Go to a conference!

The Summer of Code is all about contributing and being part of the community. As part of this, we want you – our students – to explore and experience the inspiring vibe of conferences, user groups and meetups. Obviously you should spend the precious work time that you have focussing on your work. But we’d also like you to get in touch with the community vis-a-vis, if possible, so you get a feeling for that vibe, too. This will not just happen during the Summer of Code, but mostly after the program.

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

We highly recommend to go and visit evening events like the local Ruby or JS user group. You can ask your coaches about the events that happen in your town/city. Additionally, we want to you to visit a conference. They are an important aspect of the community life and we support you by organizing free conference tickets.

Are you a conference organizer and interested in supporting our students? Please read here for more information.

The Basics

The RGSoC orga team is in touch with many conference organizers all over the world. We try to provide free tickets for suitable conferences in your area. We are looking for conferences that are related to your main programming language or are well-fit general topic conferences that are beginner friendly. Additionally, we make sure conferences have a code of conduct in place or otherwise make an effort in creating a harassment-free atmosphere where everyone feels welcome and respected.

The Raffle(s) or How do I Get a Ticket?

The conference tickets are given out in a raffle. Well… kind of. We are a global program and will consider this. So, here’s how we do it. We have a list of conferences, you as a team can pick from and apply for the tickets. You will be free to choose up to 3 conferences. This will happen on the Teams App, details will be given to you in time.

Please make sure, you only apply for a conference that you are really able to attend! We can’t provide support for travel & accommodation so please keep this in mind.

We will hold 2 raffles since not all conferences have their dates announced yet. The 1st raffle takes place at the end of July. The 2nd raffle happens in September. So if there’s no suitable conference in the 1st round, bear with us, the 2nd round should have something for you. Teams who have not been lucky in the 1st round, will be given preference in the 2nd round. We want everyone of you to have a fair chance.

Usually, students pick conferences that are close by. We also favor this for financial reasons (LINK TO TRAVEL&ACCOMMODATION). From the list of ticket applications, we distribute the tickets with these criteria: * order of wish list * suitable conference (location/financial aspects, topic of conference) * fair distribution

Having said that, if you are able to attend a conference at a far-away place, feel free to apply for one.

If you won tickets for a conference, we will connect you with the conference organizers. You can then directly talk about the details of how to actually get your personal tickets. Depending on how it’s done, you might need to sign-up somewhere or simply provide your names so the organizers can put you on the list.

Is this also for volunteer teams?

Yes!

At the Conference

If you won conference tickets, we want you to share your experience. You will either hold a lightning talk or write about your conference experience for the RGSoC blog.

Lightning Talks are usually 10-20 minutes. The topic can and preferably should be your project at the Summer of Code. We check back with the conference organizers, if this is possible at all. If yes, we will then give you more information about it. We also have in mind that it will probably the first public talk for you. Scary thought, right? We know. Stage fright is something we all experience, even if we already have held a lot of talks. We will help you in dealing with it! Here’s a start How to ace your lightning talk.

Alternatively, if a lightning talk is no option, we want you to write about your conference experience for the RGSoC blog. It could look like this: RGSoC @ ROSS Conf or Eurucamp Days.

What About Travel and Accommodation?

Unfortunately, we are not able to provide additional financial support for travel & accommodation. If we see an opportunity, we will ask the conference organizers about it. But please consider that providing travel grants is a big effort for everyone involved and not usually happening.

Many companies support their employees in attending conferences. Ask your coaches if there’s an opportunity at your place!

Infos for Conference Organizers

You are organizing a conference and want to provide free tickets for Rails Girls Summer of Code students? We will forever keep you in our hearts!

Our students are located all over the world. 2015 teams mainly work on projects using Ruby/Rails/Ruby-related frameworks. We now also have a few JS projects. But we are also looking for general topic developer conferences or full-stack conferences.

There are a few things to consider though: * Your conference should be beginner friendly. That means, talks (or workshops) need to be suitable for people who haven’t done this for years.

  • You take care of a welcoming, respectful and harassment-free atmosphere. We expect you to either have a Code of Conduct in place or otherwise make an effort in dealing with - let us be plain - jerk behavior. Bonus points go to conferences who have assigned contact persons for potential incidents.

At the conference, we want our students to hold a lightning talk about their project. If you have slots for this, we’d be very happy if a team could use one of them. If not, no worries. Alternatively, they can write about their conference experience on our blog.

Tickets will be given out in a raffle. You can read about the raffle details above. This is done by the RGSoC orga team who will also connect you to the students who are interested and won a ticket for your conference.

We are not able to support our students with travel & accommodation. If you have any means to financially support people (e.g. a travel scholarship or a diversity program), please let us know about the details. We will inform the students about how it works for your conference.

Interested? Any further questions? Write us an email and we can talk about the details.

Conference Sponsors in 2015

A huge Thank You! to all conferences who support our students and provide free tickets for the 2015 edition.

JRubyConf EU

@JRubyConfEU, Potsdam (Germany), 31 July 2015

Eurucamp

@eurucamp, Potsdam (Germany), 31 July – 02 August 2015

Deccan RubyConf

@deccanrubyconf, Pune (India), 08 August 2015

OTSConf

@otsconf, Dortmund (Germany), 15 - 16 August 2015

Madison+ Ruby

@madisonruby, Madison (USA), 20 - 22 August 2015

BaRuCo (part of FullStackFest)

@fullstackfest, Barcelona (Spain), 1 - 5 September 2015

Reject.JS

@rejectjs, Berlin (Germany), 24 September 2015

Strange Loop

@strangeloop_stl, St. Louis (USA), 24 - 26 September 2015

RailsClub

@railsclub_ru, Moscow (Russia), 26 September 2015

Arrrrcamp

​@arrrrcamp, Ghent (Belgium), 1 - 2 October 2015

OpenSource & Feelings

@OSFeels, Seattle (USA), 2 -3 October 2015

Webcamp Zagreb

@webcampzg, Zagreb (Croatia), 3 - 4 October 2015

RubyConf Colombia

@RubyConfCo, Medellín (Colombia), 16 - 17 October 2015

EuRuKo

@euruko, Salzburg (Austria), 17 - 18 October

beyond tellerrand

@btconf, Berlin (Germany), 2 - 4 November 2015

Codemotion Berlin

@CodemoBerlin, Berlin (Germany), 2 - 3 November 2015

Øredev

@oredev, Malmö (Sweden), 3 - 6 November 2015

StarTechConf Chile

@startechconf, Santiago (Chile), 6 - 7 November 2015

GOTO Berlin

@gotober, Berlin (Germany), 2 - 4 December 2015

dotJS

@dotJS, Paris (France), 7 December 2015

RubyKaigi

​@rubykaigi, Tokyo (Japan), 11 - 13 December 2015

Rubyconf Australia

@rubyconf_au, Melbourne (Australia), 4 - 7 February 2016

RubyConf Philippines

​@rubyconfph, Manila (Philippines), 8 - 9 April 2016