Wednesday, 9th, October, 2024, was Uganda’s Independence day.
We were celebrating 62 years of independence. This also happened to be the first day of the 2nd installment of Pyconug conference 2024. It was a very exciting day and alot of the Ugandan pythonistas and pythoneers were waiting in anticipation for this day. Pyconug had alot of remarkable sponsors this year; from international brands like Github, JetBrains and the Python Software Foundation to local brands like Africa’s talking platform and more.
One of the sponsors for this year’s pyconug conference was the BlackPythonDevs community. We were able to purchase up to 47 student tickets that would enable 47 students attend the conference. I’m happy to report that out of the 47 students that were sponsored, 22 students were able to attend the 5-day conference. Most of the students attended on the 4th and 5th day of the event, which was Saturday and Sunday respectively. I also noted that most of the students that attended where male and only a handful of female students could make it.
Throughout the 5 days of the pyconug conference, I was able to interact with the sponsored black python devs students and gathered their view on their experience so far. To most of the students, this was their first ever tech conference to attend. They were overwhelmed by the number of developers that attended, the talks that were given, the food that was served and the socializing events that took place among developers. It was a really thrilling experience for them.
On day-4 and day-5 of the conference, I had a short session with them before their lunch to share about BlackPythonDevs, who were their sponsors. I introduced to them what BlackPythonDevs is and I invited questions for those that had any. Most of the questions I received where around what “BlackPythonDevs” actually meant. Was it referring to a black python; in which case one of the students playfully suggested it be renamed to black mamba instead, what exactly was BlackPythonDevs. It’s when I understood that these students did not know the concept of being black. When I tried to point out that it was a community of python developers that identified as black, it spiraled up a lot of questions. Like; what does it mean to be black, are Africans black? How about North-Africans? How about the really light(yellow) skinned Khoi people? There were a lot of questions that I didn’t have the answers for.
I brought back the students to focus on what matters. We need to strive for unity so we shouldn’t focus on things that separate us. Skin color, hair texture, accent and more are all just variations of who we are as people, and they shouldn’t be the main focus. Once we were done with our short interaction, I was able to have a brief photo moment with the students that attended on various days.
Once the conference was done, some students were able to write up on their experience at their first ever python event sponsored by BlackPythonDevs. Here are some of the links to what the students expressed on their linkedIn platforms.
- Shakiran Nannyombi - Wraping up PyconUG 2024
- Wahid Kokole - Attending PyconUG
- Bryant Nuwe - Excited to have attended PyconUG
In conclusion, the students and I are grateful towards BlackPythonDevs for sponsoring these students’ experience and their first ever Pyconug conference. We do hope more opportunities like these will be availed to the students to have a successful journey in their tech career.
