1st Django Girls Novi Sad workshop, Serbia
I found out about Django Girls at a PyGrunn meetup at the end of March of this year in Groningen, The Netherlands. There I met Python programmer, Laurence de Jong, and he invited me over to the workshop. I really liked the idea of the workshop, and also I found it a big stimulant to work on my own programming skills. Afterwards Laurence suggested that I organize one in Novi Sad as well. And so I did. :)
I started planning the event two months prior. For me the past period has been a thrilling experience, more so because of the support I had of my professor Mr Branko MIlosavljevic from Faculty Of Technical Sciences - Novi Sad. He provided the venue in Park City for the workshop and he was a great moral support.
Coaches - Goal: 10
I talked to Mr Nikola Marcetic from NTSystems, and he offered his support! Also he brought Mr Nebojsa Mrkic on board. Great boost! :)
On September 1st the workshop was announced on our public website djangogirls.org/novisad and in local media as well. The news spread around fast and in less than a week we received 100 applications.
Python programmers Mr Andrean Franc and Mr Ivica Kolenkas immediately sent me an email. They decided to donate their time and knowledge by being coaches at the workshop. So after two weeks we had 5 coaches. 5 left to go!
I let Laurence know that we picked up on his suggestion to have a workshop in Novi Sad and invited him over to be our special guest and a coach. He accepted our invitation to strengthen our team! 4 coaches left to go!
The invitation emails I decided to send to pythonic people Miss Renata Vaderna, Miss Isidora Sekulic, Mr Dejan Mijic and Mr Darko Bacic. Their reactions were positive. I was happy to know that now we had a great team of 10 coaches!
Support/Sponsors/Food/Drinks
Django Girls Novi Sad was 100% funded by companies who care about diversity and creating opportunities for women. A lot of thank you’s go out to Python Software Foundation, GitHub and NTSystems.
We managed to deal with the logistics economically so we didn’t spend all budget. From the remainder we decided to support our non-profit organization Django Girls! There are many workshops around the globe which they can help with.
Participants – Goal: 30 women
From the beginning the goal was to host 30 women. We received no less then 316 applications!
Scoring applications was really tough, because many of the women were very enthusiastic about participating in the workshop. We used Django Girls advice on how to score applications.
We decided to create three lists: rejected/waiting/accepted. Emails were sent to all applicants. The plan was to have two rounds. The first round was to wait for response from women that we accepted and women on the waiting list who were still interested in the workshop. After the first round, two women who had been accepted cancelled, so we invited two women from the waiting list. Coaches contacted applicants via email to provide more information and instructions for the workshop. Unfortunately, the night before the workshop three women cancelled because of illness. During the workshop two more women left because of the same virus and one woman didn’t show up at all. Luckily, some attendees brought friends with them, so we had 2 extra women in our workshop. Final score at the end of the workshop: 26 attendees! To the women which let us know that they got ill we sent an online tutorial and let them know to feel free to contact their coaches for any help they need. I must mention how great coach Mr Andrean Franc was, who met with his group before the workshop and they decided to meet again after the workshop!
Before the workshop we had a light talk in which we thanked our sponsors and attendees for being part of this Django knowledge-sharing adventure! During the workshop food and drinks were available. Local TV station made a visit to make a small reportage. All attendees and coaches got a t-shirt, a Micro GitHub account, assorted diversity stickers and handouts.
In the venue, we used three fully equiped IT classrooms, so we had plenty of space and everybody felt comfortable. The time schedule was from 9.30 until 18.00, with a lunch break from 12-13.
After the workshop Mr Ivica Kolenkaš announced his support for a follow-up workshop. :)
Thanks
I am glad that this Django adventure has visited Novi Sad. Once again I need to thank to all attendees for being good learners, to our coaches for donating their time and knowledge, to professor Branko Milosavljevic, GitHub, Python Software Foundation and NTSystems for their sponsorship and support, and to Laurence de Jong for inspiring me to start this adventure. I hope that some of the attendees found at this workshop their IT inspiration. :)
I am looking forward to the next workshop!
All pictures from the workshop are in a Django Girls Flickr album.
The list of all coaches is on the official website.
What have we learned and what can we do better for the next workshop?
- By sharing your knowledge, you gain more than you lose;
- We can translate the tutorial in Serbian language;
- Organize pre-workshop for Python intro;
- More stickers and cupcakes! :)
