DSF member of the month - Hiroki Kiyohara

This month marks the start of a new year, and the Django Software Foundation would like to wish you all a very happy new year. New year, new resolutions, but also the start of a new blog post series, with DSF members presented each month through an interview. A great way to learn more about the people behind Django, recognized for their contribution to the DSF mission.

For January 2025, we welcome Hiroki Kiyohara (@hirokiky) as our DSF member of the month! ⭐

Hiroki is the creator and a staff member of DjangoCongress JP. The CFP is still open!
He has done a lot for the Django Japan community which exist for many years and he has been a DSF member since October 2024.
You can learn more about Hiroki by checking out his website or visiting Hiroki’s GitHub Profile.

Let’s spend some time getting to know Hiroki better!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc)

My name is Hiroki Kiyohara and I am the CEO of an AI Startup named ZenProducts. I like techno music, cars, drinking and VRChat!

How did you start using Django?

I started learning Python around 2010 after reading an essay "How to become a Hacker", which had a big impact on my life. I created a web service using Django, which has been a great project since then.

What other framework do you know and if there is anything you would like to have in Django if you had magical powers?

One thing I wanted to include in Django was an asynchronous worker, but it was already discussed as a future plan!

What projects are you working on now?

We are developing Shodo (https://shodo.ink/), an AI proofreading service for Japanese texts. The AI we developed in-house (by using transformers lib) and the server are all in Python. Of course we use Django with Async!

Which Django libraries are your favorite (core or 3rd party)?

We often use django-storages, DjangoRestFramework and pytest-django

What are the top three things in Django that you like?

Admin, Migration and ORM, and the last thing is the community (i.e. you!)

What made you decide to create DjangoCongress JP? Do you have any advice for someone who would like to create a local Django conference?

There was PyCon JP, but as Python became more widely used in different areas, there were fewer Django and web talks. So we created a Django-only event so that we could cover in-depth stuff.

I think if there is 1 person to join, you can start your event. Not just a big conference, we can create a community.

Do you have a quote or proverb in Japanese that you personally love?

I love 色即是空. It means that form is emptiness. So everything is not an absolute object or form and everything can be changed and something like flow. I also love "The times they are a changin’" by Bob Dylan. Both of them gave us a great perspective on the world.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

I'm very glad to be here, thank you!

Thank you for doing the interview, Hiroki!