It’s not known whether the ministers of Trade and Industry and Economic Development were aware of the PyConZA conference held in Cape Town in early October. By some accounts they should have been, given government’s desire to grow and retain the local skills base, which would require some knowledge of local events that support this vision.

On a broader scale, this second annual conference demonstrates that multinational giants like Amazon Web Services, Google, Voss and ThoughtWorks are prepared to invest in the local economy and community. Surely this alone should be motivation enough to strengthen incentives, policies and infrastructure to attract more organisations such as these to our shores?