Transcript: Django Community - Anna Makarudze

Hi, welcome to another episode of Django chat podcast on the Django web framework. I'm Will

Vincent joined by Carlton Gibson. Hello, Carlton. And we're very pleased to have Anna Makarudze

join us, who is president of the Django Software Foundation. Welcome.

Thank you, Will. Thank you, Carlton.

Well, Anna, we've worked together the last three years on the Django Software Foundation

board, but you've been on there much longer. So maybe I'll throw it over to you. What's

your background? How'd you get into programming Django? And then we've got lots of questions

to ask you.

All right. Thank you. So I've always wanted to be a software engineer ever since high

school. So I actually started coding in high school. And I went on to study a degree in

computer science at Midland State University.

So I actually have a computer science background.

I know there's always charter awards.

That's a rarity.

Yeah.

With a CS degree.

So I'm actually one of those.

I decided to mix and match my career.

So when I, after I graduated, I worked in the telecoms industry, but before that, I

had also done some systems admin in a university setup.

And then I went also into consulting, doing project management for a telecoms project in Mozambique.

And then I later decided to learn programming after the first five years of my career.

So I actually started learning Python programming in 2015 after my master's in strategic management.

That's when I decided to learn programming in Python and then started working with Django in late 2015 and 2016.

That's when I joined the Django community.

But I have a computer science degree.

I started programming in high school through college, but never went as a programmer after college until 2016.

Wow. Can I ask what the languages were that you were using in high school and college?

In high school, I think we used, I remember we had D-Base 3.

I think it was the database package we were using in BASIC when I was doing my O-Level.

And then A-Level, we used Visual BASIC 6.0.

We also did a little bit of Pascal back then.

And then in college, we did C, C++, Visual Basic, and Java.

I think by the time we went into college, we were no longer using Pascal in college, if I remember well.

Those are the ones that I remember.

So what was it like switching to Python then after those ones?

Actually, Python was, I could say, an easy breeze for me.

It was simple.

It's English language, like syntax is very simple,

and the indentation, no semicolons or braces to indicate a loop.

So I really loved Python.

I think it's the language that I found the easiest of them all,

and I guess that's why I sticked to it and made it my main language.

So with that timing, I recall seeing, I mean, you popped up, I guess, right when you started with Python.

You got involved right away with PyCon events and Django Girls and all the rest, right?

You didn't waste any time getting involved.

Yes, and I owe that to a friend of mine from here, Humphrey Butow.

He learned Python after doing some research on the Python communities and how they were working.

so he had this vision of starting a community in Zimbabwe

and for that to happen

we did have a lot of support from our own Zimbabwean business environment

and we're also new programmers

and new to the language

so he's the one who introduced me to PyCon Namibia

and Jungle Girls Findog

we attended the 2016 version of it

so we could organize our own events

i think it's 2016 and also that's when i first got involved with the community and then after that i

was always attending conferences or speaking at conferences or you know doing some jungle girls

event but getting involved with the community i think it's something that i all to i'm free i

didn't even know they say i think it's a jungle community or a python community else anyway

in the world so yeah that's how i got involved because i saw you both at um i think jangakon

florence you came and gave a talk on the first pike on zimbabwe yes i just remember you coming

explaining about the the python community in zimbabwe and and you know the the python namibia

and all that so um can you tell us a bit more about the the community there and like is is it

big is it small is it so i think now we have a lot of python programmers in zimbabwe just that

we haven't been meeting in a while uh but uh when we started it was actually small and uh there were

a few programmers and we managed to organize uh pycode zimbabwe with the help of uh the dsf

community mostly because we had to run a crowdfunding campaign uh daniele procedure was

uh very instrumental in that we had also met luke uh from netherlands he was also

very helpful because we used the command that he went for at the time one percent club to do

the campaign and then we had a lot of support from the jungle community itself uh to run the

campaign and uh for the first few years 2016 2017 after 2018 we managed to have uh two pycons

trip icons in zimbabwe and also i tried to run a pilot is harare but eventually i got

been out uh very few people were turning up and uh it was always uh difficult having uh the same

speakers and uh but then we hadn't really started doing uh virtual stuff like having virtual speakers

working with us so it was

difficult maintaining

the meetups going

but then we also

but actually there's

a growing number of

Python developers now

only that we don't have

a community because people are always

worrying about

their bread and butter issues

Zimbabwe is a tough

economy and

somebody would rather spend the little money

they have on the upkeep or trying to get more money instead of uh traveling to a meetup and

stuff like that and it also has been difficult to keep the momentum of organizing conferences

because uh you never know which official currency you are using in zimbabwe we used to use this u.s

dollar and then now they say the english is rtgs which was one s to one with the u.s dollar

now it's no longer honest to earn the u.s dollar it's uh there's a black market rate and if you

charge your prices in u.s dollars you might be found to be you know uh doing something illegal

so you don't want to risk yourself uh there's so much you can do for a community and you don't

want to get into legal trouble because you're trying to set up a conference so i think that's

The one major blocker that we faced, it was difficult to advertise a conference when you're pricing in US dollars.

And yet the economy at that time, they are saying it's illegal to price your services in US dollars.

But then it's difficult also to price in your local currency because the black market rates are always spiraling.

So the value also tends to lose its value when you're using it.

Yeah.

I mean, that's fascinating.

That's like really interesting because I wanted to ask you about the economy in Zimbabwe.

And then are you able to integrate with the sort of the international programming market?

So say, I would imagine you'd be, you know, you've sat there with a computer science degree, you've got skills in Python, you've got skills in Django, very marketable in Europe.

