Hi, I’m Samson Goddy, a software engineer, and an open source advocate. But I am derived mainly by community relations work to give back to the ecosystem and recently hired to build communities for a great company. I am the co-founder of the largest open source group in Africa, called the Open Source Community Africa, and a long-term contributor to the Sugar Labs project. This community-driven organization maintains and distributes the Sugar Learning Desktop, a python-based GUI for Linux from the One Laptop Per Child.

Python has always been around me, from a child developer tinkering his way with the Sugar Desktop to teaching people the programming language.

It will be an honor to be part of the PSF board as I believe in sustainability and outreach.

My experience:

I was a board member for Sugar Labs; a US non-profit organization that maintains the Sugar Learning Desktop from 2017 to 2020. I joined the extraordinary mission to sustain open source with Open Source Collective as a Board Member, which I am still serving to date.

I also built an open source community from the ground up to arguably the largest open source community in Africa, focusing on outreach, support, and mentorship. I created and chaired Open Source Festival, the flagship event from the Open Source Community Africa. We attracted top companies and individuals to the African community.

I have had the opportunity to speak at Pycon US and Nigeria, which was a pleasant experience. While at Pycon US, I connected with the team, focusing on starting Pycon Africa on a round table discussion on supporting and growing the community.