarship I think still exists.
It's called Erasmus Mundus Scholarship for Master
program and they provide specific scholarship for
For any students outside of Europe.
So I was lucky enough to get into one program
and the program is an amazing program because it allows
you to travel through different countries and different universities and
so you get to make new friends and then if
you're lucky, you get to stay and continue for thesis.
I remember The Erasmus program.
When I was doing my PhD in Hannover, it was.
I knew about Erasmus as the Erasmus parties.
So there were a lot of parties.
Yeah, obviously there are, but you have to study too.
So tell me a little bit about how you get to start.
Start to get involved with Python, the
language or even like the Python community.
Yeah, so I joined Euro SciPy conference back in 2016.
So and then yeah, I started really using Python
from then and then getting to know the community
and this conference was a great opportunity to meet
a lot of open source contributors that they were
also teaching introduction to Python and scientific Python packages.
So since then I got to know the community and
then I helped a couple of years after helping organizing
the same conference and then we had a chance to
have JupyterCon in Paris a couple of years ago.
So we helped organizing JupyterCon and then from there, yes,
I was part of the community and trying to help.
And also I think within Euro SciPy I
got to know about PyLadies and later on
I became a member of PyLadies Paris.
So that was really nice.
Which year was that?
So this was 2020.
2020.
Oh wow.
I'm actually really curious.
I think for a lot of people it's not really
clear what does Python have to do with glass?
I'm really looking through my window right now.
I don't see any Python code, hidden messages.
Maybe in the future you will have like
a screen as a glass and then.
Is that what you're working on?
Unfortunately, no, no, not yet. Not yet.
No, no, no, it's.
I think it's. It can happen.
I think it's the life of a lot of people
actually currently in tech and I mean in the community
that yes, you have your carreer that is in industry
and then you also like the community.
So you try to be active in.
But your company, where you're working, your
institute is using Python for research or.
Sure, sure.
We have, I think we have research centers,
we have data science team, we have.
Yeah, we do.
We also do a lot of internal development.
For instance, I mentioned one that. Yeah.
How to optimize the energy consumption,
how to reduce the CO2 footprint.
So these are things that we do.
I think this is interesting because most of the
time when we are in our little bubbles in
tech, we usually only interact with people that build
software and very few people sometimes you meet that
are coming from a hardware also producing hardware industry
and that's a little bit more manufacturing and so
it's always interesting to see the use cases.
Sometimes I think we also have guests who actually
fiddle with more on like the IoT side.
And it's also interesting because these are
things that it's not commonly talked about.
We are usually talk mostly about the data,
talking about the language and not really about
something else that Python can be used for.
So that is why it's actually very
interesting to know more about that.
But I have another question to ask
you, which is more about PyLadies Paris.
I mean, not many people actually
knew that I'm French, but.
I'm French, but I live in Netherlands and I've
never actually been to any PyLadies Paris event.
Oh, we have to invite you.
When is the next time that
you're planning to travel to Paris?
Well, I actually do go to France quite often,
going back like a few times a year. Yeah.
So tell me a little bit more.
Like, how often does the PyLadies Paris events
go on and what do you do?
Yeah.
So the chapter existed way before I joined.
And so I think during COVID the organizers
organized a couple of online events and I
joined just at 2020, just after Covid.
And since then we started with as two organizers,
then we became three and now we are five.
So we are happy.
Yes.
And so we try to have meetup every other month
and also sometimes workshop for contributing to open source.
So we try to mix these two
together and obviously trying to have speakers,
female speakers or from underrepresented groups and.
Yeah, talks about Python.
Oh, something new that we
started doing since last year.
We try to have lighting talks.
So we try to encourage the audience
that participate and come talk for three
minutes is still, you know, growing.
But we do see a couple of attendees that
are comfortable enough to present a lighting talk.
So that's nice to see.
Well, that's actually a great idea.
I think I remember recently I
went to this PyCon Taiwan. They had this.
I mean, most PyCon had lightning
talks, but they're a little unique.
They came out with the idea of like doing a countdown.
So when it's like almost time,
you have like 10 seconds left.
Everyone from the audience would go, 10, 9, 8.
And it was so funny because it just makes
everybody go like, oh, no, no, no, no.
And then just speed up and.
And do really funny things.
But I guess it's not going to work, probably for PyLadies,
because we want them to have the courage to come up
and to just at least try to speak or show or
talk a little bit about what they're doing.
That's why I think skipping
the countdown will be better.
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
We are still searching to how to encourage
our participants to be more active and I
think hopefully we will figure it out.
But yeah, I'm going to get in touch, Georgi,
to invite you for episode of PyLadiesParis.
Okay.
I will be happy to look forward to it.
So what are you currently working on?
Oh like projects or things?
My own project at work.
I'm busy with work and stuff. Yes.
So and then I'm reading this book that I'm
soon going to finish and I want to make
one page or two page summary of it.
You know, just words or sentence.
So that's my current project.
Yeah, I guess that's it.
