>> Hello. And, welcome to the day's non Keynote talks in Curlyboi. I am Betsy and I'll be
hosting Curlyboi for the rest of the day. I am speaking to you all from the lands
of the Jagera people and I'd like to pay my respects to their elders, past and present.
So, we have so many exciting talks lined up for today. Our first speaker
is Débora Azevedo. I'm very excited for this talk about PyLadies Brazil.
Débora is a teacher and master student with Innovation with Educational Technologies at
the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. She's one of PyLadies Brazil's cofounders and
has contributed to the PyLadies Interim Group that worked before the PyLadies Global Council.
She's a PSF fellow member and for the past few years, has been making an effort with the
PyLadies Brazilian community. So, D bora will be taking questions at the end, if there is time. So,
please pop your questions into, I don't know which side it is, the questions tab,
next to the chat tab, in Venueless. If we have time, we'll read them at the end.
Thank you, Débora. DÉBORA AZEVEDO: Hi, everyone. I'm speaking
live from the past, because, here in Brazil, it's a Friday night. So, good morning to you all. Good
afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. I'll be talking to you, today, about how PyLadies Brazil
became the biggest PyLadies chapter of the world and well, Betsy already introduced me.
But just to acknowledge, I'm a master student at Innovation with Educational Technologies and
have been developing in educational software to help Deaf children to get through their literacy
process in a bilingual perspective, regarding written Portuguese and Brazilian sign language.
One of the PyLadies cofounders, a fellow member from the PSF, also a community service award
winner and I've been elected as one member of the Board of Directors from the PSF.
You can find me on Twitter. And, well, what does it really mean to say that PyLadies Brazil became
the biggest PyLadies chapter of the world? First of all, I'd like to acknowledge what
PyLadies is. So, we are an international mentorship group with a focus on helping
more women to become active participants and leaders in the Python open source community
and our mission is to promote, educate and advance a diverse Python community through outreach,
education, conferences, events and social gatherings. PyLadies aim to have a framework
for women. Anyone who's interested in Python is encouraged to participate.
And, well, going to PyLadies.com/locations, you find all the locations with PyLadies all around
the world. If there's a PyLadies chapter next to you and if not, you can even create one.
Going back to what does it mean to be the biggest PyLadies chapter of the world, it's important to
mention and I'll be mentioning that throughout this talk that Brazil is a huge country,
fifth largest country in the world so this talk is going to be about how we encourage people,
especially those ones who live far from the city centers and capitals to create new chapters
and tell about how the growth of Python user groups, in Brazil, were responsible to create
a safe and receptive environment to create the beautiful community that we have, here in Brazil.
There are 30 active PyLadies chapters. We've been trying to figure out who's active,
who's not active anymore with a task force and this map, with all those pins you're seeing,
well, there was a lot of work that has been done before us, before me and this is something that
I'd like to acknowledge, first, in this talk. Well, one milestone, before PyLadies Brazil
creation, was the creation of Python Brazil Association.
And this association was created a long time before PyLadies Brazil started. So, after some
friends going to PyCon U.S. With the will of sharing knowledge and work on new projects,
they created Python Brazil Association, which is a nonprofit entity that is responsible for
legally and accountants part for the organizers of national and regional events. And why this
association that we called [Indiscernible] is so important. Well, have you ever tried to organize
an event? We're organizing online events now and I'll tell you, they're not easier than in person
events and, well, preventing people from going nuts with accounting and legal contract issues,
[Indiscernible] started to solve this problem. It was created to work as a bridge, especially
with accountability. It's not perfect, of course. It's made of volunteers and there are some people
who are paid, like the accountants, it's a great association that have been helping PyLadies a lot.
And, well, even before PyLadies Brazil creation, people were talking about diversity,
here in Brazil. Brazil is a very py first country, it's huge and it's one with the
biggest socioeconomic disparities. If you hear from the Python community, here in Brazil,
we wanted to make a national impact and local impact and you talk about differences,
and not only gender differences. I love this picture. It says it's written in Portuguese,
it says that our differences make the difference. We make the difference through our differences in
the environment we're in. And us, human beings, [Indiscernible] so many ways not just gender,
but race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexuality, neurodiversity,
physical ability and more and more and more. And, one of the biggest challenges about being
in this part of part of this community is how do we get all these different human beings
to be in the same place and feel welcome and feel safe and ready to learn and ready to share?
Well, there are some efforts that we can do in order to make it happen.
One of the efforts that was also done, before PyLadies, was the creation of the Code of Conduct.
So, the Code of Conduct that we use, here in our Brazilian community, was written collectively. So,
there was a concern about this topic, about making people feel safe and welcome to participate in the
events from the Brazilian Python community, even before PyLadies Brazil was created.
