ZimboPy: Empowering Zimbabwean Girls As Change Makers
Channel: PyCon South Africa
Date: 2017-10-06

Marlene Mhangami, Ronald Maravanyika
https://2017.za.pycon.org/talks/17/
ZimboPy is an organic, on-the-ground effort by a local non-profit organization and Python developers in the Harare software development community to advance the cause of women in technology in Zimbabwe. The program operates in community centers, universities, high schools and tech hubs to make programming accessible to girls regardless of their socio-economic status. Upon initially joining a ZimboPy club, many of the girls would have never used a computer before, let alone code.

In Zimbabwe, only 17% of computer science undergraduate majors are women, and in the developing world, women make up less than 20% of the information and technology workforce. ZimboPy exists to empower Zimbabwean girls with the skills and confidence necessary to not only enter the local tech industry, but to lead it.

In addition to learning to code, ZimboPy club members also join a global network of women in technology that are working to tackle social challenges through human-centered design and computer science.The Python community has been a central part of our work. For our mentorship week that was held in April we had python programmers from USA, Italy, Australia and of course Zimbabwe join us in person and virtually. Our talk will outline what we've achieved so far and how anyone who's part of the Python community can get involved. We invite developers from around the world to help Zimbabwean girls address local problems which can be solved with technology, such as clean water and e-commerce solutions for small shops in towns and villages. Mentors can travel to Zimbabwe and work with girls as they develop a plan for their applications and pair-program with them, answering questions and providing feedback along the way. Overall, ZimboPy looks forward to changing Zimbabwe's future through creativity, collaboration and the power of Python programming