The Announcement

I only saw Django Conferences happening in European and American countries. From the content and updates shared on X and by speakers/attendees, I realized that these events had serious content to share. I envied that.

This right here, the X(tweet 😂) on May 10th.

I was happy and exited! well, mainly because it’s something I could afford to attend and it was closer to home, so less travel preparations were needed.

Call For Proposals?

I had already spoken at a couple of events before, but this was a tough one. I knew the review for Proposals was different here, and they had to select the best of the best to speak at DjangoCon Africa(I think ✌️).

I wanted to submit my proposal, so I started, battled procrastination and Imposter Syndrome on this. Once I submitted, I was pretty sure mine would get no where 😂. On September 21st, I got an email from DjangoCon Africa organizers: “We’d like you to present your Building Authentication APIs With Django workshop at DjangoCon Africa”

This was a major milestone for me, it was going to be my first time having a workshop(I normally have talks), my first time speaking at an international event that’s outside Kenya and probably the first time doing a session on Django.

The Conference Boy! This was the conf of conferences I’ve ever attended. The preparations from the speakers, organizers were top notch. No one came to play.

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All sessions and workshops were amazing to be honest, I learnt a lot from them, got to know tools that would potentially make my developer experience better. Lemme share some:

https://2023.djangocon.africa/schedules/

  • From Idea to Production — Honza & Flavio (This short talk was very funny 😂😂) Python Debugging: Techniques and Tools — Vuyisile Ndlovu
  • A Tale from the Trenches — How Django Helped Umuzi Survive Covid — Sheena O’Connell
  • Being a Django Developer — Mark Smith (Mark’s Keynote made a lot of sense)
  • Growing your Tech Career in Open Source — Ruth Ikegah
  • Navigating the Open-Source World as a Minority — Anna Makarudze (Anna’s talk was an eye opener)
  • Pushing Django to Its Limits and Beyond! — Velda Kiara
  • Django security for novices — Ronald Maravanyika(I loved Ronald’s presentation style, so calm and took his time to deliver the content)
  • Effective Strategies for Disability Inclusion in Open Source Communities — Brayan Kai (Well Brayan made it clear on the importance of making our developer communities inclusive ❤️)
  • QuerySet Optimization Techniques in Django — Atieno Ouma
  • Lightning Talk on Black Python Devs — Velda Kiara (I was very much interested in this)

PS

I spent at least 5 weeks after the conference updating my codebase, following recommendations and tips I got from interacting with developers then. This was the best toughest times ever as a developer 😂😂 IYKYK

My Workshop

My workshop was on building Authentication APIs using Django. Of course, I was well prepared, or not 😂.

When pitching my workshop at the main conference hall, I made it clear that the session was a beginner-friendly one, and that the workshop room was full. It was my first demo.ing to Django Girls. A new experience unlocked.

With the help of my colleagues(Velda, Erick, Atieno, Brayan, and Hope, amongst others) I led the participants in creating virtual environments, Django & Django Rest installations and configurations. Unfortunately, time ran out but we spent ample time explaining to the audience the setup process and how it would help create Authentication APIs.

Best experience ever ❤️

What Next?

Keep building solutions using Django, it’s becoming an interesting experience, and I would love to share it publicly.

Django is one of the main stacks I use for work, alongside React, React Native, and NodeJS. I am not for debating which is best here, but rather what I can use to give an amazing user experience to people using the solutions created.

Thank you So Much, DjangoCon Africa and PyCon Tanzania, for creating a permanent memory ❤️.