Well, and I'd also like to acknowledge what this woman, this wonderful women I like to call
our pioneers, well, we have [Indiscernible] which is a friend, [Indiscernible]. They were
women who paved the way for me to be here, talking to you at PyCon AU.
They were the first women who were organizing events and having these women in the organization
of events and the staff speaking at events, it gives us the notion, the sense of, okay,
what also what do we also need to have in our events? Most of them are moms, so, now, in the
last in-person conference we had, we had, like, space for children. So, the notion, the sense,
the awareness that we need those kind of things. They come when we have these kind of people
thinking and telling them, like, we need that. We need that. So, they paved the way. They were the
first women in the Brazilian Python community who paved the way for us to have PyLadies.
And, I'd love to talk about Fernando, who is our official ambassador. In 2013,
some friends who go to Python US, Fernando was one of the people from Brazil who went to PyCon US.
This is about empowering women. Women empowering women. So, he started to encourage girls from the
Python community, here in Brazil, when he was a student because he's a professor to create
their own PyLadies chapters, the local chapters, here in Brazil. He was one of the first people we
talked about, to discuss about PyLadies when we had the first chapter created here, in Brazil.
So, this was the launching of the PyLadies event in Latin America. And in this first event, we had
more than 100 participants. And, when we were organizing this first event, we heard
people saying we wouldn't have even 20 women. You aren't going to find 20 women who are interested
in programming. This kind of pissed us at the time, it kind of took out our courage.
We believed the women were going to show up and finally, we had more than 100 attendees
at the event. It was amazing. For me, it was one of the best experiences I had in this event.
This was a staff team that we had in the first PyLadies event, here in Brazil. And we
were organizing everything for this day, we were really concerned and worried to create a table an
environment to all the women we knew were going to show up and we wanted to make them feel safe and
welcome and be in an environment that they were ready to learn, they would feel safe to be open.
So, that was in 2014, in our first event. But the talks about PyLadies started in the previous year,
in 2013. And then, when I look look back because that was some time ago we also got to have
our first national conference. So, we had to celebrate five years of PyLadies Brazil,
we had our first PyLadies Brazil conference, which was our national conference. And, I was the chair
of this event, back in 2018. And then, we had this idea to celebrate PyLadies fifth anniversary
of our national network of chapters. We planned this event, organized by women
only women as speakers and attendees. So, we had, like, this conference that took place also in the
city that I live and this city was also the same place that PyCon Brazil, that year, was happening.
So, back then, I was organizing this conference and working from, like, call for papers, finding a
venue, getting sponsorship, estimating catering, food budgets and also gifts for the attendees.
And, when I look at this photo, which is the official photo from
PyLadies Brazil conference in 2018, it fills my heart with joy because we managed to have people
from, like, four out of five regions of Brazil attending this conference and free of charge.
And thanks to the PSF and also to [Indiscernible] who could provide that to us.
We could make the conference free of charge for all this women and this conference had a lot of
content technical content. Content about community management
and it was so rich. This day was so rich and it was amazing. And that was the first one we taught.
Then, we had a second edition in 2019. We didn't have one last year, due to the pandemic, the
national network of chapters was working on other things. But we had the second edition in 2019.
We have [Indiscernible], they brought PyLadies to the state that hosted Python Brazil in 2019.
They recorded the talks. They were published on YouTube so if you go
to the PyLadies Brazil channel on YouTube, you'll find the talks from PyLadies Conf.
There was one thing that was different between the first and the second,
which was the willingness to [Indiscernible] for the community, being in doing that,
for women only. And this is very important to mention, because some of our actions, some of our
PyLadies events in our PyLadies Brazil community, in our local chapters, we do some mixed events.
This one is specifically PyLadies Brazil Conf was thought it was meant to be only for women.
And, I've been talking about organizing the first PyLadies event in Brazil, organizing the first
PyLadies Brazil conference, but it's not only that. Here, in Brazil, we have, like,
regional events. We have five regions and then we have regional events in each one of them
and starting organizing or events kind of awakened in us the ability to organize events also for the
larger community. It kind of makes us feel like more capable of not only organizing,
but other events, as well. So, again, we're a continental country and we have all those
regional events so in the north, we have PyCon and then in the east, we have PyCon. In the Midwest,
we have PyCon [Indiscernible]. In the southeast, we have PyCon [Indiscernible]
so we have all these regional events and it's important to mention that PyLadies are also in
the organization of these regional events. So, we have these idea and I love the sentence,
like, think global and act local. That's where we start the change. Because occupying those spaces,
as organizers of this event, is one of the way is one of the ways we can change the big picture,
by having more women organizing, then having more women attending, then having more women speaking
at events. So, empowering ourselves to even be on the staff team. Who would have thought, you know?