I'm not doing other stuff.
Which book are you reading?
I think the name is that Think Again.
So I'm reading Think Again. Yeah.
Thanks Tereza.
You recommended it.
It's a book, Georgi, about that we
should change our mind more often.
I was just talking with my partner recently about that.
The only time we could expand and change
is to get out of our comfort zone.
And that is a change.
And a lot of times we are so comfortable with the regular
thing like what we are used to and making that change is
kind of like fear of what we are not expecting.
I think we are also kind of
like very strong culture of being right.
Yes.
And that's like very uncomfortable to accept that
you might be wrong and just to accept
that you don't know everything about everything and
be vulnerable out there with that.
So I think that's kind of setting up us
for not wanting to take risks sometimes without ego.
I think personally that will be the kind
of the new future where people will learn
to accept that they are not the best.
Because not even leaders needs to know everything.
I mean no one knows any everything.
You don't, you have all the language models.
You don't need to know everything anymore.
Yeah, exactly.
I wanted to say that it still is important
that even if you hear it from LLM or
read it from LLM, you question it.
So I mean the, the debate is old.
Like old in a sense.
I think when we were in school it was Wikipedia.
They were saying don't do your homework.
Copying from Wikipedia.
Because it wasn't.
Because it's like the easy way out.
It was most of the time because it's
a human built encyclopedia and it's prone to
subjectivity and it might not be objective sometimes.
And I think that's the same.
The LLMs are trained on public data
that people are producing and sometimes that's
also wrong or the inferences are wrong.
It does not.
I mean, happily, you know, the problem that we still have
to think about stuff doesn't go away, which means that if
we do that, it's good for our brain health.
Otherwise, if we would have everything done for our
brain and our brain doesn't have to do anything
anymore, we would grow old very fast.
Totally.
Yeah.
And denial at 6, at 40,
you're already like, I don't know.
I don't know if you've seen a lot of
cartoons already showing this kind of jokes where they
are saying, like, people in the future will not
know how to think because they'll just get the
LLMs to give them replies for everything.
Yeah, no, but I saw the news about like
a high school kid that finished high school with
magna cum laude and then sued the high school
because she didn't know how to read and write.
Oh, okay.
So, yeah. Wow.
To that level, I'm surprised with like good grades.
Right.
So, yeah.
I wanted to ask Moj, coming back to is,
what do you do besides python events and work?
Do you have any fun hobbies or not so fun hobbies?
Is there anything that you do that
you'd like to share with the audience?
I don't know if you can call
it fun, but for me it's fun.
I like to go to dance
and Zumba classes and really it's.
Is the time that I can. Yes. Let it go.
You know, it's energetic.
It's not like yoga.
I know that I should do yoga more because
that's another way of letting it go yet.
Yeah, Zumba dances, dance classes is really my
favorite session and I try to do.
To go there once, one hour or two hours a week.
I personally feel that yoga is
a little too slow for me.
So I do, I do Pilates.
Any one of you listening here, if you
don't know, actually Tereza is teaching yoga.
Yes, that was, that was the thing that I did last year.
I did a teacher training.
But that's why I was going to say that the yoga that I
teach is kind of more like a workout most of the time.
So because it's functional yoga and it has
a lot of like about strength and mobility.
So it doesn't really feel like stretchy,
stretchy.
Yeah.
I did a lot of pilates before and now that I'm
trying some yoga session, it's really hard because the, you know,
the way that you breathe is not the same and I
keep confusing between the two when I'm in yoga session.
And that's the challenge right now.
Actually, I'm also starting to work
a little bit on, like, mobility.
And a new sport that I picked
up was called the rope flow.
So it's like using the rope to just
fiddling around with it, and it kind of,
like, help with the spine and the arms.
So, yeah, it's like, I got to work more with mobility.
That moves me to learn about road flow, I
guess it's like we are learning many different things.
Like, you said most.
You said, like, oh, you started with Pilates,
and then you did a bit of yoga,
and then now you're doing, like, Zumba.
And then, Tereza, you're doing, like, yoga,
but the yoga with something new.
So things are always evolving.
And I used to do capoeira, so.
I mean, yeah, I used to do
Muay Thai until I got injured.
Oh, yeah.
What?
We can all kick ass. Good.
At least we can all kick ass.
Yeah.
So is there any projects like you've been
wanting to do or you plan to do
in future, like, in the next few years?
I do really like to continue organizing
the workshop session for PyLadies, because the
audience, I mean, we get very.
Maybe 10 to 15 attendees, but I think
it helps a lot, especially the carrier changes.
So, for instance, if they come to the workshop or
we start learning how to contribute to open source and
also meet the community, it helps a lot.
So that's something that I want to do
more this year and maybe the years after.
And then personal project I won
a while back when I was.
Maybe five or 10 years ago.
Five is not.
More like 10 years ago, I was painting,
so I want to go back to painting.
So, yeah, I want to start doing that.
And see, I already have some ideas what I want to do.
