Your Django Story: Meet Safia Abdalla
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Safia Abdalla is an energetic software engineer with an interest in data science for social good and delicious coffee. She is the organizer of PyData Chicago and the founder of dsfa, a consulting company providing data science services to small and medium local businesses. Safia is also a frequent conference speaker and open-source contributor who’s passionate about helping others to reach their maximum potential. Her next talk, Popping Kernels: An Exploration of Kernel Development for Jupyter Notebooks, is this weekend at PyTennessee.
How did your story with code start?
As someone who started programming at a very early age, I get asked this question a lot! I actually started programming the summer before I started high school. I was really into documentaries and ended up watching a documentary series on the history of computing. Part of the series covered Google and I was extremely fascinated by how the search engine worked and how it was built. I ended up teaching myself how to program just so I can start building my own search engines. If you are curious for more details, I ended up writing the entire story of how I got into tech in a blog post on my blog.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
Before programming, I was interested in all things theatrical. I was interested in either being a film actress or a lawyer. Mind you, I was around 12 years old at the time. Perhaps the best answer is before I was a programmer, I was just another kid.
What do you love the most about coding?
I love the zen and purpose associated with building software. You’ve probably heard many programmers get excited about how software inspires them to problem solve, but it’s absolutely true. Right now, in this very moment, as you are sitting on your computer reading this article you have the ability to open a text editor and a terminal and build something that disrupts the status quo of our world. That’s a super power if I’ve ever heard of one. People often say that the pen is mightier than the sword, but both of these tools have got some tough competition in the form of a computer.
Why Django?
Django was one of the first web frameworks that I tinkered with because the barrier to entry was so low. There is a strong community around the project, plentiful resources, and tons of example code. This “trifecta” of sorts makes it very easy for first time web programmers to get familiar with the fundamentals of MVC and the art of building for the web. More importantly, it makes it easy for people to take the knowledge they gain working with Django and apply it to other web frameworks.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
My current cool project is probably my startup. I’m starting a consulting company that provides data science consulting services to small and medium local businesses. I started this company after realizing the increased relevance and popularity of local businesses in communities and the increased demand for intelligent, data-driven experiences in all of our interactions. If you’re interested in how data science can be used to uplift communities, feel free to check out our website or send me an email!
What are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of the tech community development work that I’ve done in the city of Chicago and beyond. I teach tons of classes on data science and machine learning and web development. It warms my heart to hear the feedback that I receive from my students and the impact that I make on their journey through tech.
What are you curious about?
From a purely technical perspective, I’m dying to get my hands dirty with the Julia programing language. From a non-technical perspective, I’m interested in starting to participate in triathlons. Pretty crazy, I know, but that’s me!
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I love to work out! Nothing feels better than working up a sweat and pushing the limits of my body. Working out is a lot like writing software. You’d be surprised by how malleable your body is. You can see results after just a few days of daily, rigorous workouts. Software is the same way.
I realize that I somehow reverted to talking about software in a question about my free time — I guess building software is a hobby of mine as well!
In addition to working out, I like to see films in the cinema and discover new music to obsess over.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Push yourself every day. Keep a daily blog where you share interesting discoveries. Your posts don’t have to be profound or viral, they just have to mean something to you. Start with one introductory book and stick with it. Don’t ask people what worked for them, ask people what didn’t work for them. It’s a long journey, but it’s a worthwhile journey. There is no such thing as “an expert,” we are all learning. Live long and prosper!
How did attending a Django Girls workshop influence your life/career? What did you get out of attending a Django Girls workshop?
I haven’t attended a DjangoGirls event as a participant but I have attended one as a volunteer with PyLadies Chicago. It’s always exciting to see the dedicated volunteers and the eager students at events like this. Although it didn’t shift any existing thinking I had about the Python community or my career, it confirmed the fact that people in our community truly care about Django and Python, whether they are teaching it or learning it.
Thank you so much, Safia!
If you would like to suggest someone to be featured in the Your Django Story series (or would like to nominate yourself!), please email us at story@djangogirls.org!
