Open Source design - Africa
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:05
Good morning. I'm a little bit fucked out, because I actually attended this event hosted by Google, where the Google Summer of Code mentors and students come together, just like they hung out last night. And I go home really late, and then I
00:21
had to wake up very early to be here right on time. So I'm like, sorry about the door face. So today I'm going to be talking to you about the open source design movement in Africa, by Open Source Community Africa. My name is Peace Ojeme, but I have a nickname, Perry, that I always like a lot of people to call me.
00:41
I'm a design contributor at Sugar Labs. I'm also leading the design team at Open Source Community Africa. I advocate greatly for accessibility, inclusion, and open source, specifically open source design. You can find me on Twitter, Peace underscore Ojeme, O-J-E-M-E-H. OK, let's kick start.
01:01
Africa. The first thing I want to say, and I want everyone to take home today, is that Africa is not a country. I was in France last year, and someone walked up to me at the museum. I was like, you're from Africa, right? Do you know Phillip? Oh, no.
01:22
And I'm like, Africa is a huge continent made up of so many people. I'm from Nigeria. Who is Phillip? We have so many Phillips in Nigeria. So there's always this misconception about Africa. It's been a very small space with a little group of people that know each other.
01:40
So yeah, please, Africa is not a country. It's actually a huge continent made up of over 1 billion people. So it's not possible for me to know Phillip. In Africa, we have 57 countries with a population of over 1 billion people. Now, out of these 57 countries, instead of talking
02:01
about how diverse Africa is, I'm going to be using Nigeria as a case study just to drive home how much diversity we have over there in Africa. So Nigeria is where I'm from. In Nigeria, we have over 250 ethnic groups, and we speak over 500 languages.
02:21
Is that diverse? And then we have over 2 million people. I think we fall first right here. We are actually four from Nigeria, but we are from different parts of Nigeria. I and Samson, the dark guy, we are from the south part, the southern part of Nigeria. Adai is from the eastern part, and Blair is from the northern part.
02:41
So we actually speak four different languages. The only language we have in common is English. So yeah, Nigeria is that diverse. And out of this population, we have 60% of this population, almost 60% of this population as youths. Youth just leaving high school,
03:01
those getting to the university, just finishing from the university. And then in Nigeria, Nigeria has always been this oil first country where you have to actually study engineering, gas or petroleum, to be actually seen as someone who is actually making progress in the society. So if you are at home, always on your computer
03:23
or your phone, my parents just tell me I'm very lazy. See me on my computer, like you're wasting your life apparently because you're supposed to be studying engineering. And then if you're not studying engineering, you should be studying medicine or law. So outside this field is like, what are you doing with your life?
03:42
Like you're just wasting yourself. So that's like the whole notion. But then in the last couple of months, a lot of youths have been pushing from the oil first into technology. So most youths right there in Nigeria and Africa are getting to come into technology, learn about tech, learn how to code, learn how to design.
04:00
And then you find majority of those ones actually from fields that are not related to computer science. I actually just finished from the university. I studied microbiology and now I'm designing. You find a ton of people like that back there in Nigeria who did not study computer science but are currently now into the world of tech. So the knowledge itself is like,
04:23
people are trying to grasp it. And then there used to be a time back then where you have this bridge between developers and designers. Designers used to have this very, very, very, very small group and there we have a lot of developers as well. In the last few couple of years and months,
04:41
the population between the designers and developers are kind of like measured up. People are beginning to appreciate design and beginning to know that actually, design is quite important. And I wouldn't say even more important than code, but it's like really, really important. So people are actually beginning to actually understand that and they're actually starting to get
05:01
the whole idea of design. But then we have this problem of people actually know about design and people who actually know that as a designer, you can contribute to open source too. In Africa, we get a lot of people like this. You should take note of this with your hands because I'm going to see her later on in this talk.
05:23
Getting really surprised when you talk about open source designs. The few ones that know about open source feel like it's just for code contributions. So I'm a designer, open source, nah, it's not for me. So they get really surprised when you talk about open source design and then one thing about Nigeria is
05:42
most of the techies are very, very willing to learn. So they come, crowd your DMs on Twitter, tag you, asking you what open source design is and they all want to like try to get into the space and really understand what it is. So what Oscar is trying to do in Africa is increase the awareness of open source.
06:02
At the same time, making it possible to actually tell others that open source is not just about code contributions, but it also includes that minority group like designers and documentation. OLAGIA is leading the documentation team back there in Africa. So we actually kind of include everybody
06:21
and different ways we actually do that is we host meetups and workshops where we tell people about open source, about open source design and documentation and then we kind of like link them up to organizations that actually accept design contributions. Starting off with open source, I started out at 2017 actually.