I don't know if you're able to, you know, work in Europe or work remotely with European companies, that kind of thing.

People who are working here as software engineers, they're actually doing remote work, except for a few that are working here in Zimbabwe.

And those are the ones who are frustrated because they actually have to live in the economy and get paid in the economy that we are mostly complaining about.

But, yes, I've worked for Brightco in 2019 as a full-time job.

it was a us-based company and most people are working for either for european companies or

american companies i've been i think after brightco i was a bit torn on whether i wanted to

okay all on the language take that i wanted to maintain so i took some time to from personal

development and then afterwards i was more focused on whether i wanted more trick or

I want to relocate because the kind of qualifications that I have if I were to

get a job, they would require me to relocate. I want to explore site reliability engineering

and that might mean relocating if I need to work in a large company. But I think, yeah, this year

I'm open to that. That's what I'm working towards. Google has approached me I think about more than

five times now in since 2016 so i think i'm going to so i i took this year to the first half of the

year to try and prepare for the edf is whether it works out with google or not i'll try another tech

company but the point is uh i'm actually uh reading one of their books uh this one satellite

engineering on google yeah okay how google runs production systems so i'm actually now on page

350, then once I'm done with this

I'm now working on the technical skills to

prepare for

the interviews. But mostly people

are doing remote work or

they are relocating to South Africa

or

any other African countries or

they end up actually in Europe

for work.

Because you can only be

particularly enough at a certain point

in time and then you realise I'm actually

wasting my skills. I need to

consider other markets. But it's a super

opportunity now like to you know work for one of these global companies and you know do software

engineering at that level yes i i that's what i'm i want to explore if i can just uh get into one

and see how that works out that that's my target for this year of course i want to talk to you

about the django django software foundation but carlton what what other areas do we want i mean

the talks you've been there for i think i i don't know if i've i think i saw you you gave the you've

given a bunch of keynotes. I think I saw you gave the keynote at DjangoCon 2018, I think,

in San Diego. Do I have that right? Yes, I did give a keynote. So I was there for that.

Yeah, actually, I was actually remembering that it was at DjangoCon

Europe, no, DjangoCon US 2018, when I was talking about search liability engineering at Google.

it's only that so many things got you time flies yeah time flies yes you you get other job

opportunities they make you miss your goal and stuff like that but yeah i've uh spoken at jungle

con europe uh 2017 in florence it was uh we co-presented together with hamphrey butao

uh who was one who's one of the trustees of the python software for python uh zimbabwe python

First year in Zimbabwe, we organized PyCon 2016-2017 together, and we organized the 2018 one without me.

I've also attended JungleCon Europe 2018, I was just an organizer, and also organized Jungle Girls Heidelberg at that time.

Then, mostly I've attended PyCons in Namibia, I think I attended 2016, 2017, and 2018.

And PyCon South Africa 2016, Django Under the Wood 2016, PyCon Africa 2019, then PyCon Nigeria 2018.

Yes, I think up to 2019, I used to travel a lot.

think i would do maybe three or four conferences per year mostly four conference pay then 2019 i

was busy with pride so i only acted back on africa and then the pandemic struck i canceled all my

teams for 2020 and i don't know if i will be able to travel this year for conferences um you never

know what's going on it's difficult to plan a trip when you can just wake up and they say we

We are not accepting anyone from Southern Africa because of Omicron.

So I think this year I might not actually plan a trip.

Maybe next year.

I'm not sure.

Because the hope against hope that DjangoCon Europe will go ahead in Porto in September.

Fingers crossed.

I'm going to get on the train and turn up even if it's cancelled.

I'll just stand outside with a little sign.

No, you're on a train.

It's different when we are flying all the way from Zimbabwe, you know, and you get, you are on Ethiopian airlines, you get to Addis Ababa, you are told the plane has to turn around and go back to Zimbabwe, or you use Emirates, you are in Dubai, you are told you are not landing here, you have to go back to Zimbabwe.

Yeah, that's a big, big ask, no?

yeah so I'd rather not try for this year and see how when things get normal then

we'll see how it goes we wanted to organize a DjangoCon Africa and yeah that's what I was

going to ask you about and then 2020 that was all booked that was so I had I had three in the

calendar I had DjangoCon Europe I had DjangoCon US and then DjangoCon Africa I was really excited

and then the pandemic hit so and then 2021 again we are still in the pandemic 2022

now it's a mixture of uh the pandemic and also our venue was Addis Ababa

Ethiopia and there is unrest in Ethiopia that's the trouble with Africa

we never know when they are going to be having a civil war so well the US too so you know

That's penciled in for 2024, Will

Yes, so

Well, now we have midterm elections coming up this year

So, two chances

Yeah, you don't know when there's going to be a civil war

In any African country, actually

So, this year we haven't even talked about

Jungle Con Africa

Mainly because the pandemic is still on

And when Omicron hit

it was actually funny

we had other countries like

Rwanda and many

African countries

were also blocking out

planes from the Sadiq region

so if our fellow Africans

can block us and say you cannot come

because you've got

because of the variant

I think it's not safe for us to be planning a jungle

con Africa until things normalize

and then maybe we can get back to

planning a jungle

on Africa, hopefully things will stabilize in Ethiopia or we might actually have to find

another venue because it's difficult to plan with the way things are now.

The Ethiopians themselves cannot attend the conference, which defeats the purpose.

You'd rather find a safe venue.

or a safe country at this point in time.

Django Software Foundation.

Can we talk about that?

Let's talk about that.

Because you're the one through length.

I mean, when I joined in 2018,

and you're the,

I think you and I are the only ones

on the current board

who were there in 2018,

and you were there several years before.

