EW S7E8 Transcript
EPISODE 8

[EPISODE]

[00:00:07] SUNDIM: Welcome to Elixir Wizards, a podcast brought to you by SmartLogic, a custom web and mobile development shop based in Baltimore. My name is Sundi Myint, and I'll be your host. I'm joined by my guest host, Owen Bickford. Hey, Owen.

[00:00:19] OB: Hey, Sundi.

[00:00:21] SUNDIM: And my producer, Bonnie Lander. This season's theme is Impact of Elixir. We're joined today by special guest, Sigu Magwa, Founder of Podii. Hi, Sigu.

[00:00:30] SIGUM: Hello, everyone.

[00:00:31] SUNDIM: Thank you so much for being here. I just want to say, this is a fun crew we've got here today. Owen, thank you for guest hosting. Alex is currently – is traipsing the right word across the country? The great American adventure with her humungous dog in tow. We love that for her. Sigu, you're also actually going on the great American adventure. You're visiting the US right now, is that correct?

[00:00:54] SIGUM: Oh, yes. It's a lot of fun.

[00:00:56] SUNDIM: Awesome. What have you seen? Where have you been?

[00:00:59] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. Currently, I'm in California. I've been to the Golden Gate Bridge. Still struggling to understand what's amazing in that. I need someone to explain to me what's so amazing of the Golden Gate Bridge. Yeah, I've been there. I've looked at it from a couple of angles, from down below, have driven through it, have gone up the hill and just watched it from high above during the sunset. I still need someone to explain to me what's amazing about the Golden Gate Bridge.

[00:01:29] SUNDIM: I'm amazed that you were able to see it. Because every time I've been there, it's been just covered in fog. Owen, have you ever seen it?

[00:01:37] OB: I was going to say, I think, maybe the most – the best way to see it is when it's partially covered with fog. It's emerging out of nowhere. Yeah, I'm with Sigu. I was like, I went there in high school, and I was like, “That's a bridge.” We’ve got narrow bridges now.

[00:01:53] SUNDIM: That’s a bridge. I like it. I like it. Cool. Well, Sigu you are originally from Kenya, correct?

[00:02:01] SIGUM: Oh, yes. Yes. I'm from Kenya originally. Talking about the trip, that amazing thing was being able to see the Times Square and all the TVs that we always see in the movies. When I was there, I was like, “Oh, the TVs on the building. Okay, awesome.” That was another awesome trip. The White House is literally smaller than what it is. When I got there, I thought it's a big, white building. When you get there, it's a very, very small building.

[00:02:31] SUNDIM: I think, the secret is that most of it is underground. That's what we hear. That's what we hear. I don’t know. Am I giving away state secrets? We'll never know. It's actually different now. I'm sorry, I missed you. That would have been fun to catch up with you while you were here in DC. Yeah, I think it's been changed a little bit. There used to be a pathway where you could watch – what you'd be watching for. You could walk past it and stuff, and that's where the Renwick Museum is and all of that. The last time I saw it down in that area downtown, it was very barricaded and very – traffic was changing, and a ton of stuff. I actually haven't seen in a long time, but I can see how it would be underwhelming from the movies and stuff. Yeah.

[00:03:17] SIGUM: You get there, and it's so small. Unfortunately, we got there in the evening. Not really evening. It was already sunset, so we could not get a really good view of it and all that. Yeah.

[00:03:28] SUNDIM: Yeah. How long are you traveling the US for?

[00:03:32] SIGUM: Well, I've been here for about four months, and it's enough of the US.

[00:03:37] SUNDIM: Are you ready to go home?

[00:03:38] SIGUM: Oh, yes. I'm so ready to go home. I'm going home in the next three days. Yeah, from this recording, I'm going home in the next three days. I miss home so much. Can’t wait just to go hang out with home buddies.

[00:03:50] SUNDIM: Yeah. I mean, speaking of home, can you tell us more about Elixir Kenya and the Elixir scene and in your area?

[00:03:57] SIGUM: Oh, awesome. Elixir Kenya. That's actually something that I really miss, being able to attend the meetups. Currently, the time zone difference does not allow me to, because I have to wake up at 1 a.m. to attend the meetups. Elixir Kenya currently, we do have different kinds of meetups. We have our weekly meetup. Our weekly meetups happen on Mondays. It should be at 11:30 GMT every Monday.

We've been experimenting with this a lot. We started by working on open-source projects together. This was driven by the fact that talking about Podii, we were at Podii, we were the only people who knew Kenyans who are working on Elixir. It was a way for us to reach out to other Kenyans who are working on Elixir, and share our knowledge as we get their knowledge about how they're working with Elixir. That's why we started with the open-source project.

We did the open-source projects for quite a long time. Then, that model did not become sustainable, so we changed that right now. It's more about learning. If I'm not wrong, I've been a little bit out of sync, but we are still doing the OTP track. We started with the simplest OTP stuff. Now, we should be somewhere almost completing the OTP track.

The Monday meetup, it's a very nice interactive mob session, where you just come, ask your “dumb questions.” Everyone will be happy to answer, because at least for a dumb question, there's always an answer. For the very complicated questions, I always, “Ah, I’ll look that up.” That's our weekly meetups.

