Announcing PyOhio and Black Python Devs Partnership
PyOhio is excited to announce a partnership with Black Python Devs! Black Python Devs has given PyOhio financial support to help us engage in local communities of Black developers in the Ohio region. This partnership will help our communities grow over the next few years.
Black Python Devs is a community with a main mission of increasing the participation of Black Python developers in existing Python communities and programs and to assist in launching new ones in Black Communities where not currently present. This helps drive an impact through establishing guidance, mentorship, and career support for Black Pythonistas around the world, investing in local communities of Black Python Devs, and increasing the engagement of Black Python Devs in existing Python communities, programs, events, and initiatives.
Back at PyCon US in 2022 Jay Miller, the founder of Black Python Devs, noticed that with ease they were able to count the number of Black developers that attended in person. The following year, in 2023 the number of attendees grew (by 3 times), but still was a small fraction of the total attendance. That growth was built by a large push from Brazilian and African communities and in 2023 after an Open Space for Black Python Devs, they decided to keep the conversation and push going and created a Discord Server, and shortly after the organization was born.
Because the impact in PyCon attendance was strongly driven by a push rooted in smaller communities, Black Python Devs feels it is important to work with local and regional organizations to further their mission. Black Python Devs understands the financial strain and limited impact that can comes from attending a singular conference, so their goal is to ensure the health of smaller regional events that can serve as a less expensive, yet still highly impactful and valuable alternative.
This compliments PyOhio’s mission in Ohio and our local region. Our goal of encouraging the growth of Python Developers and strengthening our community means that we want to reach all of our community. By engaging in a multi year partnership with Black Python Devs we feel together we’ll be able to reach more developers and better provide resources which are tailored to reflect the needs of our community more completely.
Looking to our partnered goal, and building on our shared drive, Jay Miller said, "We are excited to work with the PyOhio team. The PyCon US event in Cleveland was the most diverse location a PyCon US event has been held in the last 10 years. We want to continue to show other communities that when you extend your communities into locations where there are many talented Black present and future developers, we are able to make a positive impact across the board. We are encouraged by PyOhio's ambition and eagerness to work with us and hope they will serve as a standard for other communities across the United States."
Over the next few years we’ll be conducting more outreach and getting more feedback from our local communities to learn more about the landscape of challenges and opportunities in Ohio. From this we hope to better communicate about events and with Black Python Devs we hope we’ll see more developers join us and showcase the amazing things they’re working on. Our community builds and does amazing things, and by partnering with Black Python Devs we hope to get a chance to see more awesome Python in the years to come!