So you're really the keeper

of the knowledge of how the DSF runs.

I think, how many years?

Do I have that wrong?

Okay, so I joined the Joseph board.

Okay, I was elected end of 2017 for 2018.

So you must have joined.

I must have joined 2020.

I joined 2020.

2020, not 2019.

Yeah, yeah, 2020.

Yeah, 2020, I guess.

It's been three years.

So yeah, 2020.

But yeah, because it was, yeah, I have the 2019 results.

And yeah, none of them are there anymore.

So I should double check.

Maybe someone who's currently on the board was there in 2022.

So, 2018, I joined the board in 2018, and Daniele was the vice president.

He was the one mostly handling affairs to do with Africa and DjangoCon Europe on the

DSF board.

And then after he left, I think it was end of 2018, 2019, that's when I became the vice

president and took over from him.

as well as handling the GSF membership.

So I think most of 2018, I was new on the board

and I was rather in Daniela's shadow

and learning mostly from him

because Daniela is very passionate.

He was born in Africa, in Ethiopia,

and then they moved to Italy.

So because of his African roots,

he's very passionate about Africa

and probably that's why he invested a lot of time

in growing the community in Africa.

So 2019 and 2020, that's when I was the VP.

So you must have joined in, is it 2020?

Yeah, and Katja and Aaron were also there in 2020.

So you're still the original one.

Yes.

Before we tell us what you do, what I wanted to ask is about the commitment of being on the board, because every year the election comes up and you've got two of you here now.

So how much time do you give out? What's the volunteer effort that's required?

So the standard for any board of directors is an hour a month when we have the meetings.

But there are some emails that you might have to respond to during the course of the month that might take up your time.

It depends if you are in an officer role like you and myself, treasurer and president.

They tend to have more emails than any other office at all because every fundraising issue

sometimes Catherine responds to them, sometimes you respond to them.

Then also the issue because we are behind the fundraising and the legal aspect of the

Django project, it means also there might be some trademark emails which anyone can

respond to Aaron used to do that to respond to those when he was the vice

president I didn't respond to any and then Frank also used to respond to those

and then him now is the vice president he's got some legal background so

usually we leave issues with legal stuff we don't understand to him but you tend

to have emails find us trademark issues fundraising and then when you are the

present also you get copied on many mailing lists so that tends to increase

your email volume but most of them I don't respond to them I just wait until

I really have to say something but other than that also being a treasurer for

like will they also be like meetings the jet brains from patent raising as well

as this year last year we did uh the survey with them those are the extra meetings that you might

have uh in your role but mostly it's one hour per month maybe we can say maybe two hours per month

it might be more if you have to draft some blog posts or some announcements or something

then it also increases the work that the workload that you have to do but yeah it depends whether

you're just a director or there is uh you're in officer role but there's also room for you to

work on stuff that you're passionate about as well so that might also increase you a lot if

you have something that you actually join the board with um the intent of doing when will join

the board uh is uh the first time he ran for the board he was he came actually to be the treasurer

And in his personal statement, he had points that he wanted to, you know, to accomplish.

And so I would like to believe his first and second years were very busy.

I don't know for you.

I don't think, not as busy as you as president, but they were busy in part because the treasurer role.

So when I joined, um, Catherine Holmes, who's the DSF assistant and does so much for us, she was able to, we formalized her role.

So she does hours a week, um, that helps me volunteer to do the role.

So it's, it's probably, I check, generally I check email every day, um, and there's treasure things and there's ops teams things.

I'm on those emails as well because we're switching some of the servers around.

But yeah, it's a commitment.

It's been less this month so far.

But when I came in, we didn't have Catherine helping in a formalized way.

And there'd been a lot of turnover in the position because it's so much time.

So there was a lot of work that Catherine and I have done to have all the emails go

to treasurer at jangoproject.com to have like a Google doc of financial statements pulled together

monthly that everyone can look at. So all these kinds of things that are more, you know, whoever

the next treasurer is, when that happens, it should be a much smoother transition. But Anna

still takes, I mean, especially, you know, this year, I feel like it's been better because we

have, we have basically, we have the same board as we did last year. And when you have new board

members you know a they don't know how it works and b they're less um it's just easier when you

have some consistency there because people kind of know how it is and like heim's taking over

trademark stuff you know aaron you know people can move around and understand the system kacha

is doing a lot with um the django cons so having some consistency helps logistically with all the

tasks would would you move to a um like a rolling term type thing so say if there's six members you

have two up for election each year so that there's some continuity or do you think it's okay as it is

i mean sometimes i worry we have too much bureaucracy for a small org uh we're actually

thinking of uh okay this is something that we we are discussing uh we think it's actually too much

to have uh elections every year especially if you're going to have the same people we would

rather have a two-year term which somebody could opt out at the end of a year and then we have

elections for those open positions because it helps when you have the same board or you have

old members but I'm imagining the situation where at the end of the year if everybody decides to

step down it means the first few months of next year people might be actually gaining confidence

on just being a board member.

You are not sure how to run things.

And when you have an entirely new board,

it might actually slow down.

So I think it makes sense to have like what the PSF does,

that their attempts are not like annual elections every year.

There are some people who do like maybe two, three years,

and then they step down.

So I think it would be a good thing for the DSF,

considering that we are very small

and that our candidate pool is not so large.

It would actually make things smoother.

This year, I think the end of a takeover last year was actually very funny

because it was just a matter of saying Anna maintains the role.

Then Haym switches over from secretary to vice president.

Aaron steps down from vice president.

Mfon is moving from being an ordinary member to being the secretary.

