# 2025-08-07 Rust Africa Roundtable

## Intros

### Pieter

Got into Rust in 2018. Tried, failed. In 2020, picked up again. Undegrad thesis on macros. "Mastering"

Became a Rust consultant in 2021 -> present. Mostly system stuff. Telephony systems.
- Ex: AI, speak policy number
- Ex: Parsing emails
- Ex: Shuttle, macro system
- Ex: ?, redis system

Meetups, helping learn the language

#### Follow-up: Have you seen needs in mission-critical / low-level spaces that have not been met yet?

#### Follow-up: You'd mentioned that you were brought in to help with a piece written in Rust; is there backstory on the why/how of a Rust component was there that wasn't able to be maintained?

### Charles

From Kenya. Rustaceans Kenya group.

Freelance and contract work, recently just Rust. Few years ago, mostly Javascript/HTML/CSS. Currently helping companies integrate Rust into their stack.

#### Follow-up: What spaces are you typically brought in to help with integration on?

#### Follow-up: What are some topics that are raised during meetups and discussions in the Rustaceans Kenya group?

### Akin

Creator/founder of Rust Nigeria.

Professionally, web/mobile/user experience. Love Rust.
- Ex: Leptos, Swift.

Community is growing.

#### Follow-up: What are some topics that are raised during meetups and discussions in the Rust Nigeria group?

## Questions

### To Akin: Rust Nigeria is one of the longest-standing Rust African communities. Can you give history and context?

Akin: Started in 2020, couldn't find any community. Talking with Javascript developers. Whatsapp -> Meetings -> Meetups (11/12 people)

11 people in-person, some watching live. Created a twitter handle. Use Whatsapp because love Whatsapp. "Don't want to leave where people are comfortable"

Write articles, spotlights. People build startups. "Strong sense of belonging."

"Not easy to justify Rust who doesn't love Rust already."

One thing: People join the community, are into it, get a job, and lives are transformed. Because not as many resources on African continent. Going against the Javascript/Python.

Met Mordecai.

People are choosing systems language above everything else.

### Ernest: Followup further. Can you talk more about why Rust feels like a risk and why people want to take that risk?

Akin: People need to make money. Getting a remote job is what people aspire to, because big. Financial tech is a "safe" choice - existing solutions don't use Rust at all. Mostly Rust outside the country.

No Rust jobs, everybody because Javascript/web/Python, even Golang.

Rust: "Will I see a job?"

Remote work means that it's needed to be the best of the best in international competition

Mostly students because less "risk" (e.g. parents).

After school is finished, have to "give back". It's a big decision to make between potential immediate jobs in other space and choosing Rust.

Better now, blockchain. Still hard sell, top top developers.

### Niko: We can't make jobs appear? What are the things we can do? Are there specific things that would help people find jobs in Rust? Last time you thought "Boy would that be great if that existed"?

One person couldn't afford internet. Now really successful, dime a dozen talented guy.

Easier to get resources. Google gave scholarships to do Javascript courses. -> barrier to entry became lower

Ex: Google built free wifi, more people learned to code.

Even if not getting a job with Rust, still a better student: Rust teaches good computer science practices.

Did try to get Nigerian companies to adopt Rust. Difficult when frontend is Javascript/Python.

Conclusion: free resources, scholarships

### Pete: Follow-up: Which resources could be offered? Maybe from the Rust Foundation?

Pieter: Practical example:
* students learn some language
* learn about Java or C++ smart pointers
* Rust almost as a companion manual as to how the same concept works in another language
* tie-in with the other language learning could help concepts click in Rust and may help with the other language

Charles: Comunity feedback
* deeper material to learn from
* seen success stories originate from deeper / practical knowledge
* embedded space
* connecting to DBs
* cloud technologies
* resources being able to be freely available important when people starting out
* engagement with guests in meetups who know deeper concepts, e.g. embedded, OS, Automotive
* connecting with others and inviting to the meetups

Intricacies / selling points of Rust could be highlighted

### Pete: Follow-up: Which spaces is Rust finding its way into from what you've seen and people you've spoken to in the community?

### Ernest to Pieter: Same question. How did Rust South Africa come to be?

Pieter: Two versions of history.

1) Late 2010s (2018), ran a few years, stopped 3 years ago.

2) Where I got involved. Attended Ernest's meetups in London.

Got a response from a guy from old community, "I can just give it to you" 500/1000 members.

First meetup Dec. last year. 7(?)/8(?)ish members

### Ernest: Abstracting out to the dev culture

Going to be very similar to Akin's.

Taking up Rust is going to be great risk. All Rust devs under 40, 80% are university students.

Gaining jobs: weird complex thing. People attending meetups, none have full-time jobs in Rust.

I don't know any companies that want to switch to Rust. Remote people (1000km) that want local Rust people. Local people that want to get a job with Rust.

Here, Java dominates. Because of university courses.

Microsoft also did a lot of sponsorships locally
- maybe 70%+ of companies are using C# in some capacity

If we want Rust to take off in companies, how?
- Most people taking up Rust are students
- Pushing must come from people experienced in programming
- As students are learning a language and learning Rust on the side, would be nice if they are coupled.

