Your Django Story: Nazirini Siraji

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

A brief biography, two to three sentences, about who you are, where you’re from, and the work you do.

I am Nazirini Siraji from Mbale, found in the Eastern part of Uganda. Besides being an organiser of Django Girls Mbale, I work as a software developer at Hansu Mobile Innovations for both web and mobile development.

How did your story with code start?

Back in 2015, I attended my first Django Girls workshop where I got to learn the basics of Python and how amazing and easy it was to use. I then created my first blog and deployed it.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I was a student who spent most of the time during her computer lesson wondering what more I could do with the machine.

What do you love the most about coding?

What I love most about coding  is that it challenges me to learn a new concept everyday to solve something different or even the same thing in a different way.

Why Django?

Django is open source, very easy to learn and opens your mind to learn more and discover what more it can do.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

We are building an E-commerce website step by step with the participants from our last Django Girls workshop. This project will help prepare them for other projects that they plan to work on after learning most of the core concepts of Django and Python.

What are you the most proud of?

The fact that I am one of the people that introduced Django to some awesome ladies who are now already taking the next step in web development.

What are you curious about?

How far  the world would be in terms of technological advancement if all software was open sourced?

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

I like watching cool videos of awesome things people do in and plan to do with technology. I also love nature so I get to visit some amazing places from time to time.

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Explore all the options in attempting to archive something and pick the best option.

Learn step by step, don’t rush to learn it all at once.

Get a mentor and join a community of those like you so you can easily ask for guidance when you get stuck.

Apply for online courses and get to learn more from it.

Appreciate and get inspired by what others have accomplished.

Set goals and work everyday to move close to those goals.

How did attending (organizing, or coaching!) a Django Girls workshop influence your life/career? What did you get out of attending (organizing, or coaching) a Django Girls workshop?

Coaching at a Django Girls event has taught me the importance of preparing fully beforehand because other people will expect you to solve all the challenges they face when the right time comes.

Organizing a Django event has given me the ability to derive quality from those around me in an attempt to deliver the best output.

Thank you so much, Nazirini!

If you would like to suggest someone is featured in the Your Django Story series (or would like to nominate yourself!), please email us at story@djangogirls.org!