Katia maintained the DjangoCon liaison role,

and then Will remains as treasurer.

And then we actually continued with the board meeting.

We didn't even discuss the roles

and just did a Google talk.

And people did the takeover outside of the meeting.

So when we started January, it was business as usual,

and things moved faster.

So I think it would make sense

if the bylaws of the DSF could be changed

with terms which are longer than one year especially if the member is willing to put up

if they know i'm going to do two years then they just sign up for two years and then at the end of

the year those ones who step down they say okay this office are always open we have elections for

that i think it would be a good way yeah that gives a certain term limit that's yeah as well

which you know because you don't want to be there for forever and ever and ever you're like you know

And historically, it's kind of been five years, I think, is roughly that people have played a role.

For president, but I don't, already, this is my fifth year as a GSF board member.

So I don't think this time the five-year rule for the president is going to echo me.

I've already done three years, first as a director, two years as vice president.

And then this is my second year as president.

So I'm already at five years.

So it's a long time to commit to something.

yeah it's a big commitment you're telling it's a big commitment yes yes so it would actually

work better if we if we knew who are sticking around after the election instead of doing the

election every year and expecting a new board to come and take off yeah i think similar similar for

the technical board in that um you can't you can't elect the technical board every eight eight months

which is every point release it's too much so i think every you know every sort of major cycle

from LTS to LTS is much more sustainable you know it's three two and a half years that kind of way

so I have one more quite related question is that the DSF membership is quite big

and there's kind of lots of projects that could be done lots of ideas and I wonder if you either

of you have thoughts on how we can harness the DSF membership for things I don't know things

like making the website better or for more outreach or for you know not necessarily technical things

about the framework but community projects um I don't wonder if we'd you know it ties into perhaps

you know DSF members could take their turn on the boards you know oh yeah I've been you know

there's a space open I'll jump in but you know I don't know we talked about fundraising being an

issue a lot and can we improve that and there's lots of skills and there's a kind of a need and

it's matching the two together I don't know how as a community we can muster that I don't know

If you have any thoughts.

I'll say something short, Anna, and then I know you have thoughts.

So we have about 200 members.

I think one of the things that's been hard is the pandemic, because a lot of times people get to meet in person at Django cons or PyCons, especially Django cons and have these conversations.

It's difficult to have creative conversations over the email or in the forum.

So I think that's been a big handicap recently around it.

But yes, it is something that we need to think about how we use them because we do have these people.

We could have working groups.

The question always comes down to the board is volunteers.

If we have to manage something else, if it's not a self-sufficient working group, whereas if we met people at a DjangoCon Europe or U.S. and we sat down with them and they said, yes, we will commit to this, I think there's a little more ownership than just putting out a call for people who maybe don't know each other as well to tackle some of these issues.

But one of the things I hope this year is that because we have the same board, you know, it opens us up to change the bylaws if we need to, to be more creative, as opposed to just reacting to things which, you know, in the past, I feel like we did a bit of that.

So, yeah, I mean, a part of it, too, is if people want to want to do these things, how do we organize them?

Right. So the website, right? Like, yeah, it would be great to have a working group. The PSF does this to improve the website.

I don't know that we have like a clamoring of people who want to donate time, you know, via email for that.

So what do you think, Anna? You know more.

I was going to say the pandemic has made everything difficult.

Like we actually had issues getting people to organize DjangoCon Europe 2022 because of the uncertainties of whether it will be in person or it will be online again.

And normally we don't have issues getting DjangoCon Europe organizers because when the conference day happens, there's usually either a DSF member or an organizer who then calls out for new volunteers.

You have meetings with them. You talk things through and then they step up and submit a proposal for the next conference.

next conference so uh the pandemic has made uh things difficult in terms that you have to get

people to commit via email and uh it's been difficult managing what you already have uh

and getting volunteers to do the work uh of what we already what we are already doing

during the pandemic because of that and i i'm not sure whether it would uh would be able to

We're thinking of actually setting up a working group and to help us develop standards for Django

Con. I did a couple of talks last year, one at Django Con Europe and did an indirect call for

volunteers but we didn't get anyone stepping up and one thing that I understand is people are

busy with the pandemic, they are trying to make a living, it has changed the way people work

and people are trying to cope with a lot right now. So there's the issue of mental health issues,

people are trying to adjust to as well as taking just taking care of themselves and their families

so maybe when things normalize it would be great if we could get um people to join working groups

and help us with such things but one thing that i i don't know how effective uh that would be also

because remember the board members are volunteers like you said they need to manage volunteers again

And so it will be like we keep increasing the number of volunteers and things might get broken because it's a volunteer managing another volunteer.

Any one of them can just decide to say, I'm busy, I no longer have the bandwidth for this.

And I was telling the board that I discovered, you know, we have a grants working group listed on the website.

I think maybe during the whole time that I was on the board,

since 2018, I've never heard of them

or see what they were doing.

Meaning probably they were set up maybe prior to,

maybe until 2017 or 2016.

That's when that working group was working.

