Canonical at DjangoCon Africa

DjangoCon Africa (Zanzibar, 6-11 November 2023) takes place for the very first time this year: a pan-African DjangoCon to join the family of DjangoCons that take place in Europe, the USA and Australia each year.

Canonical will be sponsoring the conference, and we’ll be there with talks and workshops.

Open-source software in Africa

Our support for open-source software and its communities is global.

African open-source activity is not always noticed by those outside the continent, but with more than a billion people and some major technology hubs, it’s significant, and growing.

In particular, Africa open-source communities are growing rapidly, not just in numbers, but also in confidence and ambition. There is more scope for new success and adoption of open-source software in Africa than anywhere else in the world.

Why it matters to Canonical

We want to be the leading open-source software company in the world, and that means in all the world, not just the more obvious parts.

We believe that the range and depth of African software talent should not be ignored. We are a remote-first company, and hire people everywhere in the world. We want to offer opportunities of advancement and career development to talented people, wherever they live and wherever they are from.

Remote work is especially important to Africa. Too often, the best opportunities for talented Africans lie outside Africa. Migration depletes local economies and societies of people and important skills.

Remote work changes that. It means that individuals don’t have to face the choice between personal opportunities and remaining in their local community. It helps build local networks of knowledge and support, that can foster and encourage new talent.

African colleagues at Canonical

Part of being the best open-source software company in the world means having all the world properly represented inside Canonical. We are serious about improving diversity in our company, and in the international software industry.

We already have a number of African colleagues working in Canonical and we want to add to that number. Meeting African software practitioners at DjangoCon Africa will help us do that.

It’s not even just a matter of geographic or ethnic diversity: in African software open-source software communities women are generally represented much more strongly than they are in the west.

Meet us at DjangoCon Africa

Canonical will be represented at DjangoCon Africa by Daniele Procida (Director of Engineering) and Busola Marcus (Process Engineer). We’ll be there as part of the conference programme, taking part in talks and workshops.

In particular we will be running a careers workshop, aimed at helping attendees have the best possible success in finding and applying for software roles in a global jobs market, with advice about how to apply, CVs, interviewing and more.

We have dozens of roles open, at all levels of experience, from graduate to director, in many different disciplines. Meet us there, and find out more.