Then, we empower ourselves in that sense and that is a step in our journey of change.
Well, that's a lot of work. And, it takes and I like to say that. It takes our most precious
thing, which is our time. [Indiscernible] was right, it's work, work, work, work, work.
But, [Indiscernible] when I look back and I think of all the work that I've been doing
for PyLadies, it kind of worked for me, too, you know. And, this community is so amazing because,
well, personally, I don't work with programming or software development
or anything like that. I do software development, like, for my masters, but I don't work with that.
I didn't even work with Python in my masters, but being part of this community gave me the awareness
that being a teacher doesn't invalidate what I do for the community. It made me feel included
in a way that I never thought I would. So, when I remember the first event, I saw
some fires on Facebook at the time it was a long time ago. And I had lots of people who studied IT
on my Facebook and they were like, do you know Python? Come join us. I was like,
I know Python. I can help. Like, that impostor syndrome saying that I wasn't a developer,
coming all along. But then I had this feeling of, okay, I can do that. I can help with that.
And then it made me feel included and being a part of PyLadies, a community of women who
love coding Python, made me change my own ideas of belonging to a community.
And, well, we have this famous quote by Brett Cannon. Come for the language and stay for
the community. It's very famous because it makes total sense. Many times, we look for
the communities for the language the programming language something technical that's being part of
the community or going to the events can offer us. But we meet the community.
We see, like, more there is more than that. We make those friends that we we see, like, once
a year when we go to the conference and we enjoy so many special moments when we see these people.
And I love this tweet by Mariatta. It says Python is the largest community
run programming language on the planet, which is both a blessing and a curse.
So, being organized by the community keeps the language freely available but it relies mostly
on efforts of volunteers. So, I like to say a big thank you for all of you organizers and
volunteers at PyCon Australia, for who, who's been organizing events in person, before the pandemic,
online events during the pandemic. Thank you so much for your work and your effort. It's precious.
And now that we started to talk about community, you might be asking yourselves,
what is a community? Well, I go to Google [Laughter].
It says a community is a group of people, like, living in the same place, having things in common,
common interests. So, if we are from the Python community, we have at least the same interest
about the programming language among other things. And the Python community has, like, multiple
channels of how you can get into the community. Like, PyLadies, like Python user groups.
And, while this picture I believe, on your left, is better for PyLadies Brazil cofounders
finally reunited. While finally reunited? Well, PyLadies was the first chapter of Latin America
and had its first event in 2014. There was a time that [Indiscernible], on your left,
traveled to France to study. [Indiscernible] went to Germany to live there and [Indiscernible],
who's next to me, she had to take some time from the community. But the community did not
end because the cofounders were gone. One of the best parts of this community, it's organicity.
We don't need cofounders around all the time because the work is done from many other people.
And as we talk about the community, it's really important, not only, like, when I think about
PyLadies Brazil, which is a national network of chapters, but also, in our local communities.
So, we should be aware, when we think about diversity, because thinking about that and
talking about that make [Indiscernible] issues and we can struggle to share a vision of what is good.
So it's important to ask and make sure to the members of our communities if they feel that their
perspective of what is good is being represented. So, they feel like they're being heard.
And also, we shouldn't focus only the numbers. Do you people feel like they belong?
Do they feel welcome? We should put our effort on that, because diversity, as [Indiscernible] said,
is about demographics, it's about numbers, figures. Inclusion is about a sense of belonging.
And, when I look back to the first event, I felt so welcome and worthy that I was a part of
it. And this is a picture of me giving my first Python talk at the first PyLadies Brazil event
and I was invited by the other cofounders to give this talk about how to use Python and I remember,
I felt super nervous because we had, like, morning of talks with amazing women who work,
who have been working as developers for a long time, professors from the university and me.
The other cofounders knew my different background. I am. I am graduated in English. I'm an English
teacher. And they knew that and even so, they encouraged me give this talk and they knew that
I could do it, even when I didn't believe I could. So, this is extremely powerful.
And, when we think about our national network of chapters, we've been changing the scene
of the Python community in Brazil and we've been changing the scene of our biggest Python
conference, Python Brazil. So, I would like for you to take a look at these pictures.
This one, represents PyLadies Brazil in 2016. This other one, PyLadies Brazil at PyCon Brazil
2017. This one, my favorite, because I was an organizer at this edition,
PyLadies at Python Brazil 2018. And this one, PyLadies at Python Brazil 2019.
So, clearly, the numbers have been changing over the years. And, well, how is that possible?