They would usually sit down and give grants to conference

attendees would otherwise fail to attend the conference so we have a working

group that is listed on the website which she hasn't been working for all

these years so that's another thing to say Alan we just created

meeting other committees and groups which will not manage and which will not do anything

as well. Though there is actually need for us to make use of the membership, I think

it would be better if we could meet like we used to do like at DjangoCon 2018, all the

board members except one were there and we did the meeting in person and we were able

meet other community members. I think we need to get to a point where we are meeting again

and people are discussing even what about it. I remember when I attended DjangoCon Europe 2017,

even 2018, when people went for dinner they would be talking about Django ORM or something,

how they can make it better, you know, at a conference. But because of the pandemic we

we have lost that and we can you know no longer discuss things that would usually discuss in person

and commit to those things so yeah and as well that you know just for my own experience of the

pandemic it's like you know keep my head above water okay fine but to have extra capacity to do

extra things that's just not been there and that's that's true for everybody at the moment still yes

i think one of the things too is around visibility of what the board does which

I mean, Anna's been doing blog posts. I'm going to do the first treasurer blog post on the finances because it's pretty hidden to people. So they don't, I think even the membership, let alone users, don't really know where the money goes, right? Or how much money there is. I mean, we talk about it a little bit in this podcast, but the budget is around $160,000 a year, which most of it goes to the fellows. And then the rest goes to conference organizing or just admin around the servers and legal stuff.

but people don't have a sense of the size of what we do and i guess one benefit of the pandemic is

we haven't had conferences in person so we haven't made as many donations so that combined with

github sponsors the um the threadless merchandise store we have we've increased the balance sheet

of the dsf so it was this this is i can say this publicly it was um at the beginning of at the end

of 2020, it was around $180,000. So that's basically one year operating budget. So not

much leeway as things go. And at the end of the year, it was 232, 232,000. So a net increase of

52,000. And those numbers fluctuate a lot. A quarter of that is JetBrains, the rest is corporate

and individual donations. But we have more money to potentially do things than we have in the past.

And also, we know now that if we wanted to pay for things, we have that ability because the Python Software Foundation is doing those things.

So I think there's possibilities, but again, it's post-pandemic.

That's always the issue with raising money.

We could raise more money, the various things we could do, but where would it go?

So it's a little chicken and egg.

We need the community and the members to say something really needs to happen that is either volunteers or funded before we can put the extra work in to do it.

I wanted to actually, Carlton, as a fellow, we don't really talk about your role. What is it like being a fellow? You came on with Tim Graham and Marius. As a board member, we're so lucky that you and Marius are just so competent, and we really have very little oversight we have to do for you.

I mean, we see what you're doing and we approve the payments, but there's not much work that we have to do there.

But that's just because of how lucky we've been.

There will be new fellows.

So what's your take on the status of the fellows program?

I think the fellows program is not the only thing, but so important for the life of Django because the amount of issues that come in, there's just no way that that would be handled on a volunteer basis.

that there's just too many so it needs to have a paid role to do just do the triage just do the

the pull request review and we have a great community who help with the triage who help

with the pull request review but far more than can be done on a volunteer basis um so maris and i

we do that i i you know django has given me so much django has given me an entire career so to

be able to give back to django it's just it's you know i consider myself immensely privileged to be

able to play that role and then the bit that I look at is the new contributors coming in and

I look at well okay you know I get old and you know I get slower every year well that's fine

so I step away is there a depth of you know a depth of contributor base yeah there are other

contributors but I'd like to see see that grow would be something that I would think if the DSF

could you know if the DSF could spend money and time there that would be an amazing thing to see

to help contributors come on

so that I felt that there was a deeper pool.

We've still got some great contributors.

We've got great old contributors.

We've got great new contributors.

But that's my worry.

I think that the fellow program works very well.

And beyond that, there's a core that, you know, are there.

But it's not as big as it could be.

And it's not as diverse as the wider Django community.

And so how can we address that?

And I think that's my sort of concern for the stability.

Not concern, but that's the thing that plays on my mind that I'm constantly thinking about, about the sustainability of Django.

The Google Summer of Code program, which you've been doing a lead role in for a number of years, that's been one area where we've had major advances in Django.

Because we've had someone who has a dedicated summer and has mentorship to focus on things.

I mean, we've really, I mean, Django's benefited from that.

I often think, is there, do we need something like that to have, you know, something more than a smaller ticket?

Or, you know, Andrew Godwin has been doing so much work on his own.

Like, I often wonder, do we need a Django summer of code, you know, or something like that to spur these types of things, right?

Because in those cases, the community can say, here are things that need to be done.

Or I guess people can submit, but you have, you know, someone can focus for two or three months with mentors on an issue, and that's kind of what it takes for some of these bigger things.

Yeah, and so one thing I kind of see is contributors coming along, but because it's volunteer basis, they only have so much time.

And to get to the point where you could say play the fellow role to be able to, you know, triage a ticket request when it comes in, you kind of have to have an amount of expertise.

And if we could somehow bootstrap new contributors, they don't have to be, you know, totally green, but the newer contributors so that they could get a bit more depth into the sort of the guts of Django.

So then they'd be in a position where they're then able to triage these harder issues or review these pull requests that are more difficult.

And then it's like, oh, but that person would then be an excellent candidate to become a future fellow.

You know, that would then seem to be a sustainable pipeline for the fellow program, which I think is essential for Django.

So something like that would be my thought.

It'd almost be if we could at DjangoCons when they happen again to have a half day, a day where if the fellows are there or these core contributors are there, you know, where newer people can be walked through the process, right?

Because it's just so much more efficient to do it in person as opposed to doing it all virtually.

But I almost wonder if that's something we could have a sponsorship for people to get that expertise so there is a bullpen for that.

Okay, but we did this at the sprints at the last DjangoCon US.

So we ran a workshop and we had four tables of people and they all went through and had the test suite running and they got to know track and they're picking tickets.

And from that, we probably had a couple of contributors hang around.

But that one day isn't enough.

I think we need something where it's like, you know, you can work on this over a month, two months, three months, like a little grant.

Like, you know, you said Django Summer Code.

That's not a bad idea.

A longer period so that you can develop a bit of depth to it.

