About me

Hi! I’m a developer, public speaker, inclusivity advocate and community organiser. A lot of my work is focused on Python/Django, and that’s also my main development platform. I’m passionate about building inclusive communities, technology and conferences, where everyone can feel welcome, valued and at home. I’m also particularly interested in issues around well-being, ethics and empathy in tech.

I’m the co-founder of DashCare where we do high quality Python/Django development and consultancy. My past development projects include anything from network management, to financial monitoring of healthcare, to SaaS platforms.

I often speak at conferences, typically about well-being, ethics, empathy, inclusivity and similar themes. Typically, I speak at almost ten conferences each year and am always interested in new speaking opportunities. I also advise conferences from time to time about Code of Conduct and other inclusivity concerns.

I do a lot of work for the Django community:

• Member of the Django team since 2014, and more recently of the security team. My last major code contribution was adding flexible built-in password validation – I don’t make that much time anymore for code contributions to Django.
• Vice Chair of the DSF Code of Conduct Committee since 2017. This involves handling of CoC reports, but recently I’ve also worked on making improvements to many of the processes relating to the CoC.
• Individual member of the Django Software Foundation since 2014.
• Co-organiser of all three editions of Django: Under the Hood, DjangoCon Europe 2018 and the 2017 and 2018 editions of Write the Docs Prague. My tasks have included local logistics, finances, volunteer coordination, setting up Code of Conduct processes and other inclusivity and travel issues.
• Chair of the Dutch Django Association, which aims to promote Django and the Django community in The Netherlands by organising events and providing support and funds for events organised by others.
• Reviewer of all recent editions of Two Scoops of Django, with a particular focus on security.

I also run a few smaller projects:

• The Less Obvious Conference Checklist is a checklist of less obvious things for event organisers. This list particularly contains many small improvements that are easily overlooked, but which can significantly improve the conference experience. Especially for marginalised groups.
• Open-Source Happiness Packets is a platform to anonymously reach out to the people that you appreciate or to whom you are thankful in your open-source community. I built this with Mikey Ariel to promote kindness in the Django and other open-source communities.
• django-restricted-sessions is a small Django middleware that can restrict Django sessions to an IP (range) and/or user agent. This can limit the impact when a session token is compromised.