[PHOTO NINA][SLIDE 1] This is Nina, she studied slavic languages and political science and worked in marketing. In February she attended a rails girls beginner workshop and In june she quit her job to program and work on the open source project spree.
Hi, I'm Anika from Berlin and I'm going to tell you about a true story. The story of Rails girls summer of code. [SLIDE 2]
###Me
Just one and a half years ago i co-founded Rails Girls Berlin and this is where it all began for me. The whole crazy story. Since then, i studied gender studies, worked as a teacher, in a social media agency, and - in june i joined the travis CI team as a community manager.
###Travis CI
Travis not only has a maskot [SLIDE 3] WHICH resembles one of their founders, Sven Fuchs quite a lot, but they are running tests for your code and deploy it, so you don't have to worry about that. One of the reasons, I love them, is that Travis has always been rooted in the Open Source community and that they supported Rails Girls form the first minute. [SLIDE 4] Sven Fuchs and Konstantin Haase for example have coached and mentored on many events and been especially involved with Rails Girls Berlin.
###Rails Girls Berlin We in Berlin were the first local chapter of Rails Girls and we started it, because we fell in love with programming and wanted to continue doing that.Together. So over the time we started follow up Workshops [SLIDE 5] and helped organize weekly project groups. Our goal was: To bring people together who wanted to keep on coding. So that they don't have to sit at ho me alone with only their computer and at one point want to throw it at the wall - in a group you have people stopping you from doing that ;)
###Rails Girls Summer of Code To think about further steps we could do to help these women[SLIDE 6] getting even deeper into code, we had a meeting with coaches and organizers in [April] this year. There - with coffee and cake - the idea of a Rails Girls Summer of Code was born.
####The idea The idea was to get Rails Girls students into Open Source. They would be paid so that they're free to work projects. Open Source. 3 months. Fulltime. [SLIDE 7] The concept was to always have two students pair up, because two is always better then one. (you motivate each other and learn so much better - and have somebody to share your chocolate).These teams would choose different open source projects, find a coach and a mentor to support them. We wanted to start contributing to the Open Source community and work together towards more diverstiy in tech.[SLIDE 8]
####The story After Sven Fuchs gave a lighning talk about this idea, a whole organizing team formed. But to make this initiative come true we needed money. A lot. So we spread the word, and talked to many peole rooted in the communtiy. We had the goal to support 10 students, that would be 5 teams - 50.000 dollars.
We started the crowdfunding campaign and after 2 weeks we got this:[SLIDE9] 80.000 dollars. On board for sponoring we have community heros like github, google open source, 37signals, tilde, soundcloud and of course travis CI who kickstarted this project and they took me on board not only to be their communtiy manager, but to coordinate RGSoc.
So this huge amount of money, which not only could buy you tons and tons of haagleslag, could support 19 students - so 9 more then we'd hoped for. [SLIDE10] ..
####The teams Okay,so the talk in may, the crowdfunding campaing running in June and the program officially started 1st of July.[SLIDE11] And not only the sponsored teams started to get going, but we also have 15 volunteering students, who wanted to code over the summer no-matter-what. Which I think is really inspiring!
This is only possible because a lot of fantastic people are putting big chunks of their of free time in this project: they coach, mentor, tweet, blog...They helped to create everything from a website, a support net of coaches, a whole community.[SLIDE12]
####The projects So in July the program officially started and since then the story has become even bigger and wonderful. The students are working on projects like hackety hack, rails, sinatra, bundler, diaspora. To only name a few!
Let's have a quick glance at team species,[SLIDE13]they are working with this database about endangered species all over the world. they wanted to show what you can do with that data, how you can use it to build something that's a helpful resource for others. so they build this app, which shows the endangered species in poland.
I could talk about the teams for days, but unfortunately I only have [SLIDE14]2 more minutes - so you can visit us on railsgirlssummerofcode.org and get to the teams. Read about their summer, their code, their i-need-chocolate-now-moments as well as the happy dance moments.
####The students The women I'm telling you about are from the most different places and backgrounds. We have people from Columbia,[SLIDE15] the US, Poland, India, Czech Republic, the Netherlands ... and they all have different backgrounds - they are freelance movie directors, photographers, study Human-Computer Interaction and French philology but they all had the same summer: deepen their coding knowlede by working on real-life open source projects.
####The next level
[SLIDE16]Now we actually have a full grown project that takes the Rails Girls movement to the next level. Now you not only can start loving programming at a workshop, but also keep on coding towards a goal. It's a yearly opportunity for beginners who really want more. They can start learning and preparing for the program next year. And it's not only an important learner's goal and opportunity [SLIDE17] to have a wonderful summer and to change your life but it's a serious step towards more diversity in tech.
This all was made possible by people who believed in the cause, in the change and it all started only 5 months(!) ago with coffee, cake and and idea.
I'm still truly amazed by this adventure! It's been so exhilirating for me to see each day [SLIDE18], how new things are being created and how the scene starts to change by tiny but determined steps. I only realised really when preparing this, and talking with friends & family, just WHAT an unusal thinge we've build here.
###True story
It seems that if you really put your whole heart into something you can manage unbelievable things.[SLIDE19] And I'm so happy to be part of this movement, this change. Everybody in here can be! It's been a huge step for the community and an even bigger one for the students. This summer is barely over and it's already time to prepare the next one. We always are looking for people joining us on this adventure who want to apply/coach/support/ us or just send us cat gifs.[SLIDE20] If you want to be part, just get in touch. Stories like Ninas are an amazing example what we can achieve. And if we all just give a little bit of our time and hearts - there are so many more to come. THIS was only the beginning!Thanks.