Collective funding. Crowdfunding. We started to do this campaign, PyLadies of Python Brazil, all of
the Brazilian chapters, they were able to answer a form about their participating in the community,
if they would be attendees, if they'd present a talk or tutorial. The community decided how to do
it. It is extremely hard and financially hard to have our PyLadies to attend Python Brazil.
So, when we started to do this campaign, we had the Brazilian
Python community, as a whole, helping us. So, this is an important achievement for
the community because it shows how the entire community works together, both in organizing
and helping us financially. The Brazilian Python community works with PyLadies Brazil
for inclusion. In Python Brazil 2017, we had 17 activities offered by women. The percentage number
varies a little bit but the numbers of activities offered by women grows. In 2018, we had
a percentage a little bit lower, but the number of the talks given by women increased.
The same in 2019. And then in 2020, in our first online event, we had our first
35 talks by women, which was amazing. And we also have our assembly PyLadies
assembly during PyLadies. We summarize the year in terms of actions we did and what we want to do
next. And we do that at Python Brazil because it is a time that we have and a place that we have
PyLadies from all over the country so we can have different ideas and perspectives.
And what happened in 2020? We had a pandemic. The network of chapters didn't stop. We had the first
pop [Indiscernible] PyLadies, which is amazing and I love to talk about that
in this wonderful women in charge, [Indiscernible]. [Indiscernible]
PyLadies was a project developed by PyLadies Brazil to promote the change of knowledge between
our chapters. We had weekly interviews involving two interviewer chapters and one interviewee,
it was an interview about the story and curiosities of the chapter
and then we have a lecture from the chapter to talk about content the day [Indiscernible].
We also, in 2020, divided better our structured communication on Slack. So we have a group on
[Indiscernible] with around 600 women, so many messages were lost. So, we divided ourselves in
workgroups and study groups all open on Slack. We also started producing material for
introduction to Python course for women who know how to code in another programming language. So,
all the content, it's in our repo from PyLadies Brazil and you can find all the materials. They
have they are under a [Indiscernible] license, which allows the material to be modified,
redistributed, necessarily to maintain the same type of license. And this project was
only possible thanks to all these amazing women who were dedicated to this project.
And, well, I'm almost at the end of it. And, we don't see PyLadies as a different community.
It's just like an open door to the brother Python community.
Making people feel comfortable with the support that we provide.
And you may be asking yourself, like, how can I help? There are various ways to do that.
Buy a T-Shirt helps us financially. Look for women to give talks, not just about
community. There are plenty of women who are more than capable of giving great technical talk. And,
like, yeah, listen to us. Listen to us. I believe that listening to us is the main
point of how you can help. Listen to us. Listen to our concerns. Our complaints. Because we are
the ones who are living it, like, in our skins. And I want to leave you with a question. Working
so much to have the community going on, even in a pandemic year. So, how do you see the
future of our community in five years? How is PyLadies going to look like in five years?
And I really hope it's more diverse and beautiful, as I can see now.
Finally, I want to leave you with this quote by Maya Angelou.
People forget what you said or did but people will never forget how you made
them feel. Being part of PyLadies empowered me so much. It made me believe in myself.
[Indiscernible] that I'm capable. I know that those people are there for me
and they always remind me in those days that we are blue and we don't feel capable, they're there.
PyLadies Brazil gave me a network of really close friends
that I that live, like, far from me and I would never meet if it wasn't for PyLadies.
I'm really thankful and it's so powerful how they made me feel and that's what I
want for other women, to have them feel like they're capable. They're worthy. They're good.
Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for listening to me. If you have
any I don't know, I don't think we have time for questions. I've been speaking so much.
But, you can find me on Twitter or send me an email if you have any questions or
doubts. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you so much, Debora. I'm sure
the whole audience feels [Indiscernible] just seeing the joy in your community has, like,
warmed my heart and, like, inspired me. DÉBORA AZEVEDO: I'm glad.
>> Yeah, and I know just how much work goes into community building and organizing. I'm sure many
others in the audience do. So, congratulations to you and your whole community on what you've built.
DÉBORA AZEVEDO: Thank you. >> We don't have time for
questions but there are some good questions there. So, do you have some time, Debora,
to go into the text chat in Venueless, after this, to answer some questions in the text chat?
DÉBORA AZEVEDO: Yeah, of course. >> All right. That's the Curlyboi Theatre chat,
in the channel section in the Venueless menu. I will copy over all of the questions into that chat
and then you can have a nice chat with D bora. Thank you, again,
Debora. That was a wonderful talk. DÉBORA AZEVEDO: Thank you so much for having me.
>> And we'll all be back for our next talk at 11:15 conference time, everyone. See you shortly.