Beginning an open source journey - how we used Python to survive as a code school and help other code schools by Sheena O'Connell

Umuzi is an NGO dedicated to finding high potential youth, teaching them mad skillz, and placing them in good jobs. When the COVID hit the fan (wow, what a scary thought) we had to react quickly. Our training was orignally done in person, we had about 250 students sharing an office and kitchen, and our breakout rooms were cosy to say the least.

When COVID landed in SA we acted quickly to get our students set up to work remotely. Simple things like checking attendance, runnning workshops, and making sure people's learning needs were met became non-trivial. What we needed was a learner managment system, but nothing out there fitted our needs.

And so we built.

Of course we built in Python, by leveraging well established tools like Django, DRF and Airflow we managed to do more than just stay afloat. We built a self-driven, collaboarative and agile to the core learning platform that helps our students stay on track, and learn like real dev-teams work. Our sweet-like-candy syllabus-as-code approach to course design let us unlock all sorts of efficiencies - and all the goodness of git of course.

And it turns out we aren't unique in our needs. And so the African Coding Network was born.

Basically, we want to help as many people as possible so we opened the flood gates. Our tooling and syllabus is now 100% open source, and we are actively working to recruit entire code schools across Africa to join our network. We want to let as many people as possible leverage our tools and hard won learnings.

We already have students from as far afield as Nigeria working through our courses and interacting with our local students. We've also managed to use the platform to run an end-to-end learner selection bootcamp in order to find geeklings worth investing in. We won the most scalable solutiuon prize in Ashoka Skills Innovation Challenge. And we have a growing list of schools ready to get onboard.

In this talk I'll share some tails from the trenches, and a few of our plans.

And yes, we teach Python too ;)

