(The legend of Tren Tren vilu and Cai Cai vilu in Chile. Image source)

Yesterday (Tuesday 16th, July) the PSF Board of Directors election results went out, and I got elected. You can read my nomination here.

Despite the honor and happiness of the result, I feel it was pure chance considering the final vote count for all the candidates. The three directors that were finishing their periods decided to re-run for their seats, so I was almost certain all of them would have been elected, but surprisingly I got Débora's seat for only 2 votes. Yes, two-votes.

(Final result for the 2024 PSF Board of Directors elections)

When we mention on social media, or other platforms that is very important to vote, that's exactly what we mean. The top 3 positions had only a few votes differences, and YOUR vote can really make the process completely different. I know many of you didn't vote, and independently of the reason, I'd like to encourage you to go to psfmember.org and register yourself as a voting member, because I'm certain you do spend more than 5 hours in Python-related projects, or communities.

This election has a lot of details from my point of view that I would like to share:

The Brazilian Community

It's highly probable that if you heard "Brazilian Python Community" Débora's name will popup in your head. She has been a key leader in the Brazilian community, and in my opinion, mainly with the large amount of PyLadies chapters that Brazil has.

Getting Débora's seat means that I'm responsible, together with the rest of the Board, to keep nurturing and helping the Brazilian community.

This is something I will do gladly, I had the luck of meeting many Brazilian Pythonistas in the last years, I helped a bit chairing a couple of talks for their Spanish track years ago in the Python Brasil conference, I have been in touch with developers that also speak Spanish, and have been giving talks in the Spanish track at PyConUS (PyCon Charlas), and last but not least, I have been following Débora's work, and many other PyLadies from Brazil for a couple of years.

Even though I cannot speak Portuguese, I can understand it a bit, so rest assure I will be always one-call away from any question from the Brazilian community.

Last but not least, the PSF Board is losing a PyLadies member, but my compromise with PyLadies communities is hopefully enough to say that the PSF Board is getting a PyLadies Ally.

African representation

I was very lucky to be one of the co-organizers of the first PyLadies Global Conference (PyLadiesCon), and that gave me the chance of indirectly knowing Abigail, one of the keynotes of the conference.

Knowing the amount of work that the Python community has been doing in Africa is very impressive, not only for her work, but for the many other people I have been knowing ever since.

Through other people from African communities, I have been aware of the difficulties they have been experiencing, so I really hope I could help by listening to their problems, and will do my best to help.

I'm certain Abigail would have been a great board member, and I really hope she can run in the next period.

APAC will keep growing

One of my nominations this year was KwonHan Bae, I knew he was on a special situation and with only one year in the board, he deserved to be re-elected, so I'm really happy he managed to keep his seat.

The short time I have been interacting with him has been amazing, it's rare to share a vision for the Python community, and in each interaction I had with him, it seemed we were pushing for the same direction. I'm very happy to be able to work with him towards improving the representation and support for the APAC communities.

Please watch his lightning talk at PyConUS 2023.

There are many other key members in the APAC community that have run in the past and couldn't get elected, like Iqbal (check his thoughts on this elections) , but I know are supporting KwonHan Bae, and for sure will help him more with a local perspective, even without being in the board.

Not forgetting the technical bits

This year, Filipe Laíns decided to run for the board with a different perspective, and not only focusing on the community aspects of the role, but also bringing to the discussion the technical aspect of the Python Packaging story.

I agreed with all the goals Filipe shared about improving the user experience, support the PyPA and Core Team, and engage with external stakeholders. So I'm certain that Filipe's plans are something that needs to be done, and with his help, we most probably will be able to make progress on that front.

Even though most nominations are vocational and community based, having a more technical approach is something I would like to have more often.

The Spanish-speaking community heavy backpack

🇦🇷 🇧🇴 🇨🇱 🇨🇴 🇨🇷 🇨🇺 🇪🇨 🇸🇻 🇪🇸 🇬🇹 🇬🇶 🇭🇳 🇲🇽 🇳🇮 🇵🇦 🇵🇾 🇵🇪 🇵🇷 🇩🇴 🇺🇾 🇻🇪

Many of you might think that the many Spanish-speaking Python initiatives are related, but most of them are not, and the link between them, besides the language, is that we are very open to helping others, that's why you might associate the faces with the initiatives, because we empower each other on a daily basis. And I believe that's key for a PSF board of Directors.

We are a lucky community, we have 21 countries that oficially speak Spanish in the world, and we are distributed in three continents (America, Europe, and Africa), but we are still growing, and most of us (including myself) still believe some times that we are not enough for making a big impact in world-wide organizations. We don't have many PSF Fellows, we only have two Core developers, and only a few successful Python modules that you most probably know.

In 2019, I was a nobody in the Python Community, and I made the decision of joining a local meetup in Berlin, to see if I could have found more people sharing my interests. I decided to search for some communities and had the chance of going to PyCon US 2019, where I discovered a large Spanish-speaking community that was trying to make a stronger presence in the Python Ecosystem. Since then I have been learning from many people that have been longer than me in the community, and have been trying, and trying to get more representation, help more people, and bring more people to our beloved community.

We have many communities that are asleep, many Pythonistas that are afraid to ask, others that dream of contributing to larger projects, and other that don't believe they can make a difference. You can make a difference.

I know I have the support from Lecovi and Ariel from the Argentinian community, the oldest and maybe largest Spanish-speaking South American community; also from Karo in Colombia, a community with a blooming generation of new PyLadies Chapters and people helping in their community and conference; but also from previous people that tried to join the board, to be seen, and to be heard.

I'm carrying in my mind the efforts of the only Python Ambassador, Manuel Kaufmann (Humitos), that decided to grab a car and drive around South America creating Python communities and organizing a lot of Python events (See Humitos' initiative here); I'm bringing the experience of the Python Spain community that welcomed me and trusted me to help with their association and national conference even when I was not Spanish, nor living in Spain; I'm taking with me the reach of the EuroPython Society, and their vision to work together alongside with the PSF.

Final words

My seat in the board has a big responsibility that comes from a collective efforts from many people. I'm taking with me the newly formed communities from South and Central America, the struggling communities that fall asleep, the PyLadies groups that are alone in some countries without any larger communities that supports them, the conferences that run with organizers budget, and the many people that got tired of trying and trying to get in the board only to make us more visible.

I'm taking with me all our conversations and plans for the future, and I promise you I will do my best.