Your Django Story: Meet Kaja Milanowska
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Kaja is the co-owner of the bioinformatics company VitaInSilica and graduated with a degree in bioinformatics from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. During her PhD research in a bioinformatics laboratory she worked mainly on the development of new biological databases, analysis of RNA maturation and degradation pathways and pathways of DNA repair. She is an expert in the field of programming web applications in Django. She is interested in further education in the field of computer science (mainly web design, web applications and databases). In her spare time, as she is full of energy - her passion is running (half-marathons, marathons, orienteering) and hiking in the mountains.
How did your story with code start?
During my studies. In the 1st year I had algorithmics. And that’s how it all begun. Although when I was a little kid and I got my first computer (well the first one was ZX Spectrum or Commodore, I can’t remember now, and games run by playing a cassette) my dad forbid me to use it on my own and wouldn’t show me how to switch it on. I figured that one out on my own. And later when I learned how to use DOS commands to pack and unpack games to/from floppy disks - that was it :)
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
Hmm. I was a student ;) Well - I still do not think I am a programmer. Not in a pure meaning. I am a scientist, I program on a daily basis - I need it to process the data. I did my PhD using Django. I have finished bioinformatics and before that I was just a teenager in love with math, physics and biology.
What do you love the most about coding?
First of all it makes my work easier. Hmmm. But to tell the truth - I could not work without coding. It is really hard to say. I like solving problems and coding gives me the opportunity to do that. You can see how the code evolves, how it starts to work, how something is created from a few written statements. It is really a nice feeling when you run your own code and it gives you the expected results.
Why Django?
Because Python :) The real story is that I ‘inherited’ the project from a colleague. He chose Django. I already knew Python, I needed a tool to do my PhD thesis, which was focused on new biological databases that were to be shared in a scientific community - mixing it up together gave me Django.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Cool projects? Ha! I think dealing with the big data from next generation sequencing is a great project. You can see what is in the genome, how cells react, what genes are responsible for diseases. It is a new era for personalised medicine. Analyzing live inside out is fascinating. With the usage of programming :)
What are you the most proud of?
Hmm. I am really proud of my PhD thesis. I have designed, written, filled with data and maintained two new biological databases. It was really a heck of a lot of work.
What are you curious about?
I am curious about lots of things - from biology to the universe (that’s maybe why I am a scientist). But in everyday life I am curious about my future. According to coding. Will I still be using Python in the future, what will change in programming languages, what new possibilities will come?
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
Running! I love it - half-marathons, marathons, ultra, mountain running, orienteering. I spend a lot of my free time training - now the season just started - lots of work ahead for my planned runs. And geocaching :) And reading - mainly fantasy books. And lately Diablo 3 (some time ago it was WoW and WoW tcg).
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Be passionate about what you do. If you do not feel it change the programming language or start something else, but do not be afraid of trying! There are always obstacles in our life - if you meet one while coding learn from it as much as you can.
Thanks Kaja! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Emily Karungi
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Emily is a woman in tech. She recently completed a software engineering degree. Emily has been a lead at Google Developer Groups, she’s also the founder of the Django Girls Kampala chapter, co-founder of Coder in 90 and one of the core members of Girl Geek Kampala and WOPA (Women Passion). Emily is passionate about teaching and learning.
How did your story with code start?
When I finished high school, I wanted to do Telecommunications Engineering at university.Unfortunately, I was not able to raise the points to do this course. Software Engineering was my second choice and this is what I did at university. I sucked at programming, we always did our class assignments in groups of five and I would do all the theory work and leave out anything practical or anything that had code in it to the boys in the group. At some point, I felt doing Software Engineering was a wrong decision.
Two years into the course, a friend of mine introduced me to Girl Geek Kampala, a mentorship program that runs at OutBox, a tech incubation hub in Uganda. Girl Geek Kampala was a stepping stone for me. I wrote my first piece of code in Ruby (ooopss…), it was a simple calculator and seeing the code run was unbelievable! I was very delighted! From that time, I started believing in myself, I believed that it was actually possible for me to write code, I started solving simple tasks, and each successful task was a stepping stone to the next challenge.
I learn something new each day, I can’t say it has been smooth for me all the way, of course there are times when things get a little tough, but I take each failure as a lesson to make myself better, knowing that I’m not the first to fail.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
Before becoming a programmer, I was an ordinary university student whose major target was obtaining the highest grades and getting a first class degree :-)
What do you love the most about coding?