And then, you know, again, I come back to the thought that if you can get over this hurdle, it becomes a kind of hiring.

bonus but you know once i became a contributor to drf the hiring dynamic changed because i'd go to

companies instead of saying oh yeah i know drf it's been well i help you know i'm on the core

team for drf and i help maintain it and then they were obviously like wow yeah we want you versus oh

well are you sure you're good enough and if you're a regular contributor to the framework that does

make that difference and if so if we could bootstrap people to that position we're doing

them a favor as well and we're really pumping back into our community so i don't know but that's that

would be my where's the money best spent oh i'm actually thinking about uh the dsf membership

management system uh that we once did um a call for proposals for and then there were many

applications uh who were supposed to get mentored and then it fell through the cracks and now haim

was thinking about a voting management system as well um i don't know now that we've uh

probably some extra money i don't know how that would go if we could

uh have some mentorship for people i know culture joined the jungle girls advisory board to try and

get more contributors to jungle by getting involved so i'm just wondering from what

Carlton was saying about this

mentorship program and getting

people to contribute to Django

how those plans would work

maybe

from Carlton as a fellow

I don't know if I'm allowed to ask questions

anyway but it just came to my mind

that we have other projects that he would

want to see

being done and then he also

thinks we should run some fellowship

program to get contributors onto Django

so. That's a question of time isn't it though

Carlton? I mean you and Maris are already

slammed it's a time and capacity thing so for instance you know on my my list is exactly this

to create a kind of workshop for getting start to take to take the stuff we did at jangokun

us at the last one 20 whenever that was 2019 i guess um and write that up and then make that

into a tutorial that can be run you know separately and okay that's that that would be

one thing yeah i i remember these other projects being proposed and then not followed through and

then you've mentioned um the working group for the grants that it's another thing that sort of

died so one thing we need to do is prune as well as you know and is that program worth picking up

or is it something to um is it something to say no we're not going to do that but instead of having

these half finished things which you know it's nobody's fault it's all volunteer effort and

the last three years have been anything but easy.

Well, that's why good turnover

at the board level anyways is good

because, you know, Haim came in last year

and now this year he knows how things work

and he has a lot of new ideas and energy

versus, you know, speaking for myself,

I feel like I've more or less done

what I came to do.

So I'll see if it makes sense to do another year.

But, you know, you need people who know something

and then who have a mission on what they want to do.

But I want to ask the two of you, Django Girls, you both do a lot with Django Girls, and especially you've been actually doing some programming for Django Girls.

We haven't talked about it at all, really.

So let's do a quick plug for Django Girls, and they've had a change of leadership, too, in the last couple of years.

Yes, so I joined Django Girls in 2017 as a fundraising coordinator, actually a post which didn't exist.

advertised for Django Girls' Awesomeness Ambassador and then they interviewed us all.

So it turned out Claire was good with the admin staff. She was based in the UK

and I didn't have any finance or admin background and I knew I could maintain the website

and do the fundraising bit. So they had two candidates who could do half the job. So they

created another role for fundraising coordinator and that's how i came to join is uh jungle ghost

family coordinate so when i started i was just doing changes to the website and uh like uh

that i had to do with uh fundraising like adding crowdfunding donors or uh changing

some checks and stuff and then when the founders uh and the original trustees decided to step down

it kind of created like a gap or a maintenance gap of who was going to who was uh triaging uh

the the pull requests and stuff like that so being the only the only trustee who had been working

with the website it automatically failed to me so i started also doing the programming for the jungle

girls uh website and maintaining it and uh calton has been uh a great help because i used to have

like my pull requests it would take time to have them uh reviewed i actually have to ping rachel

and she would review them but calvin has been here in uh very hands-on reviewing some pull requests

and helping me with uh technical direction and we also managed to get uh you know some new volunteers

we have uh mark is it mark walker i think i want to say mark walker it's mark it's mark walker i

think mike uh he has been uh instrumental he has uh he helped us migrate from django 2.2 which was

taken because of jungle suit to jungle 3.2 he has also been helping us with translation so it's

something that we that was our goal for last year we wanted to be more inclusive and make sure that

if we could get people can see jungle girls website in their language if we have translators

for that language so uh that was one major change that we have on the jungle girls website and i

most of the work has been thanks to mark walker i'm also doing some some small things on the

website but it's really been refreshing to have a new volunteer uh coming onto the project in the

form of culture and we've actually been having more people stepping up to to

help with the website Ramon Saliva from Brazil and we have another lady who

submitted another pull request to help us with application application

management system for our workshops so it's been great actually and it's been

very generous and it's been very generous they're saying I did I helped

a couple of weeks he pinged me and we chatted we talked through some issues and then mark came along

and mark was just like yeah i'm going to do this i'm going to fix that i'm going to fix the other

so he's been the real you know um yeah mark has been personal alongside he has been um also helping

even review my prs so things move faster now because uh if calton doesn't respond i know i have

markets a backup to help me with that so it's been uh great uh doing that but like that would that

of feels like a kind of success in that all we did was you were there sort of struggling by yourself

i came along did a little bit we put out a bit of a call and we managed to get you know mark to come

along we found and we managed to get a few contributors and now it's it's got a kind of

momentum and it's going really well and if it's kind of like that's all it takes is if we can just

you know reach out to one or two people in the community get a little bit of input then all of

sudden it's not one person sweating away by themselves getting burned out which

is you know it's all the difference so one other issue that the three of us

have talked about is the sustainability of Django con Europe because in America

it has Defna which is a nonprofit that manages it has its own budget goes

years to year to year there that doesn't exist in Europe we're starting from

from scratch each time um so we've talked about and maybe carlton to you some better options