Transcript

1. BEGINNING AN OPEN SOURCE JOURNEY From on premises training provider to open source community
2. HI, I'M SHEENA
3. HI, I'M SHEENA @sheena ZATech Slack
4. HI, I'M SHEENA @sheena ZATech Slack CTO of Umuzi
5. HI, I'M SHEENA @sheena ZATech Slack CTO of Umuzi Been coding in some form for > 15 years
6. HI, I'M SHEENA @sheena ZATech Slack CTO of Umuzi Been coding in some form for > 15 years I � Python
7. ONCE UPON A TIME, IN AN APARTMENT BLOCK FAR FAR AWAY... (if you are far from JeppesTown, JHB)
11. UMUZI means "home" (Sort of)
12. UMUZI means "home" (Sort of) Not for profit
13. UMUZI means "home" (Sort of) Not for profit Find high potential young people
14. UMUZI means "home" (Sort of) Not for profit Find high potential young people Pay them to learn
15. UMUZI means "home" (Sort of) Not for profit Find high potential young people Pay them to learn Train them in high value digital skills
16. UMUZI means "home" (Sort of) Not for profit Find high potential young people Pay them to learn Train them in high value digital skills NQF level 5 certification
17. UMUZI means "home" (Sort of) Not for profit Find high potential young people Pay them to learn Train them in high value digital skills NQF level 5 certification Help them get jobs, help them keep jobs
18. UMUZI
19. A DAY IN THE LIFE... BC (BEFORE COVID)
26. AND THEN CAME COVID
27. � � LOCKING DOWN � �
28. � � LOCKING DOWN � � 250 odd students and a bunch of staff on site
29. � � LOCKING DOWN � � 250 odd students and a bunch of staff on site Computers, insurance, data, medical aid, transport...
30. � � LOCKING DOWN � � 250 odd students and a bunch of staff on site Computers, insurance, data, medical aid, transport... And most of our junior team mates were leaving for TIH in the near term...
31. � � LOCKING DOWN � � 250 odd students and a bunch of staff on site Computers, insurance, data, medical aid, transport... And most of our junior team mates were leaving for TIH in the near term... team_size = team_size/2
32. EVERYTHING WE HAD BEEN DOING NEEDED TO CHANGE
33. EVERYTHING WE HAD BEEN DOING NEEDED TO CHANGE
34. AND SO WE BUILT...
35. FIRST THERE WAS ATTENDANCE...
36. BUT WHAT WE REALLY CARE ABOUT IS PRODUCTIVITY
37. BUT WHAT WE REALLY CARE ABOUT IS PRODUCTIVITY Bums in chairs at specific times �
38. BUT WHAT WE REALLY CARE ABOUT IS PRODUCTIVITY Bums in chairs at specific times � Accountability mechanisms � �
39. BUT WHAT WE REALLY CARE ABOUT IS PRODUCTIVITY Bums in chairs at specific times � Accountability mechanisms � � Async interactions � �
40. BUT WHAT WE REALLY CARE ABOUT IS PRODUCTIVITY Bums in chairs at specific times � Accountability mechanisms � � Async interactions � � Self-paced learning � �
41. WE HAD NEEDS
42. WE HAD NEEDS Admin, track, and deliver training...
43. WE HAD NEEDS Admin, track, and deliver training... Report on progress
44. WE HAD NEEDS Admin, track, and deliver training... Report on progress Manage multiple learning tracks
45. WE HAD NEEDS Admin, track, and deliver training... Report on progress Manage multiple learning tracks Did we need an LMS?
46. LEARNER MANAGMENT SYSTEM
47. LEARNER MANAGMENT SYSTEM Allows set up of curriculums by filling in forms (rich- text)
48. LEARNER MANAGMENT SYSTEM Allows set up of curriculums by filling in forms (rich- text) ... our syllabus already exists as a hugo static site
49. LEARNER MANAGMENT SYSTEM Allows set up of curriculums by filling in forms (rich- text) ... our syllabus already exists as a hugo static site Allows uploading of videos and other resources
50. LEARNER MANAGMENT SYSTEM Allows set up of curriculums by filling in forms (rich- text) ... our syllabus already exists as a hugo static site Allows uploading of videos and other resources ... We can just use Youtube though.
51. LEARNER MANAGMENT SYSTEM Allows set up of curriculums by filling in forms (rich- text) ... our syllabus already exists as a hugo static site Allows uploading of videos and other resources ... We can just use Youtube though. Track competencies with assessments and projects
52. LEARNER MANAGMENT SYSTEM Allows set up of curriculums by filling in forms (rich- text) ... our syllabus already exists as a hugo static site Allows uploading of videos and other resources ... We can just use Youtube though. Track competencies with assessments and projects ... Most of the assessment mechanisms are completely insufficient
53. LEARNER MANAGMENT SYSTEM Allows set up of curriculums by filling in forms (rich- text) ... our syllabus already exists as a hugo static site Allows uploading of videos and other resources ... We can just use Youtube though. Track competencies with assessments and projects ... Most of the assessment mechanisms are completely insufficient Allow people to move through syllabus, a piece at a time
54. LEARNER MANAGMENT SYSTEM Allows set up of curriculums by filling in forms (rich- text) ... our syllabus already exists as a hugo static site Allows uploading of videos and other resources ... We can just use Youtube though. Track competencies with assessments and projects ... Most of the assessment mechanisms are completely insufficient Allow people to move through syllabus, a piece at a time ... but it doesn't resemble real work
