We can’t believe it! It has almost been a whole year since we sat down and wrote the Rails InstallFest blog tutorial, brought twenty guinea pigs into a room and helped them build and deploy their very first Ruby on Rails application. Since then, we have run these events monthly, have personally introduced hundreds of new developers into the Ruby on Rails Community and our tutorial series has reached thousands across the globe.
So, What Difference Have We Made?
More Newbies in the Community
We’ve introduced hundreds of new people into the Ruby on Rails Community, whether learning to code from scratch or coming from another language, we have welcomed them with open arms. We’ve encouraged them to continue their learning, ask questions, find a mentor and join in monthly community meetups. We have seen the change in our growing community, as we battle to squeeze into the RoRo Sydney venue as newcomers make up a large percentage of the audience.
More women programmers
Almost one third of the attendees set up at our InstallFest have been women participants. We are working towards bridging the gender gap and growing the number of women developers in the tech community. We provide a safe environment where anyone can come along and be comfortable, ask questions and get the help they need. More importantly, we’ve even managed to recruit some women mentors to help out with these events.
More people learning about code
While some participants take on this challenge to make a career change, others, often those with an entrepreneurial streak or in project management roles, come along to better understand how their team of developers work. In fact, almost one quarter of our InstallFest attendees had absolutely no previous programming experience before they came along to one of our events. Sharing and helping others gain this knowledge helps everyone understand a little bit more and gently introduces them to the world of code. >I was worried it would be too techy, but it worked out fine. Everyone was super friendly and helpful. - Daniel Aron >This is my first ever development seminar, it is wonderful that there are so many people here to help and share. - Dai Phung
More developers giving back
InstallFest has also given Developers in the Ruby and Rails Community the opportunity to give something back. I have said this many times, but it still amazes me how generous and giving this community is. Even after years of programming, developers are passionate about what they do and are so excited to share their knowledge. They also get the chance to go back to basics and learn to explain things as simply and clearly as they can. Without these awesome volunteers, we would not be able to run these events, so thank you! You are appreciated by all who attend.
Awesome experience!! All you guys are doing an incredible job. I learned a lot of basics today! Hats off to the spirit and patience of all mentors!! I asked a lot of questions today and none hesitated to explain what I didn’t understand. - Sowmya
What does the future hold?
We can’t wait to help even more people learn about Ruby and Rails and welcome them into this awesome community. We’ll soon be launching another free initiative to help you understand the web application development process, so stay tuned!
Do you have something you’d like to do? Just let us know, we’d love to help!