We also have the monthly webinars. The monthly webinars was just – we got to a point where okay, now we know that Kenyans, we speak the same language. We almost think in the same way. What if we could invite other people from everywhere else in the world? We started doing webinars every last Friday of the month, and inviting external guests. We actually started with them. The first webinar was actually someone from Podii. The second one, I guess, that was when we were just trying to reach out to other people.

The team is doing an amazing job. The Elixir Kenya team is doing an amazing job for organizing the meetups, the webinars, looking for the speakers, and just coordinating and getting everyone on board. This has been there for, I think, two years. Two to three years, I'm not sure. It started about 2019 for the webinars.

[00:06:28] OB: Is there a mix of beginners, first time coding learning Elixir, or did these people coming from Java, or other languages?

[00:06:36] SIGUM: The webinars, it's actually a mixture of – it depends on the speaker, because we don't necessarily discriminate speakers. We reach out to someone. We just reach out to you if you're working on Elixir. Depending on your level of expertise, we always accommodate what you want to share with us. We don't have specific themes, or anything in particular. We just reach out to people. They decide what they want to share with us.

[00:07:00] OB: You're seeing a lot of variety.

[00:07:02] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. There's a lot of variety. Last month, the last webinar, it shouldn't have been about iOT, if I'm not wrong. It's a lot of variety. We've also had Frank if I'm not wrong talking about navs. I just don't know what's going to be next. I don't know what's going to be the next webinar. It might be something to do with live view, it might be something to do in the post-create and ecto. Yeah. We just really don't have a theme for that.

[00:07:29] OB: Anytime I hear Nerves, I'm curious. Okay, what devices are we talking about? Traditional home security, or are you seeing something new coming out of that, those examples?

[00:07:39] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. The few people have seen work with Nerves, they usually experiment that with the Raspberry Pi. Our community is an interesting one. Home security can be a very nice application of the nerves project. Our security system in our community, if you do have that, then it doesn't really solve a particular problem. We are trying different ways of using the IoT technology to solve our problems.

Part of it is not related to our community, but I met someone at the ElixirConf this year. They're actually using nerves for some, was it weather related and the climate somewhere in the western part of Kenya. I think, it was with climate and just collecting all that data. I don't really remember exactly how they were using it.

[00:08:29] SUNDIM: It wasn't Weathermatic, was it?

[00:08:30] SIGUM: No. Which company was that? It's based right here in the US, actually.

[00:08:36] SUNDIM: Well, if anybody out there listening knows an Elixir your company that's doing some cool data processing on weather in Kenya, we have a Discord. We'd love you to join. Chat with us. The day this episode out, drop in and tell us the answer. We want to know. You mentioned your company name a few times. Can you tell us the elevator pitch about it? Maybe why you decided you wanted to start your own company, and where is it at right now? What do you all up to?

[00:09:06] SIGUM: Oh, awesome. Why I started out the company, I was actually driven by the fact that first of all, I like training. It started out as training school. I started doing the training school, but later on realized that it's better if I retain the talent and look for people and look for work to do this. We initially started out in Ruby. That was in 2018. We started out working in Ruby Then made a switch to Elixir. That's a story later on. We currently work with – we do custom software in web apps for clients.

[00:09:40] SUNDIM: A consultancy, or –

[00:09:42] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. We are a consultancy firm doing web applications for clients, and mobile applications.

[00:09:49] SUNDIM: Do you concentrate on any particular market?

[00:09:51] SIGUM: Not at the moment. We're not concentrating on any particular market, but anyone starting out mostly on their startup. Any startup, we work with them. We purely work with Elixir nowadays. We no longer mix Ruby and Elixir. The team is fully remote, and most of us are in Kenya.

[00:10:09] SUNDIM: Cool. I always admire when people see a problem and just go out and make the thing. I think that all the time, and then I just go make food and eat it.

[00:10:21] SIGUM: Then Sundi, I've had an interesting experience running the company. There was this one time we had a potential client. This client was from somewhere in Europe. They requested for a quote. We excitedly went out, prepared something and gave it to them. We had a couple of calls. During one of these calls, the potential client actually told us that our rates are a little higher. It's the same rate that they will be charged in Netherlands.

I was like, “Mm-hmm.” “Next, but you're in Africa.” “Uh-huh.” “I thought your rates will be lower.” I told them, I think we are charging for the services, not for the location. If you think we are not worth the rate, just let us know. Don't use our location as a determinant as to how much we need to charge you for the services. That was the most interesting conversation I ever had with someone who literally “discriminates you,” because of where you come from. They just want to pay you lower. We ended up not working with them, because that to me was a deal breaker.

[00:11:27] SUNDIM: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, more power to you to be able to walk away from getting in any situation, client relationship, or employer relationship that you don't feel comfortable with. It's crazy to think about, but those situations are out there.

[00:11:44] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. I honestly didn't expect such a thing.

[00:11:48] SUNDIM: Yeah. Wild. Well, how large are you all? Are you all looking for more work, or more people? This is your space. Pitch and plug in, all the good things.

[00:12:02] SIGUM: Oh, some. We are a team of five at the moment. An amazing team. Most of the team members have been around for more than two years, if I'm not wrong. Yeah, we've been around for more than two years, most of the team members. The company is about three years old. That's a very good time to be around. We have worked on interesting projects. One of them is called The Quiz Quad Aminos, which was heavily borrowed from Bruce Tate’s Tetris block, but now you use it to learn cybersecurity. This is for a client, a structural consulting.

