My Pycon Africa Story - Psalms Kalu Lead, Python Abia

The event kicked off on day one with an Africa Meet & Greet session + Accra city tour. Can you believe every country representative had to come up and introduce themselves

African countries represented:
Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Benin, Togo, Namibia, South Africa and a few more I couldn't get.

Foreign countries represented: Italy, Germany, USA and others

Then we had a full tour of Accra city. We saw the national theatre, beach, Accra market, tower and lots of other interesting places seen. Did I mention that I tasted Banku for the first time. I reserve my comment because I will like to visit Ghana another time. it's a nice place. During the tour we got to network and socialize and I made some amazing new friends: Dustin Haffner, Mei Li (whom I already booked as a speaker in our upcoming event Abia MeetPy), Daniel Roy, Abigail, Aaron, and many others.

Day Two was the conference proper. Talks and workshops. I attended a lot.
- Currying in Python by my new friend, Dustin
- Code Refactoring by Nick
- Django Crash Test by Loek Van. This particular workshop was a true eye opener as it introduced me to the beauty of the Django framework. (I am definitely ding my next project with Django)

I met Marlene Mhangami, the chair of Python Africa and a director at Python Software Foundation - the person responsible for bringing together the entire African Python community. And Yes, she is a woman! and young and beautiful and passionate. It was a pleasure to finally meet her and exchange ideas with her. She is simply phenomenal

Other talks I attended included:

- Bridging the talent gap between tech communities and industry by Kelvin Oyanna (Lead, Python Nigeria)
- Data Visualiation by Rising Odegua
- Accessibility Test by Adeyinka (A deaf software engineer with Britecore)

One of the things being at the #PyConAfrica in Ghana taught is that everyone has a story. The challenges we face in life are only the stories we will use to inspire someone tomorrow.

The last day concluded what was a nice and inspiring experience. I have never been in one room with lots of people from different countries, cultures, languages, background etc, before. This conference has granted me that opportunity and I am thankful.

I look forward to being in PyCon Africa 2020. Goodbye Africa!

If you want to see the 1000+ official photos take at the event, Check out this link: Pycon Africa Photos

Photo credit. KoPhi Photography

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