2026-09-01 –, Conference Management Room5
What does it look like to teach programming and GIS entirely online? This talk shares stories from running the Kartoza internship remotely, guiding university students from basic computer science concepts to building simple web GIS applications with Python and Django.
This talk shares the experience of running a sixteen-week geospatial programming internship fully online.
All sessions are conducted remotely via Google Meet. We begin with foundational computer science concepts: binary numbers and computational thinking, before moving into Python and geospatial programming. Students learn about functions, object-oriented concepts, shapefile validation, vector and raster handling, and eventually build simple web GIS applications using Django and Folium.
But teaching remotely changes the dynamics. You cannot easily see confusion. Silence can mean understanding or complete loss. Debugging happens through screen sharing. Breakthrough moments happen quietly, sometimes in chat messages instead of raised hands. A successfully rendered web map might be followed by muted microphones and a simple “Finally…” in the chat.
Rather than presenting a polished educational framework, this session reflects on what it means to mentor students in programming and GIS in a fully remote environment: the challenges, the awkward moments, the small wins, and the human side of teaching technical skills through a screen.
Python
Django
Folium
Scratch
GeoPandas
Rasterio
Zakki is a software developer at Kartoza, working remotely from Indonesia. His interest in GIS began with exploring digital maps: searching for cities, discovering interesting places, and virtually traveling through Street View while imagining being there in person. Outside of work, Zakki volunteers with the PyJogja community, supporting Python learning and local tech collaboration.