Episode 144: Python in Africa with Kudzayi Bamhare

Sean Tibor: Foreign. Hello, and welcome to Teaching Python. This is episode 144, and today we're going to be talking about Python education and driving innovation in Africa, specifically. Specifically in Zimbabwe. My name is Sean Tyber. I'm a coder who teaches. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And my name is Kelly Schuster Paredes, and I'm a teacher who codes. Sean Tibor: And today we're joined by a very special guest. Kudzai Bahare from Zimbabwe is joining us. He's actually not in Zimbabwe at the moment. Right. You're here in the United States attending some conferences, doing some work, and we're like, this is too good of an opportunity to pass up. You're. You're here. Welcome to our shores. And we're super excited to chat with you. Kudzayi Bamhare: Thanks, Sean. I'm super excited to be on the pod. I've been looking forward to it since I got the DM from Kelly. I was like, what? You guys want me on the podcast, that's cool. But, yeah, like you mentioned, I am in the US I'm actually in Miami right now. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Welcome to the hurricane. Kudzayi Bamhare: I'm very much stuck in the. Just got caught up in the hurricane, which has been an interesting experience because we don't get those back home, Zimbabwe. So just seeing how people react to them, prepare and just, you know, it's part of the experience. So, yeah, hopefully all goes well. Sean Tibor: Well, I guess we can officially make this our hurricane party recording, because I think it's. Hurricane Milton is supposed to make landfall sometime tomorrow on the west coast of Florid US So I think if you're listening to this later, we should have survived. It's pretty far north from us, but schools are closed and. And we're getting ready. I'm doing a little bit of extra prep this time because they go take care of my. My wife's parents during the storm. So we're going to button everything up here and drive down the road to them. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Nice. Nice. Yeah, I have my. Sean Tibor: Why don't. Why don't we start with. Oh, go ahead, Kelly. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I guess we lost. No. No worries. I guess we're lagging behind on my side. Still lagging. Sean Tibor: Yeah. You're a little pixelated right now, but. Kudzayi Bamhare: It'S a little bit. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Start with the wins. Sean Tibor: All right, sounds good. Let's start with the wins of the week. It's as good a place as any. Good. I. We're going to have you go first. Actually, can I call you Bam for the show? Kudzayi Bamhare: Bam is great. I respond to Bam very much. So go with that. Sean Tibor: All right, Bam. It's over. To you, something good that's happened inside or outside of the classroom. Kudzayi Bamhare: Okay. So I've been thinking about my win of the week, and it's definitely. So there was a. There's a project I've been working on, personal project, Django web application. It's called Shotgun. I been working on it for the past year and when I got to Django Con Us, which was in Durham two weeks ago now, yeah, I was trying to deploy the application because I want to show it off to all the. No, all the Django people, you know, but I was having trouble with the deployment and I spent the entire conference speaking to people, you know, trying to figure out, like, what was going wrong with my deployment process. But fortunately this week I did manage to get it deployed. It has some issues that are still like, you know, in the, you know, just a little. Few issues that don't make it. I started responding the way I completely wanted to respond, but it's, it's live, it's up on Heroku. I use Heroku. Ploy it, shout geek dot com. Want to check it out? It should work. But yeah, that is absolutely my win of the week. I was fighting with this deployment for a really long time and I'm really happy that it's up now. Sean Tibor: Nice. That's. That's a serious win because, you know, something that is up and live and accessible but imperfect beats something that is perfect and sitting on your own laptop, right? Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing worse than saying, oh, you know, I bought this really cool thing and then someone says, oh, can I see it? And then you can't show it to them. It's like, okay, I got to get my laptop and show it to you because it's like local. So it's really nice to be able to just like sit a link and say, hey, check it out. Sean Tibor: So, yeah, that's awesome. Congratulations. That's a big win. Kudzayi Bamhare: Thank you. Sean Tibor: Ellie, over to you. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Well, if you can hear me right. No. Sean Tibor: Yep, you're good. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Okay. Win of the week. We are starting in ear sketch again with the 8th graders and we change things around of how it's normally taught the way that Georgia Tech has the curriculum. And I was pleased to see that in the first lesson, my students had put together the functions for the song and had made it so that they already had the intro, the verse, and the chorus. And they're starting to build a song in one day. And this is good because it was a five day project, but seeing how we will not have school for a couple of Days. They'll probably have about three days to do it. And it's really interesting. It's just been nice to see how. Because this is like, you know, we did this together with you, Sean. So it's about five years of using ear sketch. And before we just start playing, you put in the clips and they, you know, do the at midia. And then the song never takes a shape as a real artist. So introducing the functions first. We can now have chorus, verse, chorus, verse, and the functions get actually used as a real function. Imagine that. And so then they can play around the song and you have this repeating pattern. So it was a new switch for a lesson that we've been doing for a while and happy to say it was successful and not a big failure. Like sometimes my big switches normally happen. So it's good. Sean Tibor: Bam. Have you seen this before? Ear sketch from Georgia Tech. Kudzayi Bamhare: I have not seen it, but it's not. Sounds really interesting. I actually wanted to ask like, how, how quickly do like the 8th graders pick up on like some of these things? Is it like a process or are they just naturals? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: So it's a, it's a six, you know, it's a three year process. We start with the sixth graders and the sixth graders learn all the basics. Everything about Python, very basics about functions and. But not dictionaries. I don't know why, but I just. They can't get dictionaries in their head in sixth grade. It makes sense. Kudzayi Bamhare: Dictionaries are like also from my experience. Yeah. Like people have hard time grasping, you know, and I had a difficult time. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah. So we just throw those out and we just skip over them and I save them for my colleague to teach in seventh grade. And so she, she does like dictionaries and, and try and accept. And really works with functions. And then the eighth grade, we just kind of play around with a lot of little things and we're trying to revamp that course a little bit too, but we just, we don't know what. Because we get bored. We do APIs, we do matplotlib, we do ear, but we end up the entire three years with earsketch. It's the last. And to be honest, it's, it's just, it's a lot of fun. And Georgia Tech did a fabulous job with putting together the curriculum. If you do from top to bottom, the song is amazing. But when you're trying to do the entire curriculum from Georgia Tech in five days, we found now that switching it up with the functions first is pretty cool. So I would suggest checking it out, and you get addicted to playing and making music. It's. It's a lot of fun. Kudzayi Bamhare: Oh, yeah, I'm definitely going to take that out. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: You're. Don't blame me. You'll have something to do for the hurricane. Sean Tibor: Well, I know people listening may not have heard this, or it's been. I don't know, it's probably 20 or 30 episodes. We last talked about it, but Earsketch is a digital audio workshop. It's made by Georgia Tech. And what's really cool about it is they went and got samples from a lot of professional musicians and artists that they then include in this workshop. But unlike a regular digital audio workshop, where you might create music or mix music together by dragging and dropping or adjusting little dials and extending stuff, you make music with Python by writing bits of code to place the sample on the workshop. So if you want to do a drum line or, you know, like, have a channel that's like your. Your drum, you have to write that in code and create the channel and add the sample to it and have it repeat and everything. So you can do, like, four loops to have it repeat a bunch of times, or, you know, it's just really amazing how they took programming concepts and applied it to this workshop, and it works really well. And I think it kind of reinforces the phenomenon that we've seen where a lot of musicians tend to be pretty good at programming because there are a lot of unexpected overlaps between the two. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, I've always. About that. Yeah, sorry. Go, Kelly. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: No, I was gonna say I was. It's a lot of fun when you start mixing in for loops, because sometimes you don't really know what you're gonna. You don't really understand what you're gonna get with the clip when you're teaching to the kids. And so I'm like, just put some numbers in, and then it comes out with a really cool beat. And then they're like, yeah, that makes sense. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, I've always heard about that link between, like, programmers and, like, musicians. And I remember at some point actually looking for a piece of software that brought the two walls together, because I've always. I love music, and I think a lot of coders probably listen to music while coding to kind of. I wanted to do something with the two, but I couldn't find anything. So I'm definitely gonna check out. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Awesome. And you should post it. Sean Tibor: I'm worried that we might not see you again. Bam. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Well, Sean, your win. Sean Tibor: My wins. My win's Pretty simple. Yesterday was my birthday. I've reached a fairly large number. But what was what the actual win was, was not my birthday, but Python 3.13 was released yesterday on my birthday, which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, of, of all days to release it, I'm glad they picked mine. So I'm excited about it. I've been looking at it. I haven't had too much of a chance to play with some of the new features, although I've been listening to what they are. But I think my new fa, my, my favorite new feature in Python 3.13 for educators is they're continuing, I think this is the fourth version now where they've made improvements to error messages within Python. So when you're running Python in, I think it's in the shell, like if you're executing a Python script, it will now do color highlight syntax highlighting on your error message. So it will highlight colors there of key parts of the message. And with all of the improvements we've seen on Erro error messages and making them more readable and more understandable, I think this is a great next step and I'm excited for teachers and, and students to try it out and see how it helps them understand what's going on with their program. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, that sounds really good. So are they like color coding specific messages? Like syntax error might be a specific color or how does it work? Sean Tibor: I think it's within the error message. So, like one part of it where it says like, syntax error might be in one color, but then the description is in a different color. So you can kind of more easily see the different parts of the error message. I think we've seen with, with students and with new learners, they look at it like, what's this wall of stuff that just showed up? And how to read error messages and tracebacks is something we have to teach them also. But having the color coding I think is going to make that even easier. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, that's a great update. I like that. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Wait. Sean Tibor: All right, well, let's, let's go right in. I'm, I'm super excited about having you here. Bam. Because honestly, I've been telling people for years now that you got to pay attention to what's happening in Africa. You gotta pay attention to what's happening in Africa. There is something really cool and really special that's happening with Python. Whole communities are showing up like, we've got Pycon events, we've got teaching, we've got education. And I think it's something that you know, most Westerners aren't really paying attention to or aren't really aware of, but there's, there's something special happening there and I'm glad that you're here to be able to, to chat with us about it and tell us a little bit about what's going on and help spread the word about all these amazing things that are happening. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think. So I've got into the Python open source community. It's actually hasn't been too long. It's been about a year, I'd say, when I would say a year since I've fully, like, gotten in. And my first, like, entry into it was through Pycon Namibia. So, yeah, I remember I was in Zim in Zimbabwe and, you know, I'm beginning my coding journey and I just felt like I needed a community. I wanted people who I could like, you know, talk about Python with, you know, ask questions, just like, you know, be around other people. The same way, if you're playing a sport, you want to be part of a team and, you know, have other people you can practice with and stuff. And I just Googled Python conferences near me and I got Pycon, maybe in my Google search and I just bought a ticket. I said, okay, I'm going to pack on Namibia. It was like a week later and I said, I'm just doing it. I didn't know what to expect, but I always give a shout out to the Python Namibia community because the Python Namibia community, they are so great. Like everyone, what all those people, they're the reason why I'm still doing, being a part of this today, because they were just so, well, warm and welcoming towards me. They were really helpful, they really embraced me and just like, were curious about me and like, you know, why I was here and like, you know, what I'm doing and how they can help me in my journey. And yeah, like, it's just been one thing after the other since then. So definitely throughout the continent. You know, like you mentioned, we've got Pycon. Pycon Africa was a month ago, same time as Jagocon us. We had Jamcon Africa a few years ago. Last year actually we didn't have it this year, but we're going to do it next year. I'm part of the organizing team for that Pycon Zimbabwe, which is happening later this month, which I'm going to be a part of as well. Pycon South Africa as well as this