It's in the cybersecurity field, so you play the game. While you play the game, you need to be pausing and answering particular security questions. Otherwise, you're going to lose the game. The website should be quizquadblocks.org. You'll need to add that on the show notes, in case anyone is interested in checking that out.

[00:12:55] OB: This is open to anybody just to play?

[00:12:57] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. Anyone can play. You can go play in anonymously. You can sign into their GitHub. During security conferences, it's actually being used, whenever Duncan, who is the client goes out to the security conferences, people sign up and get awards while playing that particular game.

[00:13:14] OB: Sounds really cool.

[00:13:15] SIGUM: You should try it out. It's really, really awesome. Yeah.

[00:13:17] SUNDIM: That's fun.

[00:13:18] SIGUM: Yeah. It's an example of what we've worked on so far.

[00:13:22] OB: I have a question about broader trends that you're seeing in Kenya. Obviously, we're talking about Elixir. Are you seeing, is Kenya a Java ecosystem? Or does it have any a common preference like that? Or is it a little bit of everything?

[00:13:38] SIGUM: That's a good question. We have famous languages, of course. Corporates prefer Java. In Kenya, a lot of corporates prefer Java. I have another friend who is working on a consulting company, they are working with bank. The bank, you can't work with anything other than Java. The most interesting use case of Elixir that I've ever seen in Kenya is for government services. It's an essential government service that runs on Elixir, Phoenix to be specific.

I don't know how they got there. They've been there for a very long time. I've tried getting in touch with them. If they listen to this podcast, they need to reach out. I really tried to get in touch with them and just know how was the decision made, how did they convince the government to use Elixir and Phoenix for their services.

[00:14:26] SUNDIM: How long is a long time?

[00:14:27] SIGUM: How long is a long time?

[00:14:29] SUNDIM: Because we all know, it's not that old.

[00:14:31] SIGUM: Yeah. Let me see.

[00:14:33] SUNDIM: We all know government tech could be internal.

[00:14:36] SIGUM: Oh, yes. If I check, should be around 2016, 17 or 18. I'm really not sure.

[00:14:44] OB: More importantly, are they using – Is everything LiveView, or is it?

[00:14:48] SIGUM: Or not. Since it's a technology that was way back then, I'm pretty sure they don't have LiveView in there. It's one of the most stable government websites I've ever visited on hand a servicing. Yeah, it's my opinion, but I'm pretty sure about that. It's very stable.

[00:15:05] SUNDIM: I'm jealous. I wish we had some Phoenix government websites.

[00:15:12] SIGUM: If you need to register a company in Kenya, you need to use that website. It's the only way you can register your company. If you need ZIT, no, not the taxpayers, no, you don't use that. Registering a company, you definitely need to use it. Or, if you need to get your passport, you will use that website. Yeah, I was as amazed as you are, Sundi.

[00:15:35] OB: Sounds pretty important.

[00:15:36] SUNDIM: I mean, I'm just so jealous right now. I mean, obviously, there are certain services here in the government sector that just take so long. They're just so frustrating. I spent a week trying to untangle a parking permit on my street. A week. I called three police stations just for them to be like, “It's not us anymore. It's this and this, or this.” I mean, ridiculous, ridiculous. I am so jealous of you right now.

[00:16:07] SIGUM: I was actually responding to Owen’s question about the tech community on the balance. I have been part of the tech community for quite a while. I've seen the tech community in Kenya grow from no startup at all. Not really, but not a lot of startups. There was the rise of tech spaces. the technology hubs where people meet and just talk about a lot of things. Then a lot of startups just started coming out. Together in the tech spaces, there were the user groups that just started forming.

We had various user groups, like the GDG, sponsored by Google. We had the JavaScript group. We had AndroidKE. There are lots of other groups. Nairobi for Ruby, which I was a part of back then. There was an exponential growth in the late 2010s. Everyone just started getting into tech as programmers, as product managers, as all that. It's grown so far, so that right now, even Microsoft has a big office in Kenya, Nairobi, and they're hiring local talent. Those are some of the big companies that are already interested in the Kenyan tech system, ecosystem.

[00:17:22] SUNDIM: How long have you been in the tech space in Kenya then? Did you start in college? Or I guess, how did you get into programming overall?

[00:17:29] SIGUM: Whoa.

[00:17:31] SUNDIM: Big question there.

[00:17:33] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. When I was in college, I was actually doing – I was majoring on electronics and computer engineering. Then I ended up also doing electronics and electrical engineering. While in college, we started out a user group called the J Quad Linux user group. J Quad is the university that we were in. That was the first time I was ever in a user group. That the weekly meetups were amazing. There were a lot of presentations as to the tips and tricks on what you can do in your computer. That was my first introduction into this.

Then later in my university, the first tech space was open. We started visiting that a lot. Now, events just started kicking in. I'm talking about 2008, 9, 10. That's the period where that was happening. Then some startups just started coming out, 2010, 11, 12. There are a lot of startups that just kicked into the tech space. Yeah.

