code.kiwi.com community has been running Python Weekend — an educational community project — since 2016. Over the past 7 years we helped hundreds of Python developers complete the program accelerating their careers, traveled to 10+ cities all over Europe and collaborated with numerous local Python communities to make it happen.

At first glance, Python Weekend is a 2.5-day supervised coding event for Junior+ Python devs, where participants build the prototype of core Kiwi.com technology, while getting support from a group of experienced engineers, for free. But there’s so much more to this.

At this poster session, we will share how to run an educational Python project so the community, business and local tech scene would benefit. We will show how to shape the culture of connecting real-business challenges and junior talent. We will see how dev edu projects can impact the culture of mentorship and present feedback of mentees from all over the world to share their experience.