It's more like, you know, drawing a map
of Iran and also trying to keep.
Be mindful of all the activities and political things
that has happened in the past 10 years and
trying to cover that in this one map.
So it's a big project, and I want.
I want to do that.
Yeah, that sounds really exciting.
Talking about history, is there any episode that you
particularly like from last year, from the PyPodcats?
I mean, the episode that stays a lot in my mind
is the one with Vicky, so I really like that. Yeah.
And I also like the one that I.
Maybe I.
I'm sorry if I mispronounce her name.
Was it Isabel from Real Python?
Joanna.
Joanna. Sorry, it was Joanna. I'm sorry. Yes.
Joanna from Real Python. Yeah. Yes.
Yeah, yeah. Because I.
I think that was also really nice
because it Was for me, she's. She.
I didn't know her before the podcast
and I was like, whoa, really?
I get to know a new person. That was.
Yeah, that was really nice.
And maybe it's my fault that I didn't
know her, but that was really nice.
I also didn't know her before the podcast.
This is something that.
The reason why we are doing this, it's because
we know here and there among ourselves, we know
people that is doing amazing work and they have
been quiet for a long time.
And I guess most female usually feel like
what they do is not that big.
So they're just like, well, we don't think we
are good enough to just talk about it.
So this podcast is the best way to talk more
about these people and let people know who they are.
Yes.
And also, Joanna just won
the Community Service award recently.
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah.
And also, I mean, I remember
also another episode with Jessica. She was,
I mean she is inspiring.
I mean, I watched that episode, so. Whoa.
I mean, that's amazing.
Yeah, that was an amazing episode as well.
Yeah, I'm glad that it really inspired.
It's kind of a feedback that what we need.
I mean, soon you are part of us now.
So soon you'll be asking around
like, what feedback do you get?
What do you want to hear more or things like that?
I think if anybody wants to get a
whole more comprehensive a overview of what happened
last year in PyPodcats, Mariatta wrote a blog
post about it which is on our website.
And you can see you can have in one place
links to all the episodes and you can catch up
to all the seven guests that we had last year.
This year we are also planning to do.
We are planning to do eight episodes or so.
Yeah, we'll continue to work on all the
episodes and there'll be a lot more new
faces that you've never heard before.
And I think Cheuk has also written another
blog post about our plans for the 2025.
Apart from that, we have also set
up a new Open Collective account on.
The platform that is for figuring out if you
want to support the podcast and fund us, because
I think this year we are not,
so last year we were funded
by The PSF, which was amazing.
And this year we probably won't.
So that's why we are reaching to the community.
If you want to contribute, we
have an Open Collective.
And you can see in the also in the
in the kickoff blog post how to do that.
And also on our website we will post a link as well.
Yep.
You can actually check out on pypodcats.live.
That's where our website and
all the information will be.
I mean it is quite surprising, I think we.
There's a lot of tooling going on
running a podcast that is so distributed. Right.
So yeah, we need like, we need a
calendar system that makes it easier, otherwise we
would have insane amount of messages.
We need a streaming platform, we need for
subtitles, something for video editing, social media platform.
And in the end, all of them, each of them is not
like a lot of money, but somehow they all add up.
None of them comes free.
No.
None of them comes in the email
account and the name in the DNS.
The namespace and also what you donate.
It's not going to be our salary, so
we are still going to be volunteers.
And sometimes we also had it like if our guest
does not actually have access to a good technical setup.
We did send microphone or headphones, so.
We do support them technically.
I want to say that everything is transparent
and I think you can also read about
the expenses in the blog post.
So it's.
We try to be as transparent as
it can be, which is great sometimes.
Yeah, I mean sometimes we might forget something,
but usually we will be as transparent as. As we can.
Yeah.
I mean it's also interesting if anybody's ever interested in
running their own podcast to see a little bit what
would be the costs behind it to understand a little
bit what kind of finances they need to put down
and what kind of tools are out there.
I was interviewed by one of podcast in Taiwan
last year and they were talking about the PyPodcats
and they thought that we are like a whole
team of like 10 or 15 people.
No, it's just Georgi working a lot.
Mariatta is also working.
So what you see is what you get.
There's only the four or five of us now.
There's nothing more.
So yeah.
So if you want to have all of this information, it's
on, on our blog site and today we are
eeally happy to have this session to introduce
Mojdeh and to tell you about last year
a little bit, but very a little bit and also
a little bit more about the outlook for next year.
And we already have the plan for the first
recording this month, which will probably drop next month.
As we said, we are not 20 - 100 people.
But you have to subscribe and stay tuned.
And support us on the Open Collective platform
and follow Mojdeh
on all the platforms.
If you want to talk about PyLadies Paris, or you are
in Paris and you have not attended the PyLadies meetup.
Yes.
Please knock on the door at Mojdeh's email or message.
Yes.
Thank you for having me and really
excited to work with you this year.
Yeah.
And thank you so much, everyone, for listening.
Catch you next episode.
Yes.
Bye.