I went out, did some electrical engineering. Got bored and bounced back to the tech community. When I came back, I became a leader of one of the communities around. Ever since then, I've been really committed into doing the community stuff and just organizing meetups.

[00:18:55] SUNDIM: Did you happen to work in any of the community groups in the electrical engineering space, like ITripoli, or any of the student branch things?

[00:19:03] SIGUM: Oh, no. That, in my opinion so far, the electrical side in Kenya, it's not as active or as vibrant, and as exposed as the technology side. I mean, the computer science side. Yeah. It's not. That's part of the reason I'm still in tech today, because I felt a little bit stagnated due to the lack of the ability to just get out of the normal.

[00:19:27] SUNDIM: Get out of the normal. What do you mean?

[00:19:29] SIGUM: My usual work was you get the designs from an architecture and post the electrical design, do a bill of quantities, get it out, get a contractor, now you supervise that work. The standards we used there were actually British Standards. That was formed in either 1940s. The latest was around 1960s. Nothing was really changing. Nothing was really exciting anymore, because it's always the same thing being done in the same way for almost a year over year. That's exactly why I made the shift into this other end, where you could do Ruby today. Then in the next three, four months, you're like, “I'm going to Elixir.”

[00:20:15] OB: Right. You’re not going to switch from like, I'm bored with direct current, so I'm going to be an alternate current guy.

[00:20:22] SIGUM: Yeah, exactly. You have a building. You're working on this building, it needs around three, four years to come to completion.

[00:20:30] SUNDIM: Where is that instant gratification?

[00:20:32] SIGUM: Yeah, probably. There's very little gymnastics you can do on a building.

[00:20:37] SUNDIM: Well, unless you're a gymnast, and then you can jump all over it.

[00:20:41] SIGUM: Yeah. A lot of safety features that you can't really –

[00:20:43] SUNDIM: I think, they call that parkour. I'm glad that the tech community and the tech space is working out better for you. It's nice to hear about people coming from different backgrounds. They study something different. Then they get into Elixir. They always have a more interesting – I mean, not more interesting, but an interesting take on things that is very informed by previous study. That's pretty cool. I'm guessing, you don't want to go back to that, then?

[00:21:11] SIGUM: Oh, no. I would be very inexperienced.

[00:21:15] SUNDIM: Well, I mean, does Nerves have any overlap?

[00:21:18] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. That's actually an advantage that I really think I do have. The biggest reason as to why I settled for web – This is how I ultimately got into tech. After leaving the electrical world, I just needed something new to do. I remembered that, back in my university, I really had a lot of fun playing around with Linux. I decided that I need to play around again, more with computers.

I went out, looked for a software and found out, there's this cool management software that I can actually just pack it up, send it out to schools and make money. That was my naive brain, teaching me how to make money. I went to the internet, searched for a school software, open-source school software. By then, I had known what open source is. I was like, I know open source is free. Let me search for open source and go sell it out to someone else. I came across a school management system. It was written in Ruby on Rails. I called up a friend of mine who was interested in software. “Hey, do you know what Ruby on Rails is?”  “Oh, yeah. I know Ruby on Rails. It's this easy way of programming.” “Oh, so I can program?” “Yes, it's an easy way of programming. It will take you two to three days, and you'll understand everything.”

[00:22:32] SUNDIM: Oh, no.

[00:22:34] OB: I remember exactly that same – getting that same point. “Oh, it's easy.” Then it's pros. Then you look at it, and you're like, “What do these words mean?”

[00:22:43] SUNDIM: We all had that conversation with someone at some point.

[00:22:48] SIGUM: I honestly thought I'm going to take two to three days. I ended up, two, three months later, I still don't understand what's going on. I've already now invested in this. I have to do it. That was my introduction to programming. I just started out. That’s how I landed on Ruby on Rails. That's how I landed on Ruby. It was a good fit for me, because to me, it was actually an easier way of paying myself as I learn, because it's easier to get people who need web services as you learn, compared to any other.

You can't do systems. Where I come from, you can't work on systems and make money off it. That's the main reason as to why I was, and I leaned towards web. Talking about Nerves and the relation to what I’ve done, it's a really interesting thing to do. It's really interesting for me, just because I've programmed microcontrollers before in C, back in university. This will be a nice thing to do. Nice, and paying bills are two different things. Where's the client based? Who are you going to work with? The practicality of the knowledge that I have has always been restricted to the web, because that's where it's practical for the moment.

[00:24:04] SUNDIM: The practicality that I think about, which is very related to this topic is that my dad is an electrical engineer. Whenever I go home for the holidays, I bring home my cat and we locked her out of his office, because he has wires and circuit boards and string, and soldering irons all over his office. She just will not let up. She wants in that office. I am very glad I don't have that stuff laying around. She would be all over it all the time. Gnawing, chewing, electrocuting herself.

[00:24:37] OB: It’s a cat's paradise, is like, just trinkets to play with and knock around.

[00:24:41] SUNDIM: Yeah. Just not the expensive thing off the table. Boop, boop, boop. Come on. Well, speaking of a fun stuff, we had this little exchange on Twitter I have to ask you about. I don't know how you pronounce this. The Matatu buses?

[00:24:55] SIGUM: Perfect.

[00:24:56] SUNDIM: I said it right?

[00:24:58] SIGUM: Yeah.

