As already announced, the second “Python African Tour” stop is Dakar, next week. A set of events are planned all over the week, thanks to the unstoppable contribution from the DakarLUG guys (Thomas, Ousmane, Serguei, and the others) managing the organization with love. What’s more amazing is that we will be training and showing Python-related stuff to more than 60 people ! Thanks to the companies and groups/organizations sponsoring these events.
Here is an overview of our busy agenda:
Trainings and workshops (monday, tuesday, thursday)
- Python tutorial
- Advanced Python training (objects, classes, iterators, decorators, etc)
- Scientific Python training
- Django tutorial
- Django workshop and Scientific Python workshop (taking place at the same time on thursday)
The conference day (wednesday) ; we will have various talks and discussions on topics including:
- The “Python African Tour” project
- The Python language for newcomers
- Using Python for scientific applications
- Demos on tools and applications (DemoCamp)
Other activities
- A sprint on friday and saturday, for those interested.
- A PloneGov meeting (friday morning).
We’re really excited about this, and hope Python will really take off in West Africa !
For more information and following our activities:
We now have several volunteers getting involved with Python African Tour :
- Amine Souleymani gave a Python tutorial for the Morocco stop of the tour.
- Daniel Nouri gave a Python tutorial (for an english-speaking group) in Morocco, and also took part to the PloneGov sprint that was organized after the training days. Daniel has accepted to be on board again for Senegal (the next stop) as a trainer.
- Emmanuelle Gouillart will be contributing to the Senegal sessions with a Scientific Python tutorial.
- Thomas Noel and Ousmane Wilane, our main facilitators in Senegal, are taking care of all the organization details, including finding sponsors, and will also serve as trainers. Ousmane has proposed a Django training that will really be interesting to follow.
- I (Kamon Ayeva) will be part of the Senegal volunteers team. In Dakar, we are hoping to have at least 4 trainers, so we may deliver some of the trainings with pairs. We’ll see how it goes.
Of course others have expressed interest in helping and they should jump in as we go. We are slowly building a geographically diverse team that can collaborate and help deliver our message in these countries where Python is often underrated or unknown.
A big thank to all the “PAT” project contributors.
I’m pleased to announce that our next event will take place in Dakar, Senegal, the week of July 6-10.
The event is organized with the help of AUF (Campus numérique francophone de Dakar), some local Open Source advocates and developers (DakarLUG), ISOC Sénégal and NIC Sénégal. I really want to thank them.
We are planning several tutorials/workshops during two or three days:
- Python introduction
- Advanced Python (an overview of design patterns)
- Django
- Scientific Python
There will also be a barcamp day and a sprint for the social and exchange part of the deal 
We are still in need of sponsors, so if you want to help promote Python in Africa, if you have some interest in Senegal, or if you want to help in any other way, please contact us. You can sponsor the event as a whole, or just contribute to the sprint or the barcamp.
For more information, check the event site.
This is a quick update to inform you of what could happen in 2009.
We’ve been having discussions and started work for organizing a Python event with training, democamp, and sprint in Senegal, and possibly in Zambia too, this year. If you are based in one of these regions or have partners there, and you see an opportunity to help or participate, get in touch with me (kamon dot ayeva at gmail.com).
Also, this project will be featured at the talk “Giving back and helping expand the Python community. A roadmap for South America and Africa“, at PyCon in Chicago next month. Roberto Allende and myself are going to present our ideas to spread Python in new regions, taking South America and Africa as examples. After the talk, we hope to contribute more by organizing discussions and some kind of advocacy mini-sprint in one of the Open Space rooms.
After months of preparation, the Python African Tour has started with our first participating country, Morocco.
Thanks to the involvement and talents of Amine Souleymani and Daniel Nouri, we were able to introduce Python to students of EMI (Ecole Mohammadia d’Ingenieurs) in Rabat. Daniel blogged about his participation here.
A sprint also took place in Casablanca to get the PloneGov team and some african partners to work on Plone and PloneGov related stuff.
A detailed report of these first events and achievements will follow !
A big thank goes to our initial supporters and facilitarors:
- The PloneGov team for supporting the tour, by accepting our sprint idea and finding funding to help us with the organization costs for Morocco.
- The EMI students and staff who helped organizing the Rabat sessions. You can check their local site here. A special thank to Aida El manar El bouanani for her enthusiasm and hard coordination work.
- Nextma for supporting the sprint in their offices in Casablanca.
Next things that should happen:
- We are going to work for the next interested countries (Zambia, Senegal, Nigeria, etc) and the precise plan should be announced in January.
- We will make a proposal for involving the trained people on technologies, beyond the Python language, that they could use for enterprise projects.
We have been busy planning for the first country our Tour will feature: Morocco.
Amine Soulaymani, a developer living in Morocco, and Daniel Nouri have volunteered to participate as instructors for two groups of students at Ecole Mohammedia d’Ingenieurs, the school who has accepted to host these free Python introduction events in Rabat on December 18, 19, and 20.
After the fisrt 2 days dedicated to training, we would like to have at least 3 days of community activities: an unconference-style day with demos and talks, followed by a sprint to learn more and contribute.
A group of people from Belgium, participating to the PloneGov project, have agreed to join us, and co-sponsor the sprint, to work on Plone and PloneGov related stuff.
Other possible topics, still in discussion, are:
What we need to make sure all this can work:
- A host for the sprint, since Ecole Mohammedia will only host us for the training and unconference part.
- Other co-sponsors who could put money to help assist in the travel costs of Python developers who will participate, and contribute to the work that will be done.
Contact us and let’s discuss about this opportunity to promote Python in Africa and get new developers from that continent on board !
Aida El manar El bouanani, a student of Ecole Mohammedia d’Ingenieurs, in Rabat, Morocco, is an active member of the Python African Tour project team. She has started promoting the project among the students and the school management.
Last week-end, she had the opportunity to present the project at the AfREN (Africa Research and Education Networking) meeting taking place as part of the AfNOG and AfriNIC events called “9èmes Rencontres AfNOG - 8èmes Rencontres AfriNIC”.
She reported that, after her presentation, she talked with several participants who expressed interest in the project. Participants from organizations such as:
- A research center in Egypt
- A university in Senegal
- A university in Malawi
It’s great to see such interest and we hope to quickly start organizing these local events across Africa, and help students, engineers, researchers and others discover or increase their usage of Python.