When I try fixing a bug for days, the moment I get it fixed, it makes me feel like a superstar!
Why Django?
Django is one of the most popular frameworks in Python. During my internship, it was the framework of choice. I worked with an SMS framework built on top of it called RapidSMS. My mentor was very supportive and made Django exciting. My class group built our final year project all in Python with the backend being Django.
Django has a supportive community, and when you’re stuck, it is easy to find help!
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Right now, I’m super excited about a venture with my co-founder!! Our focus is on building a strong coding school with emphasis on online mentorship and at relatively low costs for everybody. You can find out all about it here: http://coderin90.com
What are you the most proud of?
I’m proud that I’m able to get out of my comfort zone. This has enabled me to achieve some amazing feats such as being able to build a community of girls that are super excited about programming. This is something I’ve done by being a peer programming buddy.
I’m also proud of the fact that I’ve been able to learn programming and that there is something new to learn each day, anything that comes out of this is nothing compared to being able to make your own self. My biggest achievement is being a self-made programmer :-)
What are you curious about?
I’m curious about what the future holds for me, for my family, and the exploits I set my hands to do. Each morning, I wake up and think about what awesome things I might do trying to live each day to the fullest. Also, what new iPhone might come out the next year (lol), this is the reason I’ve stuck with my old phone, there is always something new coming up the next year :-)
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I like to attend parties (weddings)…. there is always something fresh to see :)
My hobby is watching soccer (or football as we call it in Africa). I believe I might become a top coding soccer player one day.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
I think the best way to learn how to code is to try out new things, they need to get out of the comfort zone. They need to believe in themselves and know that programming is exciting despite the day-to-day frustration you will have. There will be days when you search for information but fail to find it, hang in there! Light is found at the end of the tunnel. There is a difference between a programmer and a “bad-a$$” programmer. To be a bad-a$$ programmer, you have to spend at least 10,000 hours (in a lifetime) practicing, learning, failing and reiterating, but open yourself to the idea of becoming a life-learner.
Mwebale muno (thanks) Emily! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Become a Django Girls Patreon!
The last months have been truly amazing for Django Girls! Nobody really expected how much we would grow since the first workshop we organized in July. For sure we didn’t expect it to all happen so fast.
2014
In just 7 months we’ve coached more than 670 women from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and North America. We’ve received more than 3000 applications from women who want to learn, which is still quite hard to believe in! Our free open source tutorial was read by 30 000 readers and viewed almost 350.000 times – this is totally INCREDIBLE.
We didn’t even dream about such a success and we are grateful to all the awesome people who have made it possible: the community of 50+ organizers from all over the world, wonderful coaches who shared their knowledge and passion for programming with others, amazing sponsors that made Django Girls workshops an unforgetable experience and supporters who cheered for us for the last months.
We already have wonderful success stories - some of our attendees are already working as developers, attending conferences, spreading their knowledge with others (make sure to read Dori’s Django Story, if you haven’t done it yet). Every time we hear from Django Girls attendees who’ve became coaches saying: “at the beginning it was hard and after a few months everything in the tutorial is so easy!”, we are incredibly happy and see that all these long evenings and weekends of work are totally worth it!
We’ve noticed that we need more people involved with Django Girls operations, that is why we invited new Django Girls Core members to the team in January. We love working with Baptiste and Ania, they’ve already contributed so much to Django Girls organization.
2015 & beyond
There is one thing that is still missing - and we were asked about it a couple of times by different people in the past months - an official non-profit status. Since all of us organize Django Girls in our free time and we are not paid for the work, we would like to ask you - the awesome community who’ve supported us so greatly in the last half a year - to help us make it happen.
We’re happy to announce an official Patreon account for Django Girls. All of the money gathered on Patreon will go towards establishing a Django Girls non-profit organization as well as supporting the future growth of Django Girls, allowing us to create more learning resources and enabling even more women to dicover the joy of programming.
For all our supporters we prepared small thank-you packages. Check what we offer for each level of monthly recurring donation here (disclaimer: loads of emojis included ;)).
If you wonder why we chose Patreon: they have a wonderful Community Guidelines that we totally agree with and we believe they represent similar values and standards as we do.
