In this talk you will hear about the missing link between formal education and what employers look for, how to establish a program to close the gap, it’s importance, what to avoid when forming such a program, how to engage the community, what changes it will bring to the developer’s world and more.

Background

For the past ten years the Zimbabwean government has been thriving to empower women in all sectors of the industries.This hasn’t been a smooth follow process since most girls and women are not benefit from the opportunities created by government, this is driven by the notation that most women and girls have adopted that technology science and math are for the male gender.Some local python developers have decided to come into play by equipping women with software development skills so that they can be able to capitalize on the government programs and opportunities.

Introduction

Most formal academic institutes have become sources of jack of all trades and masters of non .This is influenced by a number of factors which l will speak about at another conference.By so doing academic institutes graduates find themselves in situations where they are not fit for the industrial requirements resulting in companies and organisations hiring people with less formal education but more practical experience.

Zimbopy is an organisation that has set itself to equip women and girls in Zimbabwe with programming skills and there is no better way than giving them the skills that are not taught in their formal academic institutions.The academic institutes include high school,colleges and universities.Both newcomers and experienced developers will get an insight on project management skills whether for those looking to develop their own software or those working for companies. Attendees will also learn how to setup such a program with minimum resources and why python is the best language to start such a program, they will also get an insight on the things to avoid, how to engage the community and the results to expect with such an initiative together with the importance of covering the gap between formal institutions and industrial requirements.

The talk will be formed with different sections, l’m imagining each section will have one or two key learning points.Each section will take about five minutes (and probably five to ten slides) of my presentation, adding together to 25 minutes (leaving 5 minutes left over for questions)

1. What is Zimbopy and why is it important

   We are an organic, on-the-ground effort by local Python developers in the Harare. Our aim is to advance the cause of women in tech in Zimbabwe. Women haven’t been benefiting from the opportunities that the government has been unveiling to them. Zimbopy has come into play to get young girls excited about coding at a very tender age, by so doing girls won’t be afraid to take on the science subjects hence benefiting from government STEM scholarships. We also help cover the gap that formal institution leave behind, stimulating the ability of the girls to be creative with coding.

2. Mentor-ship program

   The mentor-ship program is the backbone of cover the gap between formal education and industrial requirements.We gather developers from the python community who are willing to mentor women and girls physically or remotely.We run the program for a week hence the name mentor-ship week .During this mentor-ship week we also get people who hire people time and again so that they can share with the girls what they look at when they are looking for developers.We also get women that are already in the industry to speak about their experiences.

3. How do we get together resources

   Be basically depend on open source projects for our content, that we use for the mentor-ship week program. Projects that we create are open source also e.g the Zimfarm app that we are still building(brief description of what it is). For the young girls program we have developed a curriculum that is still to be complete that we use to teach them basic computer skills and the take them through the basics of python programming language. For financial resources will mainly relay on donations and grant applications, we mainly get sponsorship from tech companies, we have also made partnerships with local tech hubs to host the events. As sponsorship packages we offer logo adverting and lighting talks during the mentor-ship week, we also place marketing material in the hosting venue to mention just a few.We also do fund raising events to help us with sustainability.

4. Success stories

   Student have offer described out evens as best learning experience that they have had.University student go on to start clubs at their own python programming clubs and we work together with such clubs with providing them with the materials and also mentor-ship. A number of our students have developed award winning final projects using python programming that they would have learnt on our clubs.Some have benefited from the scholarships given by government partners.

5. Importance of such and organisation

   We have started to engage local University to embrace python as their first language hence it helps to grow the community. It open doors for girls and women either for scholarships or for project funding. we have women to be employable with companies through the varies activities during mentor-ship week.

Hints

1. Having the will to see the program succeeding
2. Learn skills to write grants and proposals
3. Attend as many conference as possible and meetups, start to network
4. Develop a code of conduct and respect it always.

During section (2), l will give project management skills as an examples of how mentor-ship week works: ( this will need 5-6 minutes more if you find it interesting enough and it is a direct example of one of our mentor-ship weeks just to give an example of the content we attendees learn)

Case study

Bob a farmer has dairy produces that he produces from his farm in the remote areas out of the capital city Harare. However Bob’s market is in Harare but he doesn’t have enough dairy products to supply industrial areas or big supermarkets.His market are vendors that sell the products on the streets of Harare, he drives everyday before 4 a.m in the morning to sell the products before the beginning of working hours, the number of products that he sells to the vendors differ time and again hence he waste alot of products resulting in farming business deteriorating yearly.

Project Management for entrepreneurs

1. List out people who are affected with this system. (farmer, vendor, consumer and delivery services)
2. Ask yourself at least 50 questions of what the affect parties might want.
3. Pair answers that seem related
4. Design the wire-frame
5. Build the building blocks drafted by the wire-frames.
6. Be agile i.e if you are a team.