A GROUP of young IT geeks organized the first-ever community of programmers in Davao City dubbed as "Durianpy" in a bid to empower the talent pool into Python programming.
During its first meet-up at the Ingenuity headquarters along Quirino Avenue on Saturday, Earvin Gemenez, one of the lead organizers, said this community intends to unite programmers, be they beginners or professionals, who use computer programming language called "Python" in the city.
The exponential growth in the demand for expert programmers, specifically on Python, calls for more skilled talents who have the skills for online job opportunities.
"Python (programmers) is very active, but mostly are freelancers. Many start-ups use Python in the city, but we're not united," he said.
Forming a community, Gemenez added, allows an easy collaboration of ideas and new projects among fellow programmers.
"Through this, we can find more experienced developers who want to volunteer to talk and be involved to help others," he said.
The group came up with an idea to hatch the city's own community after participating in one of the events for Python programmers in Manila called PyCon Philippines 2014, a volunteer-run and non-profit conference.
"The main goal of this conference is to provide a venue where the Python programming language and surrounding technologies can be explored, discussed, and exercised," Pycon PH website said.
The community based in Cebu, meanwhile, is called Pizzapy.
Once active, this will attract international-based start-up companies to put up headquarters in the city, even if their operations are abroad.
"There are a lot of international startups but their headquarters are in Cebu and Manila," he said, adding that's exactly what they intend to do for Davao -- to be present in the map.
He said investors will not come over, unless they learn how active the community is.
Ingenuity, a homegrown IT company, headed by John Naranjo, is said to be one staunch supporter for Python programmers, as its own pool of developers also use the computer language.
Ralph Leyga, a freelancer and ogranizer of Durianpy, said he started programming back in 2009 and later on Python computer language was introduced to him.
"I just read the documentation, since then I started learning Python," he said.
Along with Gemenez and Leyga, Ed Patrick Tan and Nathaniel Varona were also among the organizers of the first Durianpy meet-up.
The group is planning to hold a monthly meet-up where senior developers are invited to talk before technical and non-technical community members.
Through the monthly meet-ups, talents can improve their skills, and thus increase their employability to foreign employers.
"Let's say you can learn Python in a week but you can never master it," Gemenez said.
Huge opportunities await homebased online job seekers if they learn Python.
"Sa mga online jobs, dako og rate para sa mga Python developers. Pero gamay lang pud ang naga-Python (For online jobs, Python developers are paid higher rates, but only few are into Python," he added.
Gemenez added one of the things they wish to address is to give young ones another means to while away their extra time, insted of getting themselves tied up to online games.
Python, as computer programming language, is used to develop websites, computer and mobile applications, and animations.