[00:24:58] SUNDIM: Please tell me and everyone else about these buses, please?

[00:25:03] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. Matatu, I now feel the urge to explain where the name came from. It's a Swahili word, and we use it to refer to public transport buses, or even the smaller cars. Public transport buses are called Matatu. Tatu is a Swahili word for three. Ma is Swahili, sometimes to mean many. Matatu is 333. Or then, if there are many threes, you can say Matatu. It was back then when it was about, I think three cents to take the bus. We do have, I think, they're called solicitors in English. Someone who tells you who is actually calling you to come get into the bus.

[00:25:42] SUNDIM: Yes. I can't think of a better word for that. When we talk about solicitors here, it's usually – Oh, and I’m failing. Help me.

[00:25:48] OB: Just the loudest person there.

[00:25:50] SUNDIM: Yeah, like selling company.

[00:25:50] OB: I think, solicitor is a salesperson. I don't think I've been on a bus where they ordered people into the bus, like an order. 

[00:25:57] SIGUM: They basically standing of the door of the bus and just calling you to come to their bus, because they're probably around four buses at the same place. There's no order into which you get into the bus.

[00:26:09] OB: Keep shouting it’s open.

[00:26:12] SIGUM: Yeah, they keep shouting to you to get to their bus, so that you can go. This is how some of them operate. Not all of them. You have about two, three buses. They convince you to get into their bus. If the bus is full, then it leaves.

[00:26:24] SUNDIM: Is it competitive?

[00:26:26] SIGUM: Yes.

[00:26:26] SUNDIM: Okay. That bus is better than this bus, you want to ride the more fun bus maybe. Party bus.

[00:26:33] SIGUM: Yup. The competitive that you're talking about is some of the buses are on the extreme side. If you've ever seen a bus, where behind every seat, there's a TV. For every seat that you seated on, there's a TV and there's a big TV at the front for everyone else to watch. Sometimes, they go to the extent of having a TV facing back at the rear of the bus and on the side of the bus. When you get into the bus, you have club lighting. Literally, club lighting, blue lights, yellow lights, green, changing colors. Usually, these blinking colors that you have in clubs, or the dance floor. They have that, too.

[00:27:12] OB: This is for your daily commute to work, right?

[00:27:14] SIGUM: Oh, yes.

[00:27:16] OB: Okay. Awesome. It’s more exciting.

[00:27:19] SUNDIM: I have to give our audience some context here. We were talking about – I think, what did we start with? We were talking about how inefficient airplanes are at the beginning. Then around the same time, I saw an article about how the DC metro buses, we're going to start using both the middle, or the end, where you normally get off the bus to also get on the bus. There used to be only the entry point at the front of the bus, with the card swipes, so you could pay to get on the bus. I think, what it looks they're doing is they're adding the middle section to be able to do that. I was thinking about the airplane stuff at the same time. I tagged Sigu and it was like, “Oh, look at this.” Then we talked about the Matatu buses. This is where we got.

[00:27:59] OB: Well, now they need to add flashing lights and something. Dance pod and stuff.

[00:28:03] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. There’s loud music. The music is crazy loud.

[00:28:09] SUNDIM: Do you have normal buses, or is that the only bus that you can take to work?

[00:28:11] SIGUM: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, we do have normal buses. You don't have to take that. If you want to beat the traffic in the morning, you definitely need to take that, because they're fast and loud. Yeah, they will get you. They will get you there fast.

[00:28:26] SUNDIM: I get why the fast is a factor. Why is the loud part a factor, and you getting there faster?

[00:28:32] SIGUM: It seems to have been inspired more by the hip-hop culture. It's more of the music. I sent you, Sundi, a photo of the graffiti of – why am I forgetting his name?

[00:28:43] SUNDIM: We'll have to post the tweet thread in the show notes. Yeah.

[00:28:46] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. Matatus have different graffitis. It can have a photo of you. Actually, someone draws you on the Matatu. We've seen the Barack Obama drawn, LeBron, we've seen a lot of other politicians being drawn on the Matatus. It's an expression of culture and art, actually. That's the summary of what a Matatu is.

[00:29:06] SUNDIM: I'm glad. I guess, for some more context, I think I was familiar with it. I’d seen it in a TV show that I watched on Netflix a few years ago, but I didn't want that to be my only – I wanted to come into this thinking nothing. Because you can't believe what you see on TV. I was just like, okay, I did see that, something like that. I remember this competitive, the solicitor, the, “Come on our bus. It’s more fun thing,” and it being a fun ride and the whole thing, but it was just happen to be in a show. Didn't mean it was real.

[00:29:40] OB: Okay, now I'm seeing pictures. This reminds me of anyone who likes to go street racing, if they decided to let people into their car.

[00:29:47] SUNDIM: Oh, no.

[00:29:48] OB: This is exactly what you're describing. It’s loaded to the brim with lights and TVs. They’re fast. The music’s loud. That looks like a lot of fun. Do you have a lifegoal to be on a matatu bus before you retire? 

[00:30:01] SUNDIM: Or do you regularly take them?

[00:30:03] SIGUM: Oh, yeah.

[00:30:04] OB: I mean, well to have your face on one. That level of celebrity. There goes Sigu on that Matatu.

