This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Lieke is a Dutch Ambassador for European Codeweek, (co-)organizer of different Rails Girls events in the Netherlands and PyLadies in Amsterdam. She is a historian, a developer and currently working at VHTO, the Dutch national expert organisation on girls/women and science/technology. She loves running, music & cats and is very committed to increase the involvement of women and girls in IT. You can find her in Amsterdam, the Netherlands :)

How did your story with code start?

Well, actually, I only started a couple years ago. I have a background in history, and only after finishing my master thesis, I discovered the joy of coding. Inspired by websites like code.org, Codecademy or Coursera, and people around me, I started reading on the subject and doing more and more development. I fell in love and haven’t stopped since then. This enthusiasm led to being involved with PyLadies and Rails Girls.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I’m not really a programmer at the moment. I’m still programming, but only in my free time. I worked as a developer for six months and really loved it (!). I eventually decided to switch jobs, because it took me too much time commuting. Now I work for VHTO, the Dutch National Expert Organisation on Girls/Women and Science/Technology. I’m responsible for the DigiVita Code Events, where girls between 8 - 18 learn how to code. Before my job as a developer I was just a history student, trying to find her passion :)

What do you love the most about coding?

I once read a blog from Sam Stokes on what programming is like, I think he’s describing it perfectly:

“Programming is like building structures out of Lego, but I never run out of Lego bricks, and if there’s no brick with the exact shape that I need, I can make that brick. I can take the structures I build and use them as bricks to build bigger, more ambitious structures. I can build tools out of bricks to help me build quicker. If I build a model city, or a crane for building model cities, I can offer them to millions of people to download and play with, in any part of the world.”

Programming is just awesome :)

Why Django?

Python was the first programming language I ran into. I followed a lot of courses and got excited to build my own web-application. I think Django is a great framework for ‘newbies’ because of the supportive community, when you’re stuck, there’s always someone willing to help you out.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

Right now, I’m very excited about the Code Events I’m organizing for VHTO. There we’ll be six events, each in a different city in the Netherlands. It’s a big project with a great goal: getting more girls excited for IT!

What are you the most proud of?

I’m proud of a couple things, like building my first real web application all by myself. But I really love the times, at for example code events, when a girl comes up to me and tells me that she is so excited about programming and didn’t know that ICT was this awesome (and really not boring at all!). That’s when I’m really happy with everything I do :-)

What are you curious about?

That’s a difficult question. I’m curious about how the world will be in 10 years: what I’ll be doing then, where I’ll be living, what languages will I know, everything that the future holds. I’m also curious about a lot of things and topics and I’m trying to learn as much as I can.

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

I love running, reading books and spending time with people close to me. Besides that I’m keeping myself quite busy. I’m following university courses in Computer Science, and I’m (co)organizing Rails Girls on different locations in the Netherlands and PyLadies in Amsterdam (including a Django workshop in April!).

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Ask yourself, Why do I want go get coding and what do I want to get out of it? Would you like to be able to build your own website? Or are you just curious? Either way, there are so many resources online. You could start at Codecademy and find out if coding is something you’d like. Read some books about coding and start coding yourself. Don’t be afraid to break it, learn by doing (break your code, fix it). Keep putting into practice all that you’ve learned. I’m currently running a website with all kinds of resources to get you started: codepancake.com. Happy coding!

Anna Ossowski @OssAnna16

Thanks Lieke! :)