Diversity and Inclusion at PyCon Uganda 2024

Diversity, and inclusion are  closely linked values held by PyCon Uganda that simply mean working to be supportive of diverse groups of individuals. As a community, we need to be able to provide these values to grow and improve our community.

Diversity refers to having people with a wide variety of characteristics and identities. Diversity can be about, but isn’t limited to racial or ethnicity, gender, religion, age, physical abilities, cognitive abilities, political views, life experiences, and many other characteristics.

Inclusion  is about creating an environment where all people feel equally valued, psychologically safe, and free to be at their best.

PyCon Uganda 2023 event last year attracted a very diverse  group within our community and from outside including  various attendees from all corners of Uganda from students, women, people with disabilities and many other minority groups.

To provide the python community a good experience and safeguard people,  Pycon Uganda is making sure diversity and inclusion is embedded in everything at Pycon Uganda 2024. We want the attendees, speakers, sponsors and the tech community  to come from all different age groups, religions and faiths, nationalities, ethnicity, gender and fully represent the python and tech community in Uganda.

This year PyCon Uganda is excited to have put in place a number of initiatives to ensure our commitment  to diversity and inclusion for all our attendees, speakers, and the python community at the conference.

PyLadies Kampala Anniversary celebration

PyLadies Kampala has spent the last 7 years consistently mentoring and empowering women in Uganda to become active participants and leaders in the Python open-source community.

This special occasion marks a significant milestone for PyLadies Kampala Chapter whose mission is to promote, educate, and advance a diverse Python community through outreach, education, conferences, events, and social gatherings. In their work PyLadies have and continue to promote diversity and Inclusion everyday

Django girls workshop

Django Girls is a programming workshop for women organized by Django Girls Kampala with the aim to empower and help women during this one-day programming workshop to make technology more approachable by creating resources designed with empathy. 

At PyCon Uganda this year, we hope to bring more amazing women into the world of technology and increase the diversity in the Django community through this workshop.

Speakers and Keynotes

We do appreciate that there is work we have to do to advance diversity and inclusion, we’re investing to move the Ugandan technology landscape and industry forward by ensuring the conference talks, seminars, tutorials cater to the needs of all attendees and are by and from diverse areas.

We are contributing by having a diverse line of Key notes from Uganda, East Africa and the world. The lineup of speakers is even more diverse with many men and women having accepted to grace our stage, there will be no shortage of people's stories, work and experiences. We hope that through them attendees will find shared experiences, see themselves, feel heard, understood and connected.

Domestic Travel Aid 

This program to assist attendees from Northern, Western, Eastern and Southern regions of Uganda with the cost of travel to attend the conference. PyCon Uganda this year is targeting students especially from schools outside Kampala who normally  don't get opportunities to attend conferences , so this year we are offering diversity tickets, and not just that we will be offering transport to these students to and from the conference venue. Apply here

We Celebrate Diversity Python Community PyCon Uganda, we truly believe that diversity drives innovation. We want to actively involve a wide and diverse range of voices in the technology landscape of Uganda so that 

1. Empower the Next Generation

2. Technology Accessibility as a Catalyst for Transformation

3. Shaping a More Equitable Future

The challenges the python community in Uganda faces in creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce and culture is enormous and we continue to work towards The PSF mission of diversity, equality and inclusion ‘support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers’.

Diversity and inclusion is a continuous process of improvement and we are committed to doing this by building trust, expanding circles of influence, demonstrating commitment to diversity, and providing equal opportunity for growth and development in our Ugandan python community. We believe that Communities that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are better placed to respond to challenges, contain top talent, and meet the different needs of our society.

Come to PyCon Uganda 09th - 12th October 2024.