around how we do that going forward well anna half mentioned it before was like they'd you know put

out a call for about this i think there's so much sort of tribal knowledge about running

jangokon or jangokon europe and we need to make sure that that's captured and that it's passed

on that can be passed on to a new generation you know it won't be the same people always

just organizing it they're going to move on to other things i mean like sasha she didn't many

and then in the end she had a post saying i'm going to have to step down because i can't keep

organizing these conferences on a volunteer basis and that's totally cool and that's totally

expected but can we not a pay somebody we've talked about money for you know a bit um or can

can we um codify the knowledge and can we i don't know so this is i guess the question my last

question to you Anna is like what do you think we can do in this in this space I

mean and obviously it needs a bit of volunteer bootstrap but can we make it

sustainable and self-sustaining like the fellow program fellowship program so

what I had in mind was I I started an email thread about this but I never got

back to to reply the email thread after the board meeting so what we were

thing as a board is it would be great if we'd have a European vision of DEFNA

like what the PSF has with EuroPython. We have an organization that is registered

in Europe that is responsible for that, yes, the DjangoCon Europe license with

dsf and then uh they can change leadership like the way the dsf changes leadership the way uh

jungle girls was able to change leadership from the founders online ola and their original trustees

and pass on the pattern to us and after a while most of us are going anyway to step down from

jungle girls and other people come on board so that's something that we were looking into and

And then on the email thread, there was a question that was raised about the legal issues

if the organization was set up in the EU and Europe, you know, that confusion thing.

Yeah, so it's Britain and Europe, who knows?

yes so uh so what i i what i was supposed to get back to to you on that email thread was um

when we had the meeting katya was reaching out to the one of the founders of euro python and to see

how they set up because euro python is registered in sweden and then uh the person she spoke to said

euro python wasn't registered in sweden by design because they were trying to avoid the euro

uh the eu and europe thing but that's where most of the volunteers lived at that time

and then it was registered in sweden so probably maybe the concerns that uh marcus had uh if we

moved the if we gave those licenses in uh to say the german jungle association about being in the

eu maybe it's something that we could overlook what we need is finding uh a board of volunteers

we are willing whether they are in uh whether it's the judge jungle association or the german jungle

association or a new board that is set up wherever in europe that's willing to take up the

responsibility i think it would make uh this uh easier for for the dsf and then being in europe

they can always uh find new community members or give licensing uh find new organizers to move from

one venue to the other the same way europython does though it's registered in sweden so that's

what i had uh that's the vision that i have that that's why i'm thinking we should go with uh

uh this uh jungle con europe thing and also setting up standards i realized that

during the years they were okay there were some steps that we missed as the board in managing

DjangoCon, especially DjangoCon Europe, that we're also trying to address, but I think it

comes, it stands out from the issue that most of the decisions that have, the way things have been

done with the board, they haven't really been like written down, like you really had to come and,

you know, set structures in the, in the treasury department, you know, those monthly reports,

annual reports and stuff like that and it took some time and i think this year what we are trying

to do as the board is to try and document everything down so that even if we have a new board

uh at the end of the year we just refer to them this is how you do things if they don't follow

through then at least it's not an issue about a knowledge gap or some information not being passed

around yeah and one thing that uh last uh during last year's board elections i actually responded

to retreat a little bit late somebody wanted to know the officer roles like what they do and what's

involved and i realized that when we do a call for call for nominations we don't tell people what's

really involved in uh in that role maybe it might make the blog post longer but it would be good to

just have like a pdf file that you linked to that has got all the responsibilities of each officer

role and people can see uh what would be involved if they volunteer for a position and what was

expected of them if uh if and they are encouraged to bring new ideas and what not it also helped

them with their applications to join the board so i think what we are trying to do this year and i

hope i will have time because my a started you know uh very busy and it's only genuine but uh

i think it's something that i'm going to try to make time for to make sure that we document

everything um how we handle jungle licenses how we handle uh even the fellowship program

everything else so that the board knows the new board members they know what they are supposed

to do and how they can improve things and they move forward from there so this is the feedback

that i was supposed to give you and marcus on the way forward with jungle con europe but we just

need to find a board of volunteers maybe whether it's registered elsewhere and not in germany or in

Netherlands but we need people who take wherever they are they take ownership of

DjangoCon Europe and then we see how things go forward but we are hoping that

this is for 2024 for 2023 we are going to do a call for volunteers a little bit

earlier maybe by end of biting by February or end of February we should do

a call for volunteers for DjangoCon Europe

2023 so that at least we have an organising team

hopefully by April, which will give them time to organise within

the year because we can't, last year we had the conference

I think in, was it July or what, so that means that the

new team wouldn't have time to, also enough time to organise a conference

during the period that's normally reserved for them, that's why DjangoCon

europe it will be in september and jungle con u.s in october so we are also trying to manage that

bit but i if you could find a sustainable way of having a european organization running that i i

think that would be great for for the dsf board and it would also serve as a guidance for other

continents if they can have uh that structure as well which may be difficult for africa and asia

because i know for africa i know we are different states and uh it's difficult to have an organization

that crosses borders, it operates in other countries.

We are sovereign states, I know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, our organizations are not that functional.

So I think if we could have that model, it would be great for the DSF,

it would be great for DjangoCon Europe and the Django community at large.

Okay, super.

What I liked about that answer was it was kind of docs or it didn't happen.

It's like you document it all.

Well, this is partly because, especially last year, I mean, Anna,

You've done so much for the DSF, and you and I have had conversations a little bit being like, this can't go on.

We need to list out what we're doing and separate it out.

And so we've done those steps so someone can take over.