[00:30:14] SIGUM: Yeah. But no one will recognize who you are. They'll be like, “There's a Matatu with a weird person on it. I don't know which Matatu that is.”

[00:30:23] SUNDIM: I want to be on one. That would be fun. What if we just had a number of Elixir developers on one? We could just make an Elixir Matatu happen.

[00:30:32] OB: There you go.

[00:30:35] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. We can have an Elixir Matatu, as long as the graffitis are awesome. They’ll be like, “I got into an Elixir Matatu. I don't know what the hell that is. I'll always be taking that Matatu, because the music is loud enough.” There are a lot of enough TVs. Sometimes, they're actually tinted, so no one can see what's inside completely.

[00:30:54] SUNDIM: Oh, no.

[00:30:55] SIGUM: That is not the only buses we have. We also have the normal commute buses, where you queue up, get into the bus and just go home. Mostly when you're from work, and you’re just tired, you don't want a lot of all that. Just queue up, get into the bus and go back home. It's just one of the many options that we do have.

[00:31:13] SUNDIM: Well, I'm glad we got a chance to talk about it. Because I actually think, maybe this season more than most, we've gotten a chance to chat with people really all over the world and definitely across the country. It's really fun to hear about cultures from different places and the tech communities around them, but also, just things that make your culture unique. I'm terrified. I don't think I'd ever want to actually go on one, but I would pitch in for an Elixir bus. That would be fun.

[00:31:38] SIGUM: Sundi, you need to come to Kenya then. It's not as scary as we made it sound. It's as fun as I've tried to make it sound.

[00:31:45] SUNDIM: I don't even like the party buses here, and they sound [inaudible 00:31:48] party. I have an old lady at heart. We can try to make that happen. ElixirConf Kenya, next round. Speaking of, you had ElixirConf Kenya this year. Can you tell us about it?

[00:32:02] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. It's actually ElixirConf Africa.

[00:32:04] SUNDIM: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Was it hosted by the Kenya Meetup group, though?

[00:32:09] SIGUM: Yes. It was hosted by the Kenyan Meetup group, but mostly, also supported by other people from different parts of Africa.

[00:32:19] SUNDIM: Okay. Got you. ElixirConf Africa.

[00:32:21] SIGUM: Yes. It’s ElixirConf Africa. We had organizers from different countries in Africa, who really helped us out in this. The aim for, just if we back up to when we were talking about the different meetups that we normally have, we started out with a weekly meetup, then the monthly. After having enough monthlies, we were like, “Okay, let's now reach out to the whole of Africa.” This has been a gradual thing from the office at Podii, out to let's reach out to Kenyans who are working on Elixir.

Now, what if we reach out to Africans who are working on Elixir? That's how ElixirConf Africa was born. We reached out to as many organizers on the existing Elixir meetups within Africa. We try to get them and just make them a part of this conference. It was a success, because immediately after that, then Elixir Ghana was born. This event actually led to the Ghanaian community just springing up with their own Elixir. That's part of the success that we had. This was a two-day event.

The first day was full of the conference, because we're giving out – it was more of speeches. Then after that, the following day was more workshops, just to expand on the knowledge. We intentionally made the workshops free, being sponsored by our sponsors. We really appreciate them. This is just to get more people into Elixir in Africa, and just to get people excited about Elixir. That was this year. We are already in track to organizing for the ElixirConf next year. We're also reaching out to other sponsors and speakers at the moment.

[00:33:59] SUNDIM: Cool. I'm really glad that it's happening. Do you think it'll be in person next year? Do you think it'll be virtual again?

[00:34:05] SIGUM: We'll probably just going to do virtual again. In-person, I have organized events before. In person is hectic.

[00:34:14] SUNDIM: Yeah. Even you and I are hosting Lightning Talks at ElixirConf was one hour of a lot of coordination.

[00:34:22] SIGUM: Oh, yes. It's a lot of coordination. If you're doing hybrid, then it becomes another level of coordination. If you remember, even the ElixirConf that you are in, we were in, Sunid, when Chris McCord was just trying to speak and there was no way of reaching him to tell him that we can't hear him. He's still just talking.

[00:34:42] SUNDIM: I don't remember there being audio issues, but I remember it freezing a few times. Yeah. I think, I actually, I'm not a huge fan of hybrid events, or environments. I really think it needs to be one or the other to be the most accessible. Because one group suffers, one or the other virtual, or in person. That's just my personal opinion. I understand that we're trying to get back to in-person and we don't – I don't know. It's a hard problem to solve.

[00:35:12] SIGUM: Another reason as to why I will still hold on to the physical meetup, traveling in Africa is expensive. It's so expensive. If I got from California to New York and back, I think, it costs around $280.

[00:35:30] SUNDIM: Yeah. That’s on the cheaper side. Yeah. It’s possible.

[00:35:32] SIGUM: On the cheaper side. Yeah, it's possible. I did it. 

[00:35:35] SUNDIM: You might not show up with your bags.

[00:35:39] SIGUM: I was shocked that I'm able to even show up with my bags. I had my backpack and it was perfectly okay. It was way cheaper than that, if I didn't even have any bag on me.

[00:35:50] SUNDIM: Yeah. Because people travel like that.

[00:35:53] SIGUM: Yup. That was about a five-hour flight. Now, just to put it in comparison, if you do – Hello, we have a new guest on Owen’s side.