We hope that we will be able to keep up the work we have started with Django Girls and make sure women around the world will fall in love with Python and technology!
Thank you for all the love you gave us so far. Here is to many more things we will do together this year :)
Your Django Story: Meet Joldeen Mirembe
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Joldeen is currently working as a backup and storage systems engineer IT domain at Wipro Technologies/MTN-Uganda project. She graduated with honors with a bachelor’s degree in information systems from Makerere University in January 2014. Joldeen volunteered as a team lead for Girl Geek Kampala, an initiative that seeks to create a community that promotes and seeks to celebrate women in the technology field by infusing entrepreneurship and programming skills to girls and women that are very much passionate about information technology. She also helped as a volunteer facilitator for the Women of Passion Program (WOPA). Joldeen was a column writer for an e-magazine known as citEzine at university. She held a number of leadership positions throughout her years in school. Joldeen is passionate about technology and emancipating other girls and women in science and technology.
How did your story with code start?
My story with code started when the first set of girl geeks Kampala was established that was when I was at the university in July 2012. It created a community of girls who came together to learn how to code.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I was basically trying to figure out myself in the IT field since I was a university student at the time. Discovery is a continuous process I must say, because every day we discover something new and interesting that we want to be part of.
What do you love the most about coding?
Coding allows you to put your thoughts in reality, it allows you to be innovative and think creatively at the same time. It makes impossibility seem like it’s just a word.
Why Django?
My first encounter was with the language called Ruby and then of course led to the use of its framework Ruby on Rails. This created greater interest in Django as well.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
At the moment there are no cool projects yet, but in the near future I hope to work on a project that would be an absolute solution to the people in remote villages in my country, to be honest am still looking at what could be the most pressing challenge in these remote villages in terms of health so as to find a good viable solution. So I have not exactly made up my mind what the project is yet but I am sure of the area and sector I want it to impact.
What are you the most proud of?
I am most proud of the fact that more girls and women in Uganda are getting more exposed to coding which was unheard of in the former years. Also the fact I participate in communities/projects that help to facilitate such causes to uplift women in technology especially in computer programming.
What are you curious about?
I am curious about the possibilities technology is yet to expose us to, right now it might seem that its possibilities are being exhausted but I believe there is still more undiscovered and the thought of the unknown that is yet to be discovered keeps me on my toes curious: what is next?
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I like to take part in activities of my clubs/societies.
Try and discover something new in the tech scene.
Fashion
I should say I like to hang with close friends and family and catch up.
Watch the latest fascinating TV show especially detective works and science fiction.
Reading different kinds of interesting literature, right now am reading “The book of Negroes” by Lawrence Hill
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Just two words: Patience and Persistence.
Thanks Joldeen! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Emily Manders
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Emily came to web development after a previous career in software project management and UX design and research. Before becoming an engineer, she designed IVR systems for clinical trials, taught Python to beginners, presented at CHI, led workshops on Lean User Research methods, and studied CAD users in Japan. After falling in love with coding in grad school, she knew that software development was the career for her. In 2014, she made the transition to web development full-time and has never looked back. Emily works at Prezi where the product helps people teach and inspire others. In her free time, Emily enjoys cooking, yoga, and reading post-apocalyptic science fiction.
How did your story with code start?
My journey to software development started after college when I was working as a project manager for a boutique software development agency. The company built automated phone trees to randomize patients in clinical trials, and I was fascinated to see all of the wacky ways the callers would try to use and abuse the systems. I thought that there must be a better process for building software that people actually use in the real world, so I applied and was accepted to the Master of Information Management and Systems program at UC Berkeley School of Information. A distributed systems class my first semester used Python to teach us computer science concepts, and it was hands down my favorite class. I actually enjoyed doing the homework! A few years after grad school, I successfully made the jump to software engineering full-time by being selected to attend Hackbright Academy, a coding bootcamp for women in San Francisco.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
Before becoming a programmer, I worked as a project manager, UX designer, and UX Researcher. After graduate school, I didn’t start working as a programmer right away. I needed to keep taking classes on my own while I was working full-time to pay the bills.
What do you love the most about coding?
So many things. I think what I love the most is that you can create something that didn’t exist before in a medium that also allows you to show other people what you’ve made very easily.
Why Django?
