The good people at Django Girls Accra organised a workshop last weekend at the iSpace Foundation in Labone.
At the Django Girls workshop, more than 15+ female participants learnt about the Django framework and coding in the Python language. They had to learn what they were being taught and had to build a website by themselves from scratch. The participants were guided through the process by some volunteers and helpers from DevCongress.
At the end of the day, some participants had coded and published their first ever website using Django. A couple of participants actually managed to finish their projects before lunch time.
So What is Django?
First of all, “Django” is not the character from the “Django Unchained” starring Jamie Foxx. That’s just to get that out of the way for you guys trying to figure it out.
We’re talking Django like the coding framework. Django is a free and open-source web framework, written in Python, which follows the model-view-template (MVT) architectural pattern.
Django’s primary goal is to ease the creation of complex, database-driven websites. Django emphasizes reusability and “pluggability” of components, rapid development, and the principle of don’t repeat yourself.
Some well-known sites that use Django include the Public Broadcasting Service, Instagram, Mozilla, The Washington Times, Disqus, Bitbucket, and Nextdoor.
The participants of the workshop were all given material to learn and practice. If you’re interested in learning Django on your own, you can check out Django Tutorial which was used by participants from the workshop.
Organisers and Coaches
Organisers of the Django Accra workshop were Elizabeth Kolade (@_mswura on Twitter), a cybersecurity expert and STEM advocate
and Opetunde Adepoju, a Machine Learning and Data Science student
Some of the coaches for the workshop included:
Andrew Smith, Bubunyo Nyavor (Founder, CEO at AF Radio), Gerald Pharin, Joey Daniel Darko, Nkansah Rexford, Olorunfemi Bilesanmi, Samuel Boakye and Sefakor Ankora
Photo Gallery
Here’s some pictures from the workshop:
It was a long day but it was great effort by the girls to come out after a very rainy morning to participant and try to get hands on experience trying to learn about programming.
About Django Girls
Django Girls Foundation is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. The goal of the foundation is to advance the education of the public in particular but not exclusively women in the subject of computer science by providing or assisting in the provision of programming workshops and educational material.
The foundation achieves that by:
- providing opportunities, such as free, accessible programming workshops for women and creating educational materials available online;
- promoting the image of female software engineer by driving advertising campaigns to encourage women to join the IT field and highlighting existing role models.
