Ernest Kissiedu on the DevX Initiative

Building with Rust

This episode, we're joined by Ernest Kissiedu, who is the community lead of the Rust London user group as well as a co-founder of the DevX Initiative, which empowers current and would-be Rust contributors through research, workshops, and sponsorship.

Ernest tells the story of how he fell in love with Rust, how he got into organizing one of the largest local Rust user groups, as well as how he started the DevX Initiative. He also opens up about the challenges he faces running such a unique initiative, along with the possible shiny future of Rust that he hopes the DevX Initiative will help bring to fruition.

Blog post announcing that the DevX Initiative is now independent: https://medium.com/@thedevxinitiative/the-independent-devx-initiative-3aff64fcf3dc.

You can find the DevX Initiative on Twitter @DevXInitiative.

You can find the Rust London user group on Twitter @RustLondon_.

You can send us an email at buildingwithrust AT gmail DOT com or find us in the Rustacean Station Discord server.

Timestamps

• 00:26 - Welcome
• 00:35 - Ernest's intro
• 01:26 - How Ernest got into Rust
• 09:02 - Rust game development in the early days
• 11:46 - Rust's community is its most compelling feature
• 13:28 - Ernest's journey to becoming community lead of the Rust London user group
• 22:30 - How Ernest co-founded the DevX Initiative
• 29:00 - The DevX Initiative going independent
• 34:34 - DevX and the Rust Foundation are both working towards the same goal
• 38:00 - Ernest's personal projects
• 43:42 - Contributing in ways other than coding
• 48:16 - Widening the definition of what it means to be a 'contributor'
• 50:26 - Summarizing and wrapping up
• 53:41 - Ernest's sign-off
• 55:16 - Outro