I currently work mostly on the front end, and Django provides great templating support for internationalization (very important if you’re going to have a truly global product). The Django documentation is also fantastic, very detailed and well maintained.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
I’m currently planning a Django Girls workshop to introduce more women to programming, Python, and Django! Learning how to code was challenging for me, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my classmates, the undergraduate CS honor society tutors, and great professors for patiently answering my questions.
What are you the most proud of?
Every time I learn how to do something new, that is probably the thing I am most proud of. Learning to be autodidactic, persistent, and patient are probably going to turn out to be the most valuable skills I’ve learned when I look back on my career.
What are you curious about?
Right now I’m most curious about JavaScript. I just picked up Learning JavaScript Design Patterns by Addy Osmani so that I can write better JS.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
In my free time I like to practice yoga, play video games, try new restaurants, and read post apocalyptic science fiction. I also love cleaning out and donating clothes and physical objects that I don’t use regularly. It just makes me feel so much psychologically lighter. My goal is to have a tastefully edited and carefully curated home.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Learning how to program is unlike anything else I had encountered previously in life. It required an entirely different way of thinking about the world—as data, patterns, variables, and repeatable processes. It was a lot to wrap my brain around, and there is still so much that I do not know. It took five years before I successfully transitioned to being a software developer, but knowing that this was how I wanted to spend my professional time and being persistent paid off. The only person who has to believe that you can learn how to code is you. You can do it!
Thanks Emily! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Magdalena Noffke
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Magdalena is a Python and web developer from Berlin. She is very interested in open data, data visualization and civic tech. For about a year she has been organizing the OK Lab Berlin, which is a weekly meeting for developers, designers and other people who are interested in building great apps that help citizens to interact with administration.
How did your story with code start?
A couple of years ago I was working as an editor for a publishing house where I was involved in the relaunch of the publishing house’s website. While working with the developers I realized that I was really interested in web development and programming. I started doing tutorials and after a while I quit my job to go back to university and study computer science.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
Before studying computer science I was not really into IT. The high school I went to had a special focus on teaching music and art and I am not sure if there even was a computer class at all. After high school I got a degree in political science - so during that time I was using computers basically to write texts and to use the internet.
What do you love the most about coding?
The thing about coding I love the most is being independent. Whenever I have an idea for an app or a website I could just decide to sit down and write it. Even though this is also a matter of taking the time it still feels good.
Why Django?
At university I started to use Python. So when searching for a web framework I wanted to use a Python-based one and decided to use Django. I think it is a great web framework which makes a lot of stuff easier.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
I am really interested in how technology can be used to help citizens to interact with public administration and politics. So about two years ago I started to work on a website called ‘Bürger baut Stadt’ which was actually my first Django project. It helps citizens of Berlin to find out about urban planning projects in their neighbourhood. Next I was involved in the launch of ‘Code for Germany’ which is a network of developers, designers, journalists etc. who are interested in civic tech and open government data. In Berlin we meet every week to work on our projects - including quite a lot of Django projects.
What are you the most proud of?
Looking back I am really proud that I made it through my studies of computer science - especially since I had been out of university for a few years. At some point I was not sure if I would be able to make it - so today I am glad that I did not give up and finally succeeded.
What are you curious about?
Questioning what impact IT has on society and democracy.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I like to do a lot of sports such as cycling, running and horse riding.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Be patient - you can’t understand everything right away. It takes some time to get into the way of thinking that you need for programming. If you are stuck, take a break. When you look at it later, it becomes clear most of the time. If not, don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Thanks Magdalena! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Claudia Vicol
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Claudia works as a software engineer at Marktplaats.nl, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Marktplaats.nl is the biggest classifieds website in the Netherlands and part of the eBay Classifieds Group. Claudia currently codes in Scala and Java, and uses Python for testing API’s and for development tooling. She comes from Romania, where she lived until she finished her Computer Science degree at university. Claudia moved to the Netherlands to join her husband. They love playing World of Warcraft as a team.
How did your story with code start?
It started really early on, when I was about 12. I was spending a lot of time with my uncle and two cousins. In order to keep us occupied in the summer vacation my uncle was giving us small visual tasks, like drawing geometric shapes, and we were supposed to draw them using Basic, on a really old Russian computer that you would connect to the TV. Since I enjoyed that a lot I decided to go to a informatics high school, where I learned programming and algorithms.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I was studying maths and physics because I dreamt of becoming an astronaut. But when I had to choose my highschool major I chose informatics because it was more exciting.