06:42
I started out with an organization that actually did not appreciate design contributions. So I have to go through really long dialogues to actually propose a design change and then you get the very technical maintainer saying, it's not important, after series of months of conversation
07:00
on why this has to change or why we have to actually have a sprint or something. So like most, some of these organizations, open source organizations still aren't through like really open to designers. So we kind of like try to guide designers from Africa on how to actually start contributing to organizations that actually accept design contributions.
07:21
And if you want to go into organizations that are kind of like difficult to get into ways to actually go around it and then drop your contribution. So we actually also link them up to open source projects. Currently, we have about 15 to 20 designers who are like really willing to actually get into open source
07:41
and start working on open source project. We started out open source community Africa in 2018. So it's like barely two years and we've covered over five countries in Africa and over 11 cities. And each of those cities actually hosts different meetups where they talk about open source, onboarding people into open source,
08:02
open source design documentation and also code. Now this month, I almost said next month, it's actually funny because it's like really close. We actually hosting the first open source conference in Africa called the Open Source Festival. We are hosting the first Sustain Summit also in Africa.
08:22
So it's like a three days festival where we have the Sustain Africa conversation on how to actually sustain open source in Africa since it has come to stay and then the remaining two days are actually for the conference. So yeah, I don't know, did you remember Abigail from the previous?
08:40
So Abigail is actually giving a talk on designers can be open source too. So Abigail this year actually became a Google coding mentor from actually learning about open source and she has made tremendous progress since then. So she's coming to the festival to actually tell all the designers about her journey so far
09:00
and how she's been able to tackle being an open source in that really minute circle. The goal of Oscar is actually to onboard as much open source as, so it is the word, designers especially
09:20
and then like those just in the minority group, getting them to understand that open source is not just about contributing code, it actually goes beyond that. If you're a designer, we are here for you. You can find us on Twitter,
09:41
the open source community of Africa. You can find a hundred there. Then this is to get more information about the festival, festival.oscarafrica.com. Merci, questions, yeah.
10:05
So if anybody's got any questions, repeat the question before you answer. Oh, okay. For the microphone. Oh, okay, okay. It's more related to the demographics in Africa.
10:34
In Europe, the gender balance, the encoder, it was the bias for the main.
10:42
It is the same in Africa because it's a younger country, maybe the cultural trend. Yeah, we still have, we still, okay, I have to repeat the question, all right. Okay, sorry, it's coming again. I'm sorry, it's about gender balance in Africa. Oh, gender balance in Africa, in technology, right?
11:02
Yeah, we actually still have this whole gender balance issue. That's why you have communities like Chico, Africa, women in tech, yeah, we have that. That's like a Google program. So there's still this more male figure than female.
11:23
So another thing Oscar is trying to do is bridge a gap. And that's why in our festival, we actually had like 300 tickets for the festival dedicated to just female technologists. And then we actually give them sponsorship so they can actually come to the event. So yeah, there's still that gender gap in Africa.
11:43
A very huge one.
12:07
Oh, I'll say the narrative is actually changing because the generation of our parents, they always feel like you have to actually study engineering because the country itself is actually like an oil first country.
12:22
So if you're not doing engineering, it's like, but then there are a few presidents who are going to take and then they'd be like really successful. Other people say to them like, okay, if I can do this and be this successful, why not? And then they all like start getting into it.
12:46
You were trying to pick the open source project that would accept the same contributions. Would you like to name a few that were particularly welcoming? Yeah, so I actually contribute to Sugar Labs.
13:02
As at that time when I started contributing, it was really difficult to actually onboard designers, but now it's quite easy because like I've been there and then I just get them in. Then Open Collective is another organization that actually accepts good design contributions. Then on Open Design website, you can actually see a bunch of design organizations
13:21
that actually accept design contributions, yeah. You study biology. Microbiology. How the hell did you find open source software
13:45
and design, I'm curious. So I'd say I'm from that typical Nigerian home that my parents actually wanted me to study medicine. And then it was like, I had to stay at home for like three years,
14:01
trying to tell them that I have no interest in the health department. I don't study medicine. I had to stay at home for three years. When I, in the end, I started the whole back and forth. They actually made me still go to the university to study microbiology. But when I got to school, I started hanging out with meetups. So one thing very common in Nigeria is that we have these small meetups like Oscar,
14:23
just from the GDG and the rest of them having like smaller meetups in school, talking about technology. So in my first year, I actually started attending some of these meetups. And then I attended one design sprint when they gave us like, they gave us this persona. Then they gave us a problem and told us to actually draft out a solution.
14:41
And then it was like really cool. And I started attending meetups. I started taking courses on audacity. Everything was kind of like personal. I started taking like buying courses. I go to school in the morning. At night, I'm like, oh, my computer are trying to learn. And then when I was done with school last month, I was like, Dad, I'm done living your life.
