Rails Girls Summer of Code

Go to a conference!

At Rails Girls Summer of Code you work hard and learn new stuff every day, for 3 months, a summer full of love and code.

To make this an even more complete experience for you we’d like you to join a nice conference:

Enjoy the great vibe, learn new things from the talks, meet fantastic people and get to know the lovely community!

For this we have been offered no less than 49 free tickets at some of the best Ruby conferences on 3 different continents for you. Most conferences offer free tickets, which is really fantastic, but some of them will even cover flights and accomodation for you. And all of them are very worth visiting!

All of these conferences want to be as accessible as possible to a everyone. They will do their best to make you feel comfortable and welcome. Some of them will provide developer sherpas who can show you around, introduce you to others and help making the conference the best experience for you ever.

How to get a free conference trip

Below is a list of conferences, when and where they happen and what they are offering to Rails Girls Summer of Code students.

Please decide what conferences you’d like to attend to, and apply for them by sending a tweet (more on that below). We will collect all of your applications, do a raffle and then announce winners.

Since we have more tickets than sponsored (official) students on our program everyone can apply who has sent in an application to Rails Girls Summer of Code, no matter if it has been accepted. Sponsored teams will take priority, but because there probably will be many left-over tickets, we will do a second raffle for volunteering teams and then everyone else.

Please note that all of the flights are meant to be not intercontinental. E.g. if the conference is in US, then flights can be covered if you’re based in US, too.

Europe and Israel

USA

South America

How to apply?

Just pick all the twitter handles (or hash tags) for the conferences and tweet something like:

Apply for as many conferences as you like, even if you can only go to one. This will raise your chances to get a seat.

Please make sure the tweet does not start with a twitter handle, and include our hashtag so we find your tweet :) If you want to apply for more conferences than handles fit into one tweet then just send multiple tweets.

Any strings attached?

There are no strings attached.

We’d like you to join a nice conference and enjoy the great vibe, chat to some of the most fantastic members of the community and learn a few new things from the talks.

We do have a few, strong recommendations for you though :)

Give a short talk on your Rails Girls Summer of Code project

People will love that. Most conference organizers can reserve a special, short slot for you and they will do their best to support you with your talk. And it will be a fantastic experience for yourself, too. When one of our Berlin Rails Girls students spontaneously gave a short lightning at Euruko in Athens in front of a 700 people audience, she was super nervous, but also did incredibly well. Everyone noticed how brave it was for her to do this and she received an amazing applause for it. Afterwards she was the proudest person ever :)

This is also an opportunity to give back to the program and especially our fantastic sponsors who deserve getting this kind of attention.

We will post some tips on how to give a talk like this soon.

Travel in teams

You’re working for 3 months with your pair. Going to a nice event like this will be fun and it will make you feel more comfortable.

Write up a blog post afterwards

Take a few pictures, and take some notes here and there during the conference. Then write up a nice review afterwards if you liked it.

Conferences are doing their best to provide an amazing experience to everyone and they deserve getting some feedback and warm words.

Here’s a review that Anika has written a year ago after visiting her first Ruby conference, Euruko: Part 1, Part 2. They are in German, but Google Translate works, well, somewhat: Part 1, Part 2

Apply for Rocky Mountain Ruby’s scholarship program

Rocky Mountain Ruby 2013 is another great conference. It is running on 25-27.09. in Boulder, USA and they have their own scholarship program. Feel free to apply if that looks interesting to you!

FAQ

How awesome will these conferences be? I’ve never been to one.

They are super awesome. Conferences in the Ruby world generally have a fantastic vibe and do their best to make it a great experience all around. You’ll meet lots of great people, have lots of fun and learn new stuff.

When will winners be announced?

We’ll do the raffles as soon as possible and announce winners right after that. We expect that to be done on 31th July at the latest.

What happens when I win a ticket?

We’ll put you in touch with the respective conference organizers so you can sort everything out.

What happens when I win a ticket but then can’t go?

Please only apply for scholarships when you can go. Should anything go horribly wrong then please make sure to pass your ticket on to someone else who’s eligible to it.

Can coaches and mentors apply, too?

Generally scholarships are meant for newcomers, they’re supposed to raise the diversity of a conference. Usually that won’t apply to coaches and mentors. Should there be any leftover tickets then you could talk to particular conferences.