What do you love the most about coding?
In coding you always get what you are asking the program to do. In that respect the computer is always right when you get a bug, because it was you that coded that mistake in. I like this kind of assurance, that I can fix anything because it is always something I did, or something I forgot to ask the program to do. Not many careers have this kind of certainty. On the other side of coding I love the interactions with other people in my team and the brainstorming and the creativity that goes with any project I try.
Why Django?
I started Django with the goal of being the easiest thing I can teach my husband so he can code his own websites without asking me all the time. I already was using Python at work for all the deploy tools and other tooling, and I knew it was a straightforward programming language. It turns out that it is easy to get started with web programming and have everything deployed in no time.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Currently I am working at Marktplaats.nl the biggest classifieds site in the Netherlands. In my team, we use a lean approach to our development where we create experiments that aim to improve the search experience on the site or our mobile platform, and then measure the effects of the change and decide whether an idea is worth fully implementing. Thus I concentrate mostly on search algorithms. Our main languages are Scala and Java, but we use Python for tooling and API testing.
In the near future, outside of work, I will start posting on my Youtube channel again about programming, I did a test run last year with 10 videos about Scala and so far people are watching it. I am planning to expand my tutorials with more programming languages and fun problems to solve.
For anyone interested that is https://www.youtube.com/user/Aryepilith/videos
What are you the most proud of?
I taught a course of a few months to my colleagues on learning the Scala programming language. I am really proud of the adoption of the language, and that I could teach and share my knowledge with others.
What are you curious about?
How the mind works when making decisions, what makes people make their choice in their online journey. The psychology of engaging users, and keeping them interested in my projects.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I do paper crafting and water coloring in my spare time. I love creating videos on how I did a particular technique and sharing those with the world.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Start typing, don’t waste too much time thinking about it, you will never get it right the first time and you cannot think the entire program through in your mind anyway. Just do small steps that can be tested. So probably learn unit testing and test driven development. Always start with the happy flow, make that one work and then think about all exceptional cases. It will slow you down if you think about all the ways you can possibly fail first.
Thanks Claudia! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16A small change for Your Django Story
Hello everyone!
I just wanted to quickly update you that there will be a small change for our Your Django Story interview series. Instead of twice a week, every Monday and Friday, we will only publish one Django Story a week, every Monday, from now on. But don’t be sad! :) This way you can be excited all week and a new Django Story will be waiting for you after the weekend and will hopefully brighten up your Monday :). And if you can’t get enough this is a great opportunity to catch up on all the wonderful Django Stories we published so far or to just read them again. :)
We are always looking for new Django Stories. If you would like to share your story or know of an awesome lady who woks with Django whose story we should feature please ping us at story@djangogirls.org. If you feel a little insecure or don’t know if you should contact us please read this post.
Stay tuned for the next Django Story on Monday and have fun reading all the previous ones!
Thank you for your ongoing support! We really appreciate it!
Anna <3
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Giorgia Amici
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Giorgia was born in Rome 26 years ago. At the age of 17 she decided to leave her family and joined the army, she still wonders why. After that experience Giorgia moved back to Italy to a city far from her hometown to finish her first degree and since it was always her dream to live in London she eventually moved there. After a period of struggling with two jobs, Giorgia had saved enough money to apply for a MSc at UCL and receiving the acceptance letter was one of her biggest satisfactions. Straight after her graduation Giorgia participated in a really intense programming bootcamp: She already knew Python and Django but there she came across Ruby, Rails, TDD and most of all JavaScript and it was love at first sight!
Programming has given Giorgia the freedom she had always been looking for: the freedom to create whatever you want! Giorgia has been travelling around the world and living in loads of places and the only thing she needed was her laptop and her curiosity to mix with different people!
How did your story with code start?
I started coding during my MSc. I was studying GIS and Statistical Analysis and the software we were using had the option to customize any tool with your script hence, I started studying Python. That was the most frustrating exam EVER and was the one with the lowest score! :) That made me really upset and made me study Python up to 20 hours a day since I wanted to redeem my self. In the end, I realised that I fell in love with any aspect of coding: frustration, really small achievement, again frustration and again a small achievement until you finally finish your project and you think it is the best code you have ever typed, UNTIL someone reviews your code and inserts a lot of comments! (wasn’t that great after all!).