[00:36:04] OB: Owen has a lot of cats.

[00:36:07] SIGUM: If you do a one hour 30-minute flight from Kenya to Dar es Salaam, Nairobi to Dar es Salaam, one way is going to cost you $300. It's insane.

[00:36:16] SUNDIM: One way, and only an hour and a half?

[00:36:17] SIGUM: Yeah. It's $300. It's expensive to fly in Africa. However much like we to have a conference in Africa, it's going to be expensive for anyone who wants to attend this conference. A bus from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi is 18 hours. That option is a little too much to ask for. That's a lot of reason, we probably going to keep it virtual for quite a long time.

[00:36:46] SUNDIM: Okay. Well, that gives me and Owen a chance to join. We'll wake up at 1 AM and figure it out.

[00:36:55] OB: I'm going to commission my own matatu bus, just to go around the block. That experience right before I joined virtually.

[00:37:02] SUNDIM: Yes. You’d really be in the Kenyan mindset.

[00:37:07] SIGUM: Yeah. But we wish we could. Yeah.

[00:37:10] SUNDIM: Yeah, absolutely. Taking a very sharp right turn here, we really do want to ask you, Sigu, about the impact of Elixir, specifically this season, but also just like, you have talked before in person, or just with me after Lightning Talks, about things that you really hope to see with Elixir Kenya, but also for Elixir, specifically Elixir, just the language. Where do you hope to see Elixir going in the next five to 10 years?

[00:37:43] SIGUM: Oh, fortune teller time. Let me tell the fortune.

[00:37:46] SUNDIM: Okay. He’s pulling the crystal ball out, for everyone who can't see him. The wizard hat is coming on. The Matatu lights are flashing.

[00:37:57] SIGUM: All right. Actually, this is more related to how I got into Elixir and why I started working with Elixir. I was initially in Ruby, almost everyone's story, except a few who, and JavaScript and Java. I was initially in Elixir, then at this point, Podii was existing. I got a client who needed a payment processing application. I was like, I've been studying Elixir for a while. This is a good use case. Let me just try this out.

With the pure cowboy plug, I managed to do the processing. After that, I was like, I need to train people to use this. I migrated everyone in the company into Elixir. This is related to the question you asked. I managed to migrate everyone into Elixir. Within a few months, they were actually able to write Elixir code, even though in the OOP mindset.

My work in this was actually to correct them and make them think functionally. It was hard, because I was in the OOP mindset myself, but I now needed to correct someone to get off the OOP mindset. I had to make this intentional effort of not making the mistake. We did this for quite some time. Over time, we just realized that they get it. They just start getting it. Initially, I encouraged them to use pipes. Find out of piping this, because if you make them find out you’re piping this, then they're probably going to think about the data first, not the function, or not the method.

That really encourage them to start thinking functionally. This is related to what you've asked, Sundi, because over the course of this period, I have realized that I have trained a lot of people directly or indirectly in Elixir, but I can't hire all of them. I cannot hire everyone. but I have time to work with them and just get them started. Elixir is going to be having this – It might – let me not tell the wrong thing. It might have this problem of we having a lot of seniors, and not enough juniors in the future. This needs to be corrected intentionally. We need to put intentional efforts for Elixir, so that we have a lot of juniors, because people branch out.

They might do this for two, three years, and they decide to become managers and all that. We need a lot of seniors. We need to have intentional efforts of getting a lot of people into this particular ecosystem. This is the request to everyone else out there. Hire the juniors, find a way of making them learn and work, if you have the resources. If you think you don't have the resources, I personally did this with one client, and not a lot of money to play around and experiment. It's something possible. It's something I've done before.

If we flood our Elixir ability, or if we flood our community with enough juniors, then we'll have enough people to hire and make managers and all that. That's for me, what I think the future of Elixir should be. Let's start hiring the junior developers. Let's give them internships. Let's make them – just give them something. You shall figure out the best way to work with a junior once you have them.

[00:41:20] OB: How do you identify someone who might be a good junior Elixir developer, who is not working with Elixir at all? Maybe they're coming from another language, or maybe another career? Do you have ideas around them?

[00:41:35] SIGUM: Awesome. This is what has worked for me, but it's not a 100% foolproof. Currently at Podii, what we do is if you – we take them from the university, most of the time. If you're in the university, and you need somewhere to get your attachment, that is the industry industrial attachment. Then we open up in May and December and January. We open up, but we give you prerequisites. You must go through Elixir school. After you've gone through Elixir school, we call you for an interview.

Someone who's gone through Elixir school, and they've enjoyed, or they've persevered to just try and understand what it is, is someone you can have a conversation with. If they go through the Elixir school, the next thing we do is to give them a challenge. They do it at their own time. Then, they need to submit it to GitHub. That means they now know how to use GitHub, because by the time they're submitting it, then you know, they know how to fill GitHub commands, or git commands, sorry.

Now, during the interview process, we might actually just ask you to repeat exactly what you did during your take home. Because it's not we trying to determine how good you can think about things on the fly, because we assume that you're new. That is our natural assumption. Then during this process, we try to figure out if you're a better listener, or you don't listen at all. If you come out as someone who listens and is curious, then we'll pick you. Even if you don't remember a lot of things. We pick up people not based on how much Elixir they know, but how much they're willing to learn. Some of these are instinctive. We have one speak someone, we weren't sure about them. They ended up being the person we thought they were. They were really not helpful. Some of these things are instinctive. Sometimes you trust your instincts. It works.