15:02
It's time to take off my tool. So that's actually how I took the shifts to technology. And then I knew about Sugar Labs from Samsung where I met him like the first month. I actually started learning about technology. So he told me about his Sugar Labs and then I started making little contributions. And then it just blew up from there.
15:25
Yeah. Yeah. Are there any other places in Africa where there's kind of a community developing any facilities? Oh, are there any other hubs in Africa? Like it sounds like there's a lot going on in Lagos.
15:41
I'm just wondering if there are any other hubs in Africa where there's kind of like things are starting to happen in every course. I didn't quite get the question. So Samsung is actually a name of a person. That's something there. I don't know if that's what you're actually asking. No, no, no.
16:01
Actually asking about like if there's like hubs coming from Lagos. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's other places where there's a lot happening where you're thinking, it sounds like you're concentrating on Lagos maybe. Yeah, I think Lagos is, oh, it's Lagos. Lagos is the biggest because of it's the biggest city in Africa.
16:22
Right, the population is so huge and it's because of Nigeria influence with the continent. So you get more sense for a lot of organizations like Google, Microsoft, you know, all the Silicon Valley companies coming to like have offices. But in terms of like communities, I know for sure that there's big in Nairobi, Kenya,
16:41
there's one in Egypt, there's one in South Africa. I think Rwanda is also really big. I would say like a lot of countries, but the fact that Lagos or Nigeria seems to be the always most top fully discussed country is due to the fact that we're like a lot of people
17:00
with a lot of interesting technology. Anybody else got any questions? So we have like another four minutes before the changeover.
17:22
We can finish now or if people want to keep discussing things, it's up to you. Do you have any collaboration with other institutions? Yeah, outside Nigeria. Yeah, we actually have, let's go to the map.
17:43
So we have a chapter, we actually call them chapters. We have a chapter in Sierra Leone. This is Nigeria, it's one of those places. We have another one in Kenya. We have in Ethiopia too. So like the goal of OSCAR is actually to get out to so many African countries as possible, just to start up.
18:02
So once someone reached out to us from each of those countries, we just kind of like onboard them and then take a couple meetups.
18:41
Yeah, I think we have smaller communities in school. We call them school chapters, yeah. I don't know, I'm not sure if that's like an answer to your question.
19:00
Or how we do inclusion. Okay, by inclusion, I actually mean inclusion in design, like those with disabilities and the rest of them, yeah.
19:21
Not like general, then on a more general level, bringing, balancing the gender between male and female, basically. Okay, so my organization Sugar Labs, we actually have this desktop environment for kids where we actually take inclusion
19:40
and accessibility very seriously. We think about kids with colorblindness, those that have like mostly impairments seen. So when creating our components, our design component, we'll make sure that we actually have components that actually suits this particular set of people, yeah.
20:12
Okay, so we come up with like certain options and then there are people who actually go and do the actual testing.
20:20
So in Nigeria, we actually don't have so many people actually using the desktop. In Nigeria, we have only very few schools. So we go to the schools, see actual students use it and how they react to it, then get the data, try to reform again.
20:47
The what? I know the open street map community in Africa is quite a- Oh yeah, I saw someone from there, I think it was yesterday. I actually just heard about it yesterday for the first time. Yeah, we got talking yesterday.
21:03
Just coming to one more question, maybe? Okay.
21:22
How do you address the lack of infrastructure, internet, power line, how do you address the lack of infrastructure? Oh yeah, when you come to power, it's actually like a big problem, very big problem in Nigeria. I'll use myself as a case study. So I used to stay around school when I was in school
21:41
and then we had power issues. So I have to go to like several hubs, a bit far from school. So I actually get my computer charged and in the middle of the night, it goes off. And then I start looking for like a neighbor that has a gen, then to change my system, then before I actually got a gen. So in Nigeria, the part where I stay,
22:01
I actually have to have like a support system for power. And then we have really expensive internet. You get to spend like $1,150 on internet monthly just to make sure that you are like always online. So it's like, the internet consumption is crazy expensive and parts with not,
22:23
but then there are some areas that actually have good power supply. So if I could answer that, I would say, so two things, power is actually, I wouldn't say a general African problem, which is kind of for some reasons still particular to some part of Nigeria.
22:41
And if you want to stay in a place where you, you know, receive three or four hours of or if you want to like have a system like three or four hours of internet or a great NPS, you pay a lot.
23:01
So the point is to try to live a very comfortable life starting with internet and power in some part of the country, Nigeria, you really need to be. On box. Okay, so that's kind of the last question because we took your change over.
23:20
So thank you very much. Peace for a really interesting talk. Thank you. So I just wanted to rephrase or remind you guys that Africa is my country, please.