I then decided to start studying programming seriously and I went to a bootcamp: I was confident with Python and Ruby but I came across TDD and that was really painful! It’s hard to write tests first before any line of code (you need to adapt your mindset)! After a period with Ruby and Python, someone had the brilliant idea to introduce me to Javascript. I got frustrated again…but I knew it would have been a matter of time! Now I use as much JS as I can: Angular, pure JS, jQuery…and my next goal is to learn server-side JS: node.js!!!
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I studied ancient Greek and Latin for 8 years (from when I was 14 till 22). In that lapse of time I lived in a lot of different Italian cities and in Paris. Then I moved to London to work and save money to give my career a different perspective and in end I was one of the 8 people selected by UCL for one of their MSc courses.
What do you love the most about coding?
It is a really highly rewarding profession. I love all the phases of working on a project:
brainstorming (which technology do we want to use?)
CRC cards
always be open-minded about your project: things might change along the way!
frustration and debugging: 70% of your time is spent dealing with those two aspects!
deploying YOUR project: you have actually solved a problem for someone! You will leave the world a bit better than you have found it
In all those phases you have a community of people for each of the languages of aspects (BE - FE)! It’s amazing how programmers are keen to help as long as you come with a concise and specific question (hidden meaning= you need to put the effort before asking)!
Why Django?
Djago is AMAZING!! It is really fast and secure and although this framework does a lot of things for you behind the scenes, it’s really easy to know when it fails which part is failing since the files that Django creates for you are really explicative (that does not happen with Ruby on Rails!).
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
In my spare time I amdesigning a dashboard for crossfit athletes using different technologies and I am trying to TDD every aspect of my project.
I am as well spreading some UCL projects using mainly Django and I am designing a script for GRASS GIS (open source software for Spatial Analysis).
What are you the most proud of?
I designed a Blackjack game from the ground up and was really fun!
What are you curious about?
I would like to learn all the potentials of node.js. It’s such a new and powerful technology and this attracts me.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I am a serious crossfitter: I love training crossfit because you never know what your workout is gonna be like and it is always different (so your body does not get used to anything). I love also doing relaxing things like visiting places or expositions. I am also learning the British Sign Language.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Don’t be afraid to hit the wall (repeatedly)! It’s a really hard profession because things are evolving continuously hence, you need to accept the partiality of your knowledge.
Thanks Giorgia! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Django Girls core team grows!
When in May 2014 we set plans to run this little workshop at EuroPython, we expected that we will be more busy than usual for the next two months and then we will get back to our less busy lives.
Boy, were we wrong. Since July Django Girls grew to 16 events, 500 women who attended our events run by 32 organizers & 165 coaches who helped us make it happen in just 5 months. For the last half a year all the daily Django Girls operations have been run by me and Ola Sendecka. We devoted most of our free time to run Django Girls, because we believe that this is worth it.
We want to help as many women as possible to have an amazing start in the tech community. Today, two people are joining us to help us scale and grow even bigger in 2015, and we couldn’t possibly be more excited about it!
Meet them:
Ania Warzecha
I met Ania almost 5 years ago, when I just moved to Warsaw. Without even knowing, she has been a real role model for me and showed me that there are women working as developers and that they can kick ass. Ania is working as a Django & Python developer in 10Clouds & lives in Wrocław, Poland. She gave an amazing talk at DjangoCon Europe, she spread the word about Django Girls on every opportunity, she organized Django Girls Wrocław — the first and only 100% female event Django Girls did so far), one more time showing us how much she cares. We couldn’t be more happier to have Ania joining our small Django Girls core team.
Baptiste Mispelon
Ever since Django Girls was born, if there was a one person we knew we can always count on, it was Baptiste. During this half a year, Baptiste was a constant source of support, emojis & encouragement. He made us believe that we can actually do it. Baptiste is running his own company while living in Budapest, Hungary. He is a Django Core Developer and DSF Member, he is an organizer of Django: Under The Hood, he coached on more Django Girls event than anyone else in the world & he is also making sure that our tutorial stays updated, clear and consistent. We can’t wait to have him on our team.
We feel incredibly fortunate to be able to work with Ania and Baptiste. We also believe that with those two on the team, everything is possible in 2015!
Love,
Ola Sitarska & Ola Sendecka