Django Software Foundation Prizes
The Django Software Foundation relies on volunteer efforts to achieve many of its goals. In order to recognise the efforts of these volunteers, the DSF awards prizes to recognise the work of those, which, in the opinion of the board and membership, benefit the Django community. The intention of these awards is to demonstrate that service to the Python community does lead to recognition and reward, rather than to provide a direct incentive to contributors. Prizes are directly funded by donations to the Foundation.
Malcolm Tredinnick Memorial Prize
Malcolm Tredinnick joined the Django project as a core developer in early 2006. He was deeply involved in many part of Django - most notably, the ORM, but many other internals bear his fingerprints. Django’s support for unicode, and autoescaping in templates can both be almost entirely attributed to Malcolm.
But his contributions weren't just code. He was also a prolific communicator. He logged thousands of messages in django-users, helping people learn Django, sharing his expertise freely and openly. He also logged thousands of messages in django-developers, helping shape the framework we all use today.
And if that wasn't enough, Django wasn’t the only community that Malcolm was part of. Malcolm was also a contributor to GNOME, and served on the GNOME Foundation board. He was also an active participant in the Australian chess community, mentoring young players.
On March 17, 2013, Malcolm suffered a brain aneurysm and passed away. Malcolm's death was a shock to everyone who knew him. To say that we miss him is an understatement.
The Malcolm Tredinnick Memorial Prize is a monetary prize, awarded annually, to the person who best exemplifies the spirit of Malcolm’s work - someone who welcomes, supports and nurtures newcomers; freely gives feedback and assistance to others, and helps to grow the community. The hope is that the recipient of the award will use the award stipend as a contribution to travel to a community event -- a DjangoCon, a PyCon, a sprint -- and continue in Malcolm’s footsteps.
The winners of the Malcolm Tredinnick Memorial Prize have been:
- 2013: Curtis Maloney
Curtis - perhaps better known by his IRC handle FunkyBob - has been a regular fixture on the #django and #django-dev IRC channels for some time, where he has helped hundreds of Django users get their start in Django. He is also active in his local Django users group - MelbDjango - giving presentations and helping to organise and run regular HackFests. Curtis has also brought his considerable experience to discussions on the django-developers mailing list, especially regarding caching and templating.
- 2014: Django Girls
-
Django Girls was founded by Ola Sitarska and Ola Sendecka as an event at EuroPython 2014. From that small start, and with the assistance of a small army of volunteer co-organizers and mentors, they've been able to rapidly grow Django Girls into a worldwide phenomenon. Using the template and tools established in Berlin, there have been events held in Brisbane, Taipei and Nairobi, with 12 other events planned by the end of the year. These events will introduce hundreds of women to the Django community.
- 2015: Russell Keith-Magee
-
Russ – also known by his IRC handle freakboy3742 – has been a member of the Django Core team for 10 years. He has regularly mentored new core contributors giving them a helping hand to start. Russell has also served as the President of the Django Software Foundation for the last five years. His contributions to the Django community and ecosystem over the years are inexplicable. He is one of the kindest, most welcoming and open members of our community. A true example to follow for all of us.
When we approached Russ about being the winner of the award, he commented: "Malcolm was a good friend and colleague, and an inspiration for the whole Django community. I’m deeply honoured to be recognised by the DSF for the work I’ve done. However, while I may be recognised individually, any personal successes have only been possible because of the tireless efforts of the entire Django community. I’m proud to be part of that community, for what it has achieved, and for the open, welcoming and friendly community that it aspires to be."
- 2016: Aisha Bello
-
Aisha (@AishaXBello) joined the Django community when she attended a Django Girls workshop during EuroPython in 2015. She organized or helped organize a huge number of Django Girls workshop in her home country of Nigeria. She's spoken at several conferences (including PyCon Namibia and DjangoCon US) sharing her unique knowledge and insight with the rest of us. You can read more about her and her history at Your Django Story: Meet Aisha Bello.
- 2017: Claude Paroz
-
Claude has been a contributor to Django since 2012. He was selected for the prize by the board from amongst the nominees on the basis of his long-term, consistent contribution. Claude has given service to Django though code and also by enabling others to contribute effectively.
His work represents a less-visible but essential aspect of contribution to Django. It's not the kind of work that will be publicly applauded at a conference, or stand out as news, but it's of enormous importance to the project. Claude is owed a debt of thanks for it.
- 2018: Kojo Idrissa
-
Kojo (@transition) has been active in the Django community since at least 2015, if not earlier. He's been a DjangoCon US organizer since 2016, former DEFNA board member, and current DEFNA North American Ambassador.
Kojo has hosted an orientation for first-time DjangoCon US attendees for the last several years, is active with CodeNewbies chats and always seems focused on helping new members of the community which could not be a better example of Malcolm's friendly spirit to new users.
- 2019: Jeff Triplett
-
Jeff (@webology) has been heavily involved in the Django Community basically since there was a Django Community. He's served on the Code of Conduct committee for many years but most notably Jeff helped found DEFNA which has run DjangoCon US since 2015. Jeff is also a Board Member of the Python Software Foundation.
- 2020: Ken Whitesell
-
Ken (@KenWhitesell) has been an active member of the Django forum since it started, helping new members by patiently answering their questions and making them feel welcome and has in that way helped to grow the forum. He has also volunteered many times at DjangoCon US.
- 2021: Adam Johnson
-
Adam (@AdamChainz) is a member of the Django Technical Board and a longtime member of the security team. He has contributed a huge amount of code to Django itself and maintains multiple Django third-party packages. He is a co-organizer of The London Django Meetup and regularly gives talks at Django and Python conferences. He has also written two books on Django testing and his personal blog has a lot of content educating people on Python and Django best practices. He is actively helpful on Twitter and the Django mailing lists.
- 2022: Paolo Melchiorre
-
Paolo Melchiorre has been a member of the Python community since 2006, also of the Django community since 2012, and a DSF Member since 2020. Over the last 5 years, Paolo has presented nearly 40 Django talks at various DjangoCon, PyCon, and community conferences both online and in person. He also has been an active contributor to the djangoproject.com website since 2017.
Paolo is an organizer and coach of Django Girls workshops, an active member of the Italian Django community, and a translator of the Django documentation into Italian. He also writes about Open Source; articles and guides related to Django and Python on his personal blog; attends and organizes sprints on Django, and has been actively involved in answering Django questions on StackOverflow since 2015. He is a volunteer at Python and Django conferences and co-organizer of PyCon Italy.
- 2023: Djangonaut Space
-
Djangonaut Space, run by organizers Dawn Wages, Rachell Calhoun, Sarah Abderemane, Sarah Boyce, and Tim Schilling, is a mentoring initiative dedicated to expanding contributions and diversifying contributors within the Django community. Drawing on their extensive experience as mentors and contributors, they've cultivated an inclusive universe for newcomers, emphasizing group learning, sustainability, leadership development and generous use of space puns. 🌌