### Jack: Do any of the university students have this stuff in class or is it all on the side?

Pieter: Only on the side

Pieter: University professor was impressed by Rust when doing thesis
* next year the professor asked for previous year thesis to be presented in class
* was a difference highlighted between C++ templates and Rust generics

Akin: Mordecai, more connected to universities

Akin: Strongly agree with what Pieter said

Google came in: Student developer groups.

Some support from Universities in terms of rooms and space to do things like:
* tutorials
* hackathons

Some hesitence in committing; if stronger Rust community or embedded among another strong community (e.g. another language or style of developer community such as mobile or web) may see more growth.

Good thing about Rust: When you love it, you love it.

Very cheap to get students into things rather than adults. Easier.

#### Followup for after meeting: Rust Edu

### Ernest to Charles: First start with historical context, Kenyan communities, geopolitical context.

Charles: Kenyan community has like 3 histories

I got into Rust through Mozilla's advertising 2017. Low-level things, C/C++. Maybe a month, I was in love with the language.

Communities: Mart? Matt? community meetup. Asked his company to use space for a Rust meetup. 2-3 meetups, Matt got hired by a company in France. Community disappeared.

2nd: similar story of someone helping to energize community, 2019/2020 that person got a job in UK. Community faded away.

Until 2022, no activity. Had a discount in co-working space, was contracting. Decided to host some meetups. ~10-15 people that joined. Encouraging that people joined.

Reached out to the Rust Foundation for funding physical meetups. Rent is very high. 1 meeting ~30 people, $100/hr. Community grew, especially online, to around 50.

One company, Africa ??, allowed us to use space. Rust Foundation sponsored meals. Number of people was around 30-35, highest amount for a programming language community in Kenya.

People doing Rust on the side. Rust hiring is primarily abroad, remote hires.

Host many meetups in comparison to other languages

Most other meetups are dedicated to technologies
* e.g. Jetpack Compose

Blockchain companies want devs into the ecosystem
* 3-4 are doing Rust or focusing tooling onto Rust
* companies are hosting meetups
* seeing how to partner to get devs to get jobs (blockchain)
* if you have a job in Rust, this is a signal that others can/should learn Rust
* goal of attendees of these meetups for Blockchain + Rust is similar to others: landing a job

Political space: Quite a lot of protests, against government corruption. Meetups have been affected. Risky to have meetups where protests are happening.

Natural disasters (e.g. flooding) are also posing a challenge to in-person meetups.

Large attendance online to the Rust meetups

### Pete: A theme, having resources available. Do you have any thoughts on what that might entail?

Pieter: Practical example: students are going to learn some language, e.g. smart pointers. Rust as a companion module. Could use this to show the selling points of Rust.

Akin: Resources that have been useful: access to more advanced meetups, teach deeper concepts. Rust book does an amazing job at giving an introduction. Useful for things like connected database, embedded work. Books: cloud computing, devops. Books are expensive. Access to people in the industry who do Rust full-time and have deeper knowledge. Guest that can teach us deeper things. Embedded, automotive, safety-critical. Have had questions in the community.

### Niko: When is the last time you heard people using AI tooling and what did they think of it? How common?

Akin: Pretty common. Helps them learn things.

Chatbots can be useful way to learn some concepts in Rust.

Pieter: Using tools to learn Rust?

### Jack: Language barrier? or other unique challenges?

Akin: Nigeria English is taught and used whole life so that's fine.

Used to watching tutorials and learning online.

Resources
* video series on specific topics
* e.g. pointers
* Google offers some of these resources for free
* historically was a nice path for finding adoption of other technologies in community locally
* shout-out to Jon's long streams as helpful

Pieter: Language barrier: none

English always one of the 2-4 languages spoken.

Unique -- in-depth resources.
* No Amazon, can't easily just buy a book to learn
* Too expensive to get these kinds of resources shipped in

### Niko: Point that came up in past -- is certification useful in African context?

Pieter: not personally related to certifications. When talking to others the advice does come up to "go get certified".

Akin: younger generation has seen examples of those attempting to get certifications and then not succeed

Awareness growing that if you have a good GitHub profile you can showcase you abilities there

If someone comes talking about certificates, he recommends them to work on their GitHub

If people finish university and get certificates and don't get jobs, then this has shifted the mindset

Charles: Certificates are important in places like cloud computing and DevOps. If knowing both Rust + cloud computing / DevOps certifications it could matter. Otherwise it's mostly your GitHub that will speak for you.

### Jack: Wrap-up

If you'd like to bring things up and share later, please feel free to reach out to any one of us. Happy to hear from you!

We may reach out later to potential quote or ask for clarification, but recording itself won't be shared.

### Jack: Any parting thoughts?

Charles: Some community members asked to share experience
* compile times, e.g. especially on low-powered hardware
* blockchain software especially
* formal verification
* some want to get into medical and automotive
* if there can be a concentration here this will help
* interconnect with other languages
* especially C
* pointer provenance
* some feel they don't have enough resources to do this effectively today

### Jack: Any list if available is welcome

Happy to hear about those things if they're on a list

### Ernest: Future of the language, where would like to see evolve

May have to do this in the future; important to hear from the folks here.

Ernest is on the Vison doc team so he's also a good person to chat with about this.