55. WE AIMED A LITTLE HIGHER
56. WE AIMED A LITTLE HIGHER Integrate with our existnig syllabus without too much pain/suffering
57. WE AIMED A LITTLE HIGHER Integrate with our existnig syllabus without too much pain/suffering reduce dependency on staff!
58. WE AIMED A LITTLE HIGHER Integrate with our existnig syllabus without too much pain/suffering reduce dependency on staff! simulate real work environment as much as possible
59. WE AIMED A LITTLE HIGHER Integrate with our existnig syllabus without too much pain/suffering reduce dependency on staff! simulate real work environment as much as possible promote healthy dev-team habits and practices
60. WE AIMED A LITTLE HIGHER Integrate with our existnig syllabus without too much pain/suffering reduce dependency on staff! simulate real work environment as much as possible promote healthy dev-team habits and practices Integrate with Github
61. WE AIMED A LITTLE HIGHER Integrate with our existnig syllabus without too much pain/suffering reduce dependency on staff! simulate real work environment as much as possible promote healthy dev-team habits and practices Integrate with Github smoke detection
62. AND SO WE BUILT...
63. INTRODUCING TILDE Yes, this thing: ~
64. Also this thing
65. A DAY IN THE LIFE...
66. MANAGING A GROUP
67. ADMIN
68. DATA REQUESTS AND SCRIPTING
70. UNDER THE HOOD
71. SYLLABUS AS CODE
76. KISS
77. GREAT SUCCESS!
78. GREAT SUCCESS! Learners are doing fine
79. GREAT SUCCESS! Learners are doing fine Our staff are doing fine
80. GREAT SUCCESS! Learners are doing fine Our staff are doing fine Successfully ran end to end recruitment bootcamp
81. SIDE QUEST
82. Infrastructure ==
83. Infrastructure == People's homes and property + human interactions
85. Infrastructure == Cars + human interaction
86. INFRASTRUCTURE ++
87. LET'S TALK ABOUT US
88. LET'S TALK ABOUT US Infrastructure == Code schools + human interaction
89. GOALS ++
90. GOALS ++ Make it cheaper and easier to run code schools
91. GOALS ++ Make it cheaper and easier to run code schools Increase quality of code school output
92. GOALS ++ Make it cheaper and easier to run code schools Increase quality of code school output More schools, more grads, more high quality coders
93. GOALS ++ Make it cheaper and easier to run code schools Increase quality of code school output More schools, more grads, more high quality coders Less support needed for junior coders, cheaper to manage
94. COLLABORATION ++
95. COLLABORATION ++ collaboration between students and staff of different schools via main instance
96. COLLABORATION ++ collaboration between students and staff of different schools via main instance Allow other schools to improve on the platform (open source for the win)
97. COLLABORATION ++ collaboration between students and staff of different schools via main instance Allow other schools to improve on the platform (open source for the win) Allow other schools to improve on syllabus
98. COLLABORATION ++ collaboration between students and staff of different schools via main instance Allow other schools to improve on the platform (open source for the win) Allow other schools to improve on syllabus Allow industry partners to improve on syllabus
99. COLLABORATION ++ collaboration between students and staff of different schools via main instance Allow other schools to improve on the platform (open source for the win) Allow other schools to improve on syllabus Allow industry partners to improve on syllabus Easier in for volunteers and mentors across network
100. TRUST ++
101. TRUST ++ Every alt ed code school is different => new industry partnerships == risky
102. TRUST ++ Every alt ed code school is different => new industry partnerships == risky schools can leverage quality checking mechanisms built into platform
103. TRUST ++ Every alt ed code school is different => new industry partnerships == risky schools can leverage quality checking mechanisms built into platform Partners get easy access to student stats and reports, see growth, progress, code
104. TRUST ++ Every alt ed code school is different => new industry partnerships == risky schools can leverage quality checking mechanisms built into platform Partners get easy access to student stats and reports, see growth, progress, code Partners get to vet the syllabus, actually look at how outcomes are proven
105. TRUST ++ Every alt ed code school is different => new industry partnerships == risky schools can leverage quality checking mechanisms built into platform Partners get easy access to student stats and reports, see growth, progress, code Partners get to vet the syllabus, actually look at how outcomes are proven Risk --
106. AND SO THE AFRICAN CODING NETWORK WAS BORN
108. LINKZ Hactoberfest event Tilde repo Syllabus repo Umuzi ACN homepage ACN on Medium