And also, as we look at the bylaws, another thing is, I mean, Katya has taken up a lot of work as DjangoCon chair.

I mean, personally, I think all seven people should be an officer of something, right?

Like we already, we have DjangoCon, you know, we have community, which I mean, the Django

survey, which we've revitalized, that's quite a bit of work as well as merchandise, which

I set up and it sort of sits there, like lots could be done there.

We could easily have a fundraising person to coordinate with JetBrains or whomever every

year, which I also do.

And I know you have your own list, right?

So part of it is having these things documented and set up so that when there is a new board

or there's continuity, it's like, right, being on the board means these are the things that

we do and somebody has to do them. Because if it doesn't get taken over in the first meeting,

it doesn't really get done, right? So that's kind of what's nice this year about having

the same board is people are moving into roles and we're separating that out.

So for me, that's one of the things I want, maybe the last big thing I want to do this year is

update the bylaws and document better what the board actually does. So people get credit for

doing it and also it's expected of them. And if they can't do it, okay, someone else does it,

But it's not something where Anna and I, but especially Anna, is doing everything because it isn't documented, which was, you've done so many, you didn't answer how many hours you've been doing, but I mean, we were emailing for hours a week.

Yeah, last year it was a lot, and the DjangoCon Europe hybrid conference last year, it's just, you know, it made everything crazy.

The year started crazy last year because of that announcement, and we had to relook on how we do things and try and formalize processes.

And I think if we can do just that, formalize things this year, it will be great for the DSF board going forward.

And also sometimes I think one of the things that I had to learn, most of the time people mean well, especially when they are volunteers.

The issue is they just don't know that they are doing something wrong.

And one of the things that I've had to learn was to slow down, you know, think about things and then respond.

And instead of, you know, the outcries that, you know, that take place on the email, on the DSF membership email list.

uh they stem up from somebody just made an announcement uh they meant well this year

they announced uh a possible in-person a possible hybrid a possible online conference of which uh

maybe if that had been done uh well last year that would have been better but it taught us also a

lesson as a day support that we actually have to check these things through and then uh check the

waiting before things go out but I think one of the things that I've learned is

yeah we need to be a little patient with with the volunteers especially so that

we can keep getting more volunteers it's it's not easy being a volunteer and it's

not easy when people call you out and bring the president it's a good thing

really is not on Twitter because when that announcement was made every board

member who was on twitter was tagged you know in complaints but uh oh yeah i missed that yeah

you missed that because you're not on twitter but i saw it uh i think i think i saw it after i saw

i saw the take after 10 days it's a good thing that also i'm not active on twitter so you can

take me and and then uh maybe after 10 days i would just oh i was mentioned yeah then i respond

but um everybody meant well last year things were crazy and things are still crazy and uh

sometimes we we see things differently because of where we are and what's happening in our community

but i think we just need to be a little patient with each other until the pandemic you know

uh subsides and everything is back to normal so yeah last year there was so much uh work i was

doing it puts in actually a lot of more hours uh it was almost like the hours that i was putting

in for jungle girls um but anyway we yeah we survived and hopefully this year things will

be better and uh we end up there with a lot more done and uh things more documented so that uh

going forward things are a lot smoother for the next uh jungle social foundation board of directors

so yeah well um anna publicly thank you for all the work that you do i see it i think most people

have no idea i know they don't know what you do but you've done so much and do do so much so thank

you for that and i hope this podcast raises a little awareness around all the things you have

to juggle as a volunteer oh you're welcome i think it's really good to hear the two of you talking

and be able to bat some ideas about and a little insight yeah that's why we need to meet in person

right that's why yeah actually it was really helpful last year because uh will and i would

have you know some uh private discussions outside the boat uh which many people didn't know but

yeah uh it helps turn out some things and also sometimes you just see somebody with two bounds

of ideas uh on so yeah it's been great having you on the board will thank you for all you do

Especially in the treasurer department, everything is so organized.

And I know you, Frankie.

Yes, that's mainly Catherine.

That's mainly Catherine.

But you also brought that structure where Catherine has to be paid and handle most of the treasurer stuff.

Because I know, Frankie, there's lots of emails to respond to.

And since I became president, I've never, I think maybe I've responded to fundraising issues once or twice.

But I've never had to, you know, take that up as well.

So it's been great having you on the board as well.

Thank you. Well, and I sort of said, I do think the things that I've brought on are beyond

treasure. So I think whoever's next, or if I stay on, there needs to be a little division there.

Any case, we've talked for a little over an hour. Thank you so much for taking the time, Anna. We

have your website listed. As you said, if anyone wants to hire you, you're on the market, though

seems like maybe Google has the inside track. Is there anything you want to add on that?

Okay, so people might wonder why Google is also inside tech,

but last year I got invited to attend the Google Tech Learning Series

for Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

So I'm just going through the study materials that they gave us

and see if it doesn't work for Google, then I will try other companies.

But I would want to see how this goes,

because if you get exposed to some information,

need to use it uh i found the program was awesome i'm reading their book it's really a good read

i'm enjoying it so yeah but i think starting from april maybe that's when i'll be interviewing

seriously so but for now any approaches to hire me i just might respond because i don't want to

be distracted from what i'm aiming for but uh yeah it's been good uh interfacing with the google

fellows and uh yeah so i want to see how that goes but i'm actually looking for a role yes

well wise words to focus so we are at django chat.com chat django on twitter though i'm not

on twitter but there is a twitter account for our podcast and anna again thank you for joining us

and taking the time you're welcome thank you for having me okay bye bye everyone we'll see you

next next two weeks join us join us next time bye