This is my personal website, where I host my contact information, a (hopefully) up-to-date resume, posts about my work and thoughts, and anything else I may wish to in the future! In addition to allowing my work and myself to have about greater web and searchability presence, I'm also using this site to keep my development skills active.
This site is written entirely in the Django python framework. I got started using Django when I used to work on a farm in South Florida, where my job was basically to help move our farm operations into the 21st century. Shuttered away in the bedroom of an old farmhouse on the property, surrounded by the mildewing stacks of paper farm records dating back a decade or more, I learned. I learned first how the farm operated, how decisions were made, what information was and was not available, and how that information was interpreted. I talked with operations managers, farmworkers crew supervisors, supply managers, and anyone else I could until I was able to wrap my head around the system. Then, I returned to my musty 'office' and imagined how I could make everyone's lives easier, more streamlined.
As any well run farm is, our farm operated on data. Data about yields, about about weather, about crop health, about pests and threats, about supplies, and more. But this data was all scattered across paper records, excel sheets, and a few outdated software systems that barely worked. I set about designing a new system to collect, store, and analyze this data, and present it to the relevant people in a way that was easy to understand and act upon. I chose Django as the framework for this system, as it allowed me to build a powerful web application, and its basis in python meant I could leverage a wide range of data analysis libraries to drive insights from the data we collected all in one language. Over the course of months, I built out the system, working closely with farm staff across all roles to ensure it met their needs. The result was a comprehensive farm management system that significantly improved operational efficiency and decision-making on the farm, from integrated pest management to irrigation scheduling to supply and inventory management. It was incredibly rewarding to see how technology could transform a traditional industry like agriculture, and it sparked my passion for web development and data-driven solutions.
Since then, I've only grown my expertise in data science and precision agriculture, and this site is just another way to grow and refine my skills. In an attempt to keep up with the changing landscape of development, I've decided to build this site fully integrated with Docker as a way to learn more about containerization and deployment. While certainly not necessary for a personal site like this, I wanted to challenge myself to learn something new and expand my skillset. Ultimately, my vision is for a democratized, sustainable food system where access to massive capital is no longer a barrier to entry for farmers. A thousand things will need to change to make that vision a reality, but if we consider accessibility and democratization as an ethos for each of those thousand changes, then tangible progress can be made. One tiny inflection toward democratization is making sure the technology I build is accessible to all on any platform. Hence, containerization with Docker, so that what I build on this site (and in the future) can be run by anyone, anywhere, regardless of their operating system or environment.