[00:43:30] OB: Right. Yeah. Sometimes you hear wanting more juniors, and it's a missing step. How do we get them? Or where do they come from?

[00:43:38] SUNDIM: Yeah.

[00:43:39] SIGUM: Oh, yeah. Where do they come from? I've literally been getting them out of the thin air. Because just open up for internships. We literally call out for someone to apply for internships. Yeah, we’re offering internships. If you need an internship, just reach out. Minimum four months for you to intern with us. Once they reach out, we make them more interested. We've converted someone from Java. We've converted one from PHP. They're like, “Oh, no. I don't think this is something you can do.” We’re like, “Okay, do this with us for the next four months, then switch to whatever it is you want.” By the time you're done with four months, they're like, “Where can I get another job?” They just want to work on Elixir.

[00:44:20] SUNDIM: Ah, it’s a trap. I have to say, I appreciate this mindset a lot. Obviously, this is something I care about a lot personally. I went on a mini rant that Rose, our marketing director, very helpfully composed into a blog post. It was less ranty and more blog posty, about how Elixir needs to hire more junior engineers. I think, that is something that, I mean, I can't put it better than you did. Or if I could, I already wrote it down somewhere else.

Also, at SmartLogic, we also very strongly believe in this. You just have to have this desire to learn. Then if it's the right fit for you, it'll present itself, because I mean, with our apprenticeship program, we very similarly just want people to come learn, and then give them an opportunity to get themselves into a real working environment and see how it goes. People always present it like it's this crazy, huge infraction on your work life and the projects you have going on. Just like anything that's a little bit challenging, like starting a new diet, or working out more, just anything, you just have to make a little bit of a mind shift. Just one thing. Wake up 30 minutes earlier and empty the dishwasher before you start your day, then you'll probably be able to cook something for yourself, rather than order takeout.

If you just give yourself a little bit of organization, it's possible to hire junior engineers. We’re going to be here all night if I talk more about that. I'm so glad that you said that, Sigu. Just in general on the impact of Elixir, can you speak to how Elixir has really impacted your life? I think, we have heard it, but just in a more specific targeted way. How has Elixir impacted you?

[00:46:10] SIGUM: This is actually getting into Elixir, being the accident that it was. It's been an amazing experience. Because, first of all, it's a small enough community for me to know people and talk to them. Even those who “the language gods.” Those who in other languages, you hear about them and read about them in books, because the community is so big that you can't really reach out. The advantage of this is I always just sit down and say that, “I can't be like.” I look up to them, because I know they are people I have spoken to. Most of them, we've had a Q&A, or we've had a chat on Twitter, or wherever it is.

I know, and it keeps pushing me that I can get better and be like them in the near future. That's the biggest advantage that I've had in Elixir, and in this particular community. Being able to believe that I can get better, and no one is really that much of a super God. If they are, then I'm talking to [inaudible 00:47:14].

[00:47:18] SUNDIM: Well, on that inspirational note, Sigu, do you have any final plugs, or asks for the audience, places where people can find you on social media?

[00:47:27] SIGUM: On Twitter, my name is – my handle @s_igu. Feel free to reach out. I recently opened up my DMs. Closing it doesn't really help. Any fun project that I'm currently working on. Not really a project, but there's teach yourself computer science. It's a set of books that are suggested, if you've never really went through the computer science path. It's the books that you need to go through, so that you can start thinking like a computer science student. That's what I've started going through.

It starts with the structure and interpretation of computer programs. Oh, yeah. I got it right this time. That's what it starts with. It goes all the way down to databases. Different books that can help you through. That's the journey I've already started working on, just so that I improve. It's an awesome list of things that you need to go through, if you never really went through. What inspired me to do this, again, is when I talked about being able to talk to the gods of the language, I realized that they plug in a few computer science terms. They know them. To them, it's normal. To me, it's something new.

I want to get to where I understand exactly what I'm doing. This is the other thing that drove me into Elixir, because it's explicit. I know where things are coming from most of the time, and I know where they are heading to. Teach yourself computer science. I guess, that's how I can summarize it.

[00:49:00] SUNDIM: Amazing. I think, we can all benefit from that.

[00:49:04] SIGUM: Oh, yeah.

[00:49:04] SUNDIM: Cool. Well, that is it for this episode of Elixir Wizards. Thank you again to our guest, Sigu Magwa for joining us today. Elixir Wizards is a SmartLogic production. Today's host include myself, Sundi Myint, and my co-host, Owen Bickford. Our producer is Bonnie Lander and our executive producer is Rose Burt. We get production and promotion assistance from Michelle McFadden.

Here at SmartLogic, we build custom web and mobile software. We're always looking to take on new projects. We work in Elixir, Rails, React, Kubernetes and more. If you need a custom piece of software built, hit us up. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a review. Follow @smartlogic on Twitter for news and episode announcements. You can also join us on the Elixir Wizards Discord. Just head over to the podcast page to find the link. Don't forget to join us again next week for more on Impact of Elixir.

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