Notice: While JavaScript is not essential for this website, your interaction with the content will be limited. Please turn JavaScript on for the full experience.

Nominee for 2025 Python Software Foundation Board Election

Daniele Procida

  • Previous Board Service: New board member
  • Employer: Canonical
  • Other Affiliations: PSF, DSF, Software Sustainability Institute, UK Python Association
  • Nominee Statement:

      Introduction

      I've worked at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, since 2021l; I'm a director of engineering and lead Canonical's documentation practice. I have a particular interest in the elevation of engineering standards through attention to practice - for example, I created Canonical's Practice Leadership Handbook.

      Before that, I worked at Divio for seven years.

      Experience

      I've been involved in Python/Django open-source communities almost as long as I have been involved in software - 16 years so far. I found that I was welcomed, first as an asker of basic questions, and then as a contributor, of documentation, code, governance and organisation.

      I'm a PSF member and fellow, and recipient of a community service award. I'm a member of the Django Software Foundation too, and a former vice president, and former core developer. I'm one of the trustees of the UK Python Association.

      I've been involved In organising multiple editions of multiple OSS community conferences since 2013 - DjangoCon Europe, DjangoCon and PyCon Africa, PyCon Namibia. I'm particularly committed to the African Python community and its events - being involved in those has been a defining part of my life for more than ten years.

      I'm the creator of the widely used Diátaxis documentation approach, and of Fanaka ("a handbook for prospective and early-career African professionals in the international software industry").

      Vision & Goals

      The PSF has been a key supporter of initiatives and projects that have meant a huge amount to me, and I want to help it do that in such a way that helps drive maturity and sustainability both into those initiatives themselves, and the way the PSF supports them.

      I believe it's possible to put into place frameworks that measure and track quality and progress in effective ways, and bring transparency and visibility into organisational objectives and activities - especially where there are commitments to deliver on one side, and support and backing from the other.

      Goals

      • I'd like to work with the board to help establish policies, practices and systems that bring the kind of organisational maturity I have described to the grants process. Funders of the PSF want and need to see how their support is used, and to know that it is effective.
      • I'd like to discover whether similar thinking could help other aspects of the PSF's organisation and governance.
      • I would like to help make the perspective of those Python communities further removed from the centre better understood within the PSF. That includes African Python communities, but isn't limited to them by any means.