month, like all over the continent. A lot of Things happen. Sean Tibor: Nice. So how did you. How did you get started in your coding journey? Like, where did that. Like, before you got part of the community, what got you interested in coding and then led you to that? Kudzayi Bamhare: So I feel like I'd always kind of thought about coding for most of my life, but somewhere along the line, someone convinced me that it was something I wouldn't be interested in doing or would be good at doing. I can't remember who it was or what they said, but I just feel like that was the reason I just, like, lost it. But when Covid happened, I just suddenly had a lot of time on my hands, and I'd also been thinking about shifting career. So before I was into coding, I was working in, like, business marketing, and I enjoyed that, but I wanted something. I wanted something different, and coding was in the back of my mind during that time. So when the pandemic happened, everything was shut down. Someone sent me a link for the Harvard CS fifth course with Professor David Mallon. Is how you say it, Mallon? Sean Tibor: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. And I said, you know what? This is the time to check it out. Try coding. And I did the course. I didn't complete it because I got stuck at some point, but because he's such a great teacher, I felt like I can continue doing. I took a bit of a break. And then, you know, I found a Python course, I think probably on Udemy, which I then tried again, and everything just clicked from there. So, yeah, that's kind of how everything started. Sean Tibor: Nice. Nice. Okay. Yeah. And I was. I was thinking about this a little bit because I think, you know, my. My knowledge of, you know, coding and computer education in Africa is pretty dated. Right. Like, I'm still thinking of, like, the 90s and one laptop per child and a lot of those early initiatives that were aimed at bringing that there. But I think, you know, like, your story of, you know, getting access to a course and having that be online and then getting access to resources and being able to explore and develop it. It's something that's not exclusive to Africa anymore, right. Or exclusive to the US it's like if you have the Internet, you have the ability to get started and do something and. And explore that interest, right? Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's two sides to that coin. So you have people like me that, you know, I'm. I'm come from a. I guess I'd say, like, I'm. I consider myself privileged person, especially in the context of Africa and Zimbabwe, you know, so I have access to a laptop, to like, reliable Internet. And I can, you know, do these things, but there like a big section of the population, and I'm speaking specifically about Zimbabwe, but applies to most countries in Africa where they don't have, you know, affordable Internet. Internet is very expensive back home. Darlink just came, so that might help if, you know, people can, you know, get enough money to sit, get it set up. But generally, if you want good, reliable Internet, you're going to pay quite a bit of money. Then you mentioned things like having a laptop, having a computer, you know, the hardware side of it. You know, not everyone has those things, but, but, you know, if you're able to kind of, you know, whether it's like going to a library, because there are some libraries, local libraries that have these things, or, you know, you can find a cheap computer and stuff, you absolutely can get started, but it just takes a bit of, I guess you need someone to point you in the right direction because a lot of people don't know where to start as well. And, you know, that's been my experience as someone that's like in the education space with coding, with Python. People come to me and they have questions like, okay, I want to learn this. Where do I go? What should I do? What should I. What's the first place to kind of like start learning? Because there's so much online and it's a new space and people don't really understand it and it's intimidating and it's all of these things. So a lot of barriers you have to get over, but, you know, yeah, it's not impossible. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I guess I'm going to try to turn off the camera. Does that help any? No, I think it's helping. Sean Tibor: Well, I think we saw some lag, but it's a little bit better. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Okay. I have so many questions. I'm sorry. So what is. You're saying that the equity is. Obviously there's a huge disparity between those that can access and those that can't access the Internet. Are there ways and workarounds that are happening with like, unplugged kind of activities or to get people at least interested to. Because if you don't have the Internet, you're not going to say, oh, yes, let me go to the library and code. Right. You don't know what. You don't know. Are there, are there ways that are getting kids or other, other interested adults in these areas? Kudzayi Bamhare: It's a great question. So I think I'll say right now that's really kind of the area of focus a lot of the community is trying to address. And we do that through things like Pycon, Pycon Zimbabwe. Or, you know, recently, a couple of months ago, I did a workshop, a Python workshop, beginner workshop, in collaboration with a local company. So we have a local NGO they called Uncommon. Great organization. I'm a big fan of them and I always, like, give them a shot where I can. And their mission is to increase technology education on the continent and get more people, more literate when it comes to things like programming, especially in Zimbabwe. And, you know, I kind of found that, okay, we have a common mission. And I went to them and I said, hey, guys, you guys have little hubs across the city with WI fi. You know, they have a student body with laptops and they've got these resources that people can make use of. And I said, hey, if we do a workshop, we can get some of your students in because they don't use Python. They use, like, JavaScript stuff. They do a bit of Python, but not really. But there's a big interest from their students to learn Python. And we can also extend it to other people outside. And we do a workshop and everyone come in and we can work together and, like, learn. And we did that and was. It went really well. So, you know, that told me that, okay, the one way we can address, you know, this disparity is just through collaboration. See, okay, what can you bring? You guys have access to Internet, you've got venue. Okay, I can bring my knowledge. I've got other people with knowledge come together, put a curriculum together. We can start learning, we start teaching, and people can come together and, like, have a place where they know that if I want to learn Python, I can start here. You know, this is something that I can go to. And I think that's been my biggest thing. It's like, where do you start? Because that's the question I get asked so many times, like, how do I start? Where should should I go? I saw this thing on YouTube. Should I start this? Good enough. Should I go here? And the true answer is you can start anywhere. But I think because there's just so much, like, mental baggage when it comes to coding and program, people, like, feel like they just can't do it, you know, for many reasons. Like I mentioned someone along the line made me feel like I couldn't do this. And I, like, put it aside until much later in my life when I could overcome those barriers. Most mental hurdles myself. But some people don't have that and they need to be in a space where they feel encouraged and safe to continue learning and keep doing this. So I think for me, that's the biggest thing. Like, we need to have more of these type of things. More Pycons, more like get togethers, more workshops, and just like, spaces where people come together and learn. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I'm going to try again. So it's. You were saying earlier about Pycon being welcoming in Namibia, and it's. It's heartwarming because I remember Sean and I going to our first Pycon, and it was so welcoming. And I can imagine just adding having that welcoming committee in all different countries within Africa could be a good start. Right? Is. You said Zimbabwe. Is this the first Pycon in Zimbabwe this year? Or. Or are there going to be more? Is it going to be, like, a constant every year? Like a. Like a Pycon? Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. So this isn't the first one in Zimbabwe, but I believe the last one was in 2019. So 2019, there was a Pycon, and then Covid happened, and it was like, break. And then a lot of the community members kind left and, like, left the country. And, you know, there was no one really doing things. So this year we had enough people, you know, to kind of put together, like, a team to try to bring another conference together, which is what we're doing now. But, yeah, this is not the first one. Hopefully we can continue doing it and we can have another one next year and the year after that. But, yeah, Kelly, honestly, I just want to get back to your point about the welcoming, the welcomingness of the Python community, because it's not just in Africa, even outside of Africa. Like, I went. I attended PyCon US for the first time this year, and that's the really big conference you have. I think there's what, almost 2,000 people there or something this year. And I remember getting there and feeling like, okay, I don't know how this is going to go, because I didn't know anyone at the conference, and I was worried I'm going to be just walking around by myself, just getting lost, being overwhelmed by everything that's happening around. But by the end of the conference, I made so many new friends, you know, so many new connections. You know, we're doing stuff together, was in Pittsburgh, you know, we went to, you know, watch the Pop Pirates, the baseball team there. We're checking out museums and doing stuff. And I felt like, okay, this is a place I can. This is a thing I can do. Like, next year I can come back this again. And it's all because, you know, people make that effort to say, oh, this is your first time, that's great. You know, you belong here. You can be come a part of this. Welcome. We're happy to have you here. And that is a very important thing that I think a lot of communities to embrace that, like, idea of, you know, we're not gatekeeping this thing, we want you to be a part of it, and once you're in, we want you to day. So, yeah, very big. Sean Tibor: I. I guess my question then, because I. I'm thinking about this a lot and I, I agree with you that, you know, one of the things I really appreciate about the Python community is that it is. It is so welcoming, it's so inclusive and it's very positive. Right. It's very encouraging here. You know, yes, you can be a part of things, and it does. You can have never written a line of Python in your life and you're still welcome at Python. Python, right? Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. Sean Tibor: And I'm wondering if there's something about that that just really fits with that Africa, right? It, like, really fits with Zimbabwe. I mean, you know, the first Pycon wasn't in Africa, but they're flourishing there. Right. Like, so I. I'm wondering if there's something that you see about Africa in particular that, you know, in the communities that you're in, or the Python communities that you're in, that seems to make it really, really work well as a. As a model or as a community or, you know, what. What's making it flourish in. In Africa from what you can. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, great question. I think, you know, Africans have this principle called ubuntu, right? Which is essentially, like, it centers around the idea of community and people being together and doing things again, supporting one another. So I think, because that's already instilled within, like, culture of the people. Whenever people come together as a community, we're always ready to support and, like, keep that going and thriving. And then when you add the fact that people are learning a skill that hopefully will benefit them in many ways in their careers financially and, you know, it's something they're investing their time and effort into, people take it seriously. So people come in with, like, an eagerness to learn, learn and figure out how they can make this part of their lives as impactful as possible, while also remembering that, hey, we are, you know, it's the greater good. Like, it's not just me here, I'm here with these other people. And we want, you know, to make this happen. I think that energy is present even. We had our first Django Con last year in Zanzibar and that was like a really, it was like, it was a really great conference, but it was the first one of its kind, right? First junk on earth. But like everyone came in ready to just like be as welcoming as possible, be as friendly, be as curious, be as, you know, enthusiastic and like, make connections. Say, hey, how do we. Like, I'm doing this in, in Ghana, like, can you support me in this way? Or like, oh, you know, in Zimbabwe, I'm thinking of doing this. What do you think? Like, can you give me ideas and just like brainstorming and stuff? And yeah, I think that energy just, it just permeates throughout like the continent and I hope it stays honestly, because it can be hard because opportunities aren't as present. I'm not sure how many interactions you guys have had with like coders from continent, but you know, there's a lot of challenges that people face like on this journey. But. And I'm worried that sometimes people can get discouraged, can be discouraging and people will fall off. But we try to keep things going that. Have you guys encountered that actually like people from like the African continent who I guess kind of experience hurdles and barriers that like kind of just put them off the whole career path. Sean Tibor: I mean, I think, I think that's pretty common every. Right. Like, it. It is not. It can often be pretty solitary as an endeavor, but having the ability to, you know, have that support and have that community helps a. I think the other thing, and this is the part that I don't know how to solve, like I don't have a good answer for this one, but I think people also need to feel success, right? Like if they're working on trying to change their life and trying to embrace something that's new and different and maybe a little bit scary, they need to feel success with it. And I know one of the things that was, you know, I was thinking about was like, most global companies, unless they have operations in Africa, don't really think of Africa as a talent pool, right. They don't think like, you know, I'm going to set up an IT development center or a software development center in Africa, right. Or I'm going to hire people in Zimbabwe, right. Like, it's not on their radar yet. And I don't know how to fix that. I mean, I've had that conversation my own job and you know, it was like, well, it's a good idea and we'd want to do something like that. But then they start to get into all of the hurdles, like, well, how do we hire people? Do we have operations there? How do we pay taxes? All of the process. Right. It kind of gets in our own way. And so it's. I think that's. If there aren't the opportunities for people to feel success and it's not coming from the global companies. Right? Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. Sean Tibor: Where is it going to come from? Right. And. And there's definitely, I think, at play. There's this. There's this idea of maybe it needs to be startups from within Africa. Right. Like really good ideas that. That grow and permeate and there's a lot of entrepreneurship there. Maybe it's African companies looking to hire people in Africa first. Right. And maybe we start to get the word out that, hey, you know what? There, this is a good place to hire people for those big global companies. This is a place where there's opportunity, there's smart people who are hardworking and can do cool stuff. Maybe that word needs to get out also. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, there's. I'm gonna try. There's also. So in Peru, when I was living in Peru, I met with a couple of people. They had started a coding school for adults. And that school turned. It was like a feeder place for a company out of the United States, but it would make sense. And this is like, maybe, maybe this is your. Your calling. But there's a. The coding hub is training the employees to go into that starter kind of community. It's almost like those. I don't know if you've seen it in the United States where they say, oh, you join here, we're going to guarantee you a job at one of these places, but you're going to pay for us to teach you to learn how to code. So it's that sort of. You're funding the school, but you have direct access to companies. And I've seen those models work well in, in the developing countries. And Peru's kind of. I don't. I've never been to Africa, so please forgive me. I've been to a lot of other countries and that. Unfortunately, that continent's on my bucket list. But in per. There's a lot of inequities. You know, again, we have people who don't have Internet access to computers, etc. It's getting better. But these schools would allow people to come in at nighttime courses, daytime courses, whatever. Whatever was working for them. Because if you're working the job from 8 to 8, then you can Go and do this school in the evenings. It was helpful and I saw a lot of, a lot of bandwidth get behind and I'll try to find the name of it and post, post it in the show notes but it was really cool and it's really taken off so it's almost like, yeah, I'll try to think of the name later. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, I think that's, I've definitely heard of things like that and I think those are great programs that would absolutely, that would help because like you mentioned the fact that you're teaching people, you're giving them the skill. Right. But you're also saying, hey, after you've done, after you learn, we're going to put you in this next environment that's going to give you that success that Sean was talking about that people need to feel for them to feel like this is worthwhile. So before DjangoCon us, I haven't mentioned black Python devs yet, which I absolutely need and Jay Miller who's been on the podcast. So I met jay@pycon us and you know, like Python they've supported the workshop I mentioned that we had in Zimbabwe. They were big there was sponsor for that, which was great. And Jay invited me for to be a speaker at the first Black Python Dev summit, which was for Jankon us. And in my talk I mentioned, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. Yeah, and he talks about the 10,000 hour rule, right? And basically, which basically means like, you know, you have to get in at least 10,000 hours to become like really professional, really good at something. And I think in the second chapter he mentions Bill Joy who is a programmer. And Bill Joy's life had very fortunate things that happened that allowed him to get a lot of time programming and access to. And as I was reading that book I thought about hey, like where can people in Zim get 10,000 hours programming? Like how can you, how can someone get that far ahead? It feels like with such a disadvantage because there isn't enough exposure to like coding and like you know where someone just going to get a computer to just like code and fall asleep and wake up and start coding again. And one of my solutions was hey, we need to have more events that are just centered around programming. One of the things I want to do with black Python devs next year is a thing called Pycreate Zim which would be a month long period of like coding and like meetups and just basically it's like hey, this is like block out whatever's happening in this month. We're just coding, coding and we're talking about code and we're doing all of that. And you know, through that, hopefully people can now have more conversations about, like you guys mentioned, like, hey, you know, I have this idea of something I want to do. Like, you know, with Python we can play with data, right? Oh, how about we start collecting data for this thing and then maybe a startup can spring out of that. Like, I'm not saying that will happen now, but like it could be a seed, could be planted through, you know, a month of just coding and learning and talking about Python. Like, maybe now you can meet someone if, say, someone like Jay is able to come, or maybe one of you guys can come down during that time and like, you know, host a workshop or something and like, it sparks an idea or conversation. But I think, you know, basically the idea is if we have more time with this thing, with this, with Python, with like conversations about startups and, you know, tech, you know, you can get people creating opportunities for themselves because the opportunities outside aren't easily available, they aren't accessible. Not everyone can go to a Pycon US or Django Con US or Europe or whatever or, you know, get those opportunities. So if we can be, create things back home could be a start. It's hard, but, you know, hopefully it can start so I can spark something. Sean Tibor: Yeah, I mean, it's a great, it's a great point just having access to the, the resources, the tools, the inspiration. Right? Like, just having the excitement about enthusiasm to go put in the 10,000 hours sometimes is hard to find. Right. And I think the other, the part that I am thinking about here too is that there's no reason why it can't. Right? There's no, there's no impediment, there's no blocker. There's 1.3 billion people who live in, on the African continent. Somewhere in there is the next, you know, is the next Google idea. It's the next Apple idea. Like, it's there, right? Someone could have that. Kudzayi Bamhare: I know, and that's, I think that's what trips me up because I'm like, it's gotta, there's gotta be something here. But like, what's missing? And it's like, is it. Are we not getting enough time coding? Are we not getting enough opportunities to just like have conversations? I don't know what it is. What do you guys think about that? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Well, I'm gonna try again. I can't help but Think of Brianne Kaplan and her, her way she approached the Code youe Dreams in Chicago. She starts with the issue in the community and the new programmers came with a problem that they wanted to fix. I think if you can, if whenever you can empower somebody to say, you know what, you don't need so and so to do that for you, what you could do that you just need the right tools. And I love that, that passion, that, that's way. The way that she started it. So it was always what's the issue in your community or what's the niche that's missing in that added passion is something that's going to want you to have that 10,000 hours of code. It's like my whole reason of coding Python wasn't for a problem I was trying to fix outside. It was a problem of saying, oh, I'm going to do this. This is, this is a challenge, you know, and that, that's what motivated me to code every single night. But once you find that person's desire and you say, hey, you can fix that with code, then there's your, there's your motivation for the 10,000 hours, there's your theme for your, for your month long of coding. Sean Tibor: Well, I, and I. The access to the right materials and equipped 100%. Like we, I mean, I know, I, I know I take that for granted in my own life, right? Like the fact that I have access to good Internet and reliable power and hardware and I can, you know, buy like order something on Amazon and it shows up two days later, right. And like, I don't know if I can show it over here. Like behind my workbench I've got a little microcontroller board, right? I've got actually like a box of micro, microcontrollers that I've acquired here and there over the last five or six years. Yeah, for me they're sitting in a box right now because I don't have time do fun stuff with them, right? But if I brought that same controller board that runs Python to Africa and I put it in the hands of someone who's like needs to solve a problem and they could use that board to do it, we'd probably see something amazing because now we've paired that problem solving, that insight with access to, here's the tools to write the code for it, here's the board that can actually do it and now they have something that is actually tangible and real and. Kudzayi Bamhare: They can make absolutely man. And I feel like. So when I went to Pycon Maybe this year it's not become a yearly thing for me. I'm to go next year again. Like, I love the Namibian community. This year we did some stuff with the micro bit, I think from the BBC. Micro Bits guys are familiar with them. Sean Tibor: Yeah, yeah. Kudzayi Bamhare: And we went to a university. We had. So we had two teaching days. We had one at a university and one at a primary school in Windhoek, the capital. And the Micro bits was such a hit at both locations with both different age groups of students. And I think a big part of that is because, you know, you can teach someone programming, right. And sometimes it feels abstract, right, because, you know, someone goes on a website and, you know, they see how it works. They see, okay, this is. This was made with code, but this is what I'm doing. Like, I can. I'm sending an email, Gmail, right? I'm using a cell phone. Like, I'm sending texts and etc. But when you're just looking at like a, you know, terminal or, you know, you're on pycharm or whatever and you're creating a variable, it's like, okay, maybe I know what's going on, but how does this become something? But if you have like a controller or that, you know, that micro bit and you're able to write some code and then. And run it and do the thing you wanted to do, like you're actually seeing it, it becomes more real and becomes, oh, this sparks an idea like, oh, I can solve problem with this or I can make something fun with this. And it then sparks that creativity and that motivation to keep learning and keep doing more and, you know, overcome, you know, challenges and, like, barriers and stuff and. Yeah, but it's also, you know, can we get those things? Can we get, you know, the tools to help people become more inspired and more interested in the code and not feel like I'm just seeing words and number on my screen. I don't know what's going on and. Yeah. Which I'm sure is stuff you guys also face, right? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Well, yeah, I was. I think, like, I struggle a lot personally with just getting all the kids interested. Sixth grade's really easy. When you get them really young. They still have the creative. Creative. They. They don't have as many fears as adults. They do have a fear of failure. So I do have some kids at that age, but then as I start to get older, even just that short time between 6 and 8th grade, you start to lose a lot of passion of coding. So it's hard, it's Hard to, to get everybody connected and wanting to do that. And I guess that's why we try to solve all different types of problems. You know, we do music, we. We show them APIs, we show them graphing and data science. Because my feeling is if you can get them hooked in one. One way, they're going to eventually when they, when they come around and get past the fear, past the, oh, it's too hard, they'll. They'll come back to it. But I was also just thinking about when you said BBC Microbit. I don't know, I mean, I'm sure it's still hard to get, but what about the ESP boards? And Sean, there's like the WI Fi boards, they're actually cheaper. And I love, don't get me wrong, I love BBC Micro Bit. They're a great foundation even, and great board. But the little wifi boards and the picos, they're even cheaper and they're thinner and they just slide in. And, and don't forget Dora Palfi with the Imagi. If you really want to get some, some girls into coding, those pretty lights, when it lights up, they're like a little keychain. So I agree the hardware is a good way to get that working knowledge going. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. And I think I'm gonna, when this episode comes out, I'm gonna, like, take notes of all the things you mentioned because I definitely need all of that stuff. And so another interesting challenge that we found face here on the continent is people. And obviously this is all over the world, everyone wants to make money, right? But what I've noticed here is that this goes for Zim and I guess all over the continent, people, if people aren't getting paid, if the money's not coming in, they easily fall off. That's when you really start to lose because I think there's so few opportunities on the continent. Like Zimbabwe has a really high unemployment. So a lot of people have to survive in various ways. You know, they have to, like, become really creative when it comes to making money. And people, they've heard that, you know, if I have a career coding, I can make a lot of money. I can, like change my life. But if it's taking too long, they're gonna say, okay, should I continue learning this thing, programming, which is like really hard, or should I just like, try become a farmer or, you know, become a foreign currency trader in the streets of Harare instead? And most people will look at what's making money and then they'll like, do that, like one of My issues before I went to Pycon Namibia was I'd reach out to people who Python in Zimbabwe. Like, I'd like Google and like, whatever. I was like doing all kinds of checking LinkedIn. And when I reach out to these people, a lot of them said, ah, yeah, I've kind of stopped coding now. I'm now like, you know, doing this other thing because, yeah, I just wasn't, you know, the money wasn't coming in and they just kind of lost interest and like, passion for it or I don't even know if they even had passion for it or they're doing it for the money. Like, I don't know. And it made me really sad. And, you know, maybe the problem is, you know, we're focusing too much on the money side and it's like, hey, how about creating something solutions? And then hopefully that leads to money or let's just do this because it's a fun thing to do. Or is that also just like a privileged way of looking at it? Like, there's a lot of things to kind of unpack and like analyze about how you can teach Python in an environment like that. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's a hard problem. It's. I'm a teacher, so I'm not making a lot of money. And I get the question about the podcast a lot. You spend so much time on the podcast, how much money do you make from it? And I laughed, I was like, how much money do we put into it? But I mean, it is a motivator, right? And that goes the same in Peru. When I lived there, like, if you're, if you're at home with your family and your family is relying on you to go work 12 hours to bring in money that is still below, below poverty wage, you don't have that, that extra care to just go and say, hey, I'm going to go learn how to code. And so what was happening in Peru is a lot of these companies through either the embassy or from the international schools or the people that were in the international schools, would develop these, these programs to work with the government. And it was a lot of work trying to get in with the government to, to get the kids in coding. So it almost has to be a, an entire cultural shift in the country itself. I know it was taking my, my friend Dolores like five, six years just to even get her, her, her coach coding camp in, in front of the government's face. And, and luckily she had a couple of friends. So there you go. You have to have somebody who's friends in the Education Department. And, and it's a huge change. And, and I hear that's, that's a, that's going to be probably your biggest hurdle. But maybe if you can get in in the younger ages with the kids. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And I think if you start them earlier, prior to being part of the, the, the person in the family who has to earn all the money, you're the kids learning. I mean, I teach 10 year olds, so how young can we go? I really think we can get 9 and 10 year olds, BBC Microbit, no problem. 8 year olds coding with Python. So if you're, if you focus on the younger generation, it's possible that it could set yourself up for a more positive outlook in the future because, you know, we're going to need it when we only have three men working with OpenAI. So sorry, I had to plug that negative statement in. Sorry. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. You want to say something? Sean Tibor: Yeah, I'm thinking about it because it's, I don't, I don't know that it's an African problem as much as it's a human problem. Right. Like it's something that affects a lot of people around the world. You know, when you're in a survival mode, it's really hard to have time for your passions. Right. And sometimes survival doesn't mean I'm, you know, in the middle of a hurricane. Survival means I'm just trying to make enough money to persist and survive. And yeah, I think it's a really, it would be a really hard thing to say, you know, I'm going to spend. It's a risk, I guess is the best way to put it. It's a risk to say I' going to go work on online solving problems for someone for hire as a Python developer. Right. I'm going to be on, on some sort of like, you know, programmers for hire, website writing code and solving problem. Am I good enough to do that? Like, is my code going to work? Right. How much time do I have to invest before I can even get to that point? Right. And maybe it's, If I have five years, the 10,000 hours, I can get to a point where I'm efficiently making money. Right. But it's still a grind. It's really hard to make a living working project to project or task to task, no matter where you. Right. And maybe the only real advantage a lot of people in Africa have is that if their economic needs aren't as high as someone living in a more developed or higher cost country, right. Maybe they can, they can afford to bid Lower on projects than other people. Right. But still, that doesn't necessarily help them change their life. Right. Like, it doesn't. It's not more attractive than being that foreign currency trader on the street. Right. If you're making less money and working harder, that doesn't last for very long. Right. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I know. What are you talking. Talking about? It lasted 20. I have 26 years. I work really, really hard, and no money. Like, no money. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. I mean, teachers definitely need to get paid a lot more because, you know, I think one thing that really helps when it comes to, like, I mentioned the CS50 course and how even though I got stuck, I continued going because I felt like the teacher was so great that I felt like, you know, I can continue doing. And that's something I want to really, like, focus in on. How do I. A really good joke. Like, if I'm gonna tell someone, hey, this is a, you know, a really, you know, worthwhile thing to invest your time and effort into. And then they have all these questions and they have the uncertainties. How do I ease that tension in someone and make them feel like, okay, I can do this, Like, I can. It's worth. Continue to pursue. Like, even if, you know, because the reality is you're not gonna get the job after, you know, one month of coding. Right. I mean, you'd be. Maybe you can, but you'd be super lucky to do that. But how do you make someone understand that, but still feel like I'm gonna continue pursuing this in spite of that information, in spite of, you know, what you just told. And I think a really good teacher and someone that has a good understanding of people and the subject matter can. Can do that. And I've heard some of the conversations you guys have had on this podcast, and I'm, like, taking notes. Like, that's really good. You need to, you know, just really understand people and understand, you know, what are their passions or what do they want to get out of this, you know, outside of I want to make money, like, what else is driving you? You know, and those are some of the things I hope, you know, I can just get really good at as I continue on this journey, because I am very aware that I could easily lose people once, you know, it's month five and they're waiting for that big check to come in, big tech job, remote work, you know, and it's not coming in. Like, how do I not lose you in this journey? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: You've got one really, really good skill that puts you in the right place for both being A pythonista and an educator, and that's compassion. Like, to be honest, you, you, you sound like a person with a really big heart. And I think any educator will, will attest to this. Like having, having the time listen to the needs of your students and understand that, okay, yes, I have an agenda, and I want to get through this curriculum. And I, and I get it. And I'm like, chop, chop, chop, we gotta go, we gotta go. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: But in the same time, whether they're 10 or 80, they're people. And if they're not ready or in a mindset to learn, they're being that compassionate person. Being that person that can listen is one of the number one things an educator can do. And you'll know what they need the more you start talking to them. Because they tell you I'm, you know, it's. Little kids, don't say it so nicely. They just say, this sucks. This is boring. You know, how can we have to do this? Okay, well, we're going to do something different. And at least with adults, they're a little bit nicer sometimes. Sean Tibor: So the other thing I was going to say is I think it's okay for it to be an ant. It's okay to love what you do and do it because it pays you well. Right. So, you know, for people who are going through that, or maybe they need another couple months before they get that opportunity, it's okay to be real with them and say, you know, I know you love solving these kinds of problems or you really enjoy this kind of work. It's also okay to want a job out of it. Right. Like, it's okay to have that need because it means you can do it longer. Right. Like, I probably would not have stuck with code coding and I T and tech as a career if I didn't get paid to do it. Right. It would be a nice hobby and it would be a lot of fun, but I'd still have to do it another job. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. Sean Tibor: So I think it's okay to be honest with people and real about that. Is it like, yeah, this, this can be a side project. It can be something that you bake into your career that you already have. It can also be something that you're doing because it's a career, because you can get paid to do it and provide a life for yourself. And any one of those is perfectly, perfectly fine. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I, I can't help but think about our conversation with the Python. For lawyers, Python is needed. Or coding. You know, let's just put, you know, as much as we love Python, let's just say coding hardware technology is needed in almost every single job, regardless if it's, if it's even labor work. Right. So let's say roofing, you still need to have some sort of knowledge for promotion or something that needs to be automated. Some way of getting money in, some, some way of tracking. So if a person is working, what, what part of that work can coding help? Yeah, and, and that would be cool, right? You come in and here, here I'm, this is my job and this is my pain point and this is what takes me hours to do. Well, you know, let's see how we can help fix that or automate that or speed it up or, or make you more efficient. That's. There's also your new niche niche for like an entrepreneurials kind of businesses too. I think there's, there are ways if you can overcome the hardware and Internet side. That's the hard part. Like you can get creative with the other ways. I think having the, the means to access the code and the resources. If you can get over that, I think you can get over getting more people into coding. I think it would be. I'm, I'm excited, I'm excited to see. Kudzayi Bamhare: What you bring and you know, what you just said just is what excites me the most about, you know, I'm scared and excited about this journey because I feel like Zimbabweans, Zimbabweans are really. I can't use entrepreneurs. Not the word, because it's something a step above on earth. It's kind of like I'm gonna figure out how to make this thing work, you know, because there's been so many problems where we've had like economic crisis since the day I was born. Like, everything's a problem in the country, but you go to the country, you wouldn't know that people are living and things. Fine. You know, I used air quotes for anyone listening, but I'm wondering like, hey, if we combine, you know, Code Python and the understanding of what Python, that spirit of, you know, just resilience and like figuring things out, like, I feel like it could create a pretty good cocktail of something really special. And that's my, that's my thinking anyway. And I'm like, okay, let's start, let's, let's go step by step. Maybe not in my lifetime, but Katie, like you mentioned, if we go younger maybe, because I think the focus has kind of been on older people. People, because, you know, I think older people need to make a living and need to do stuff and Like, I guess I'm more capable in some ways. That's the thinking. So we focus on that. But maybe if the younger kids, you know, start tinkering with this and then they get older and then they start, oh, you know, farming and, you know, I need to monitor my crops, like, why don't I use python? Why don't I, you know, Google, figure out, like, what hard ways I can incorporate, you know, with this, you know, enterprise I'm trying to get involved in. You know, I think we can become a country and a continent where tech is really like the backbone of. And the engine behind a lot of the development take place. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: It's like our episode with the two Karen, Hild, Hilda, Brett, what's. Sean, you remember, that's it. Agricultural lady. I know the first ladies, they use python and they teach python on the farm because they use it to. They had a crop machine, Right. That identified the weeds or I think, and they spray. I can't remember. This is like four or five years ago. I have to re. Listen to that episode now. I just got excited. But, but anyways. Kudzayi Bamhare: Oh, I can. Sean Tibor: Well, I, I think we should. I think this is a good place to stop, though. I think it's an inspiring place to stop. That there's, there's a lot of opportunity and there's a lot of potential and, and the next part of this is, is just taking off. It's definitely given me a lot to think about. Bam. Like, there's a lot of, you know, there are a lot of really great things happening, but there's a lot of real problems to be solved too. You know, and I, I think, you know, the, the part that gives me the most hope and the community coming together to solve those problems, that it's not something that any one person has to. To do themselves or feel like they're alone in trying to solve. It's really inspiring to hear about, you know, many people coming together to solve a problem that they all together acknowledge this is something worth doing. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah. And just to add, and it's not just people within the continent, it's people from outside that are supporting, like, people like, you know, Jay with black Python devs. You know, there's people like. Let me stop mentioning names. I don't forget anyone. There's so many people from just outside the continent as well that are saying, hey, how can we help? How can we get involved? And they've supported me and like Pycon Zim as well in so many different ways. And other Pycons and DJANGO Cons, Africa and everything. So, yeah, like, it's exciting. It's going to be work, but everything is work, you know, but it's worthwhile work. Sean Tibor: Love that. And so we'll also grab some links in the show notes from you around, you know, different Pycons in Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Django Con. We'll also put the link to black Python devs there. That's a great way, if you're not on the console continent, to be able to help out because they have a lot of ways of getting resources to people who are developers within Africa as well. So we'll put all of those in the show notes so that people who are interested in helping have a way to reach you and reach the communities. Kelly, any final thoughts or announcements we need to make this week? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: No, just if people want to reach out to you, what's the best way place to. To get a hold of you? Kudzayi Bamhare: Probably LinkedIn. My LinkedIn is just my name, Kuzaya Bamare. Find me there if. If you do find me on Twitter. X Ambam Boogie. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Nice. Kudzayi Bamhare: We can put that in the show notes so, you know, they can find the correct spelling of that. But yeah, I'm not. I'm not on there as often these days, but I do check it occasionally. But LinkedIn is the best place to find. Sean Tibor: Nice. All right. All right, well, then I think that does it for this week. Bam, thank you again for joining us and having the conversation. It's been really wonderful to get a chance to talk and learn more about what you're doing and what you hope to do in the future. Kudzayi Bamhare: Yeah, thank you so much, Sean. Kelly, it's been great, great being on the podcast, had a lot of fun and looking forward to more episodes. If you guys want me on again, let me know. I'm always ready to come back. Sean Tibor: Absolutely. All right, well, then, we'll wrap up here. So for Teaching Python, this is Sean. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And this is Kelly signing off.