The 11th edition of RubyConf India was a huge success. As the platinum sponsor, RailsFactory had the opportunity to help make this event happen, and we're so proud of all the hard work that went into making it such an incredible experience.
For those who missed out on RubyConf India, we've highlighted some of the best moments from the event in this blog post.
About RubyConf India
RubyConf India is one of the biggest tech events in India and has been growing at a rapid pace over the years. This year's conference was an incredible experience—and with close to 450 attendees from all over the world and presentations on diverse and interesting subjects (both technical and non-technical),it was quite a joy to attend.
It was a wonderful opportunity to meet hundreds of passionate Rubyists from around the world as well as learn about what’s new in the Ruby ecosystem. The conference was held in ‘Queen of Deccan'- Pune, which is worldwide known for its historical, social, cultural and political importance and its picturesque surroundings in the Deccan region of India.
Setting Up Our Booth
Our RailsFactory team reached early at the venue and started setting up the booth. The set up started like any other event meetup would- the projector stopped working, the laptop wouldn’t connect, and there was a bit delay). Like the true problem solvers we are, we overcame these obstacles to successfully complete our booth branding set-up.
Our 17 member RF team were soon off to their respective tasks, each perfectly executing their works and getting ready at the booth, waiting for the event to start. We were donning our official hoodie to set us apart from the hustling crowd.
Early Bird Registration
There was a huge line up of ruby enthusiasts registering and collecting their goodies from the organizers before the welcome session of the event. It was great to see the conference room filled up with rubyists gathered together to share knowledge, learn new things, and meet new people under one roof.
Conference Kicks Off with Dinesh’s Keynote Session
The conference kicked off with a keynote by our Founder and CEO, Dinesh Kumar, where he stressed upon the importance of a community for programmers. He was delighted to share how RailsFactory has been providing RoR solutions to people globally since 2006 and the road ahead.
The day started with Tejas Dinker’s session on “Being RESTFUL over GRAPHQL”. And, the time went by with more enlightening sessions by a variety of speakers from India and abroad. With each new speaker came a new perspective, a new technique, a new way to code. Everyone was filled up with information, we thought our brains would explode! At this moment, the aroma of coffee and the perfectly shaped round cookie coming from the cafeteria saved the floor. As the day went on, the time to present came closer.
Our Talk
Cometh the hour, Cometh the Girl.. Our Technical Lead, Amulya Tanksale’s presentation was on “Exceptional Ruby”. She gave interesting insights on how to structure a robust error handling strategy for the application. The spotlight was on error and exception handling and learning new approaches for bringing exception handling techniques up to speed.
One of the entertaining aspects during her talk was “flying chocolates”. Yes, she asked some serious stuff and anyone answering the question was rewarded with a flying chocolate coming their way. And, the audience was loving it!
Mentoring Sessions
We had a mentoring session going on throughout the day which involved getting to know each other. The cafeteria and corridors of the venue was scatteredly filled with programmers, coders who were interacting with the like-minded individuals. The mentors- Chaitali Khangar, Magesh Sathasiva Pandyan, Amulya Tanksale, Sameer Kumar, Gaurav Pandey, Naveen Agarwal, Krishnaveni S were making rounds, interacting with a bunch of people, offering their guidance where and if required.
Enthusiasm at Our Booth
Did we just say the word quiz competition, Raffle and Spin the Wheel contest ? Ah, so all the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed attendees were hurrying to our booth to participate at our ongoing events. Our enthralling quiz competition was open from 10AM in the morning to 5PM in the evening and was a test of intellect containing a series of easy, cryptic questions.
Our Volunteers Ann Maria, Ponselvi Ravi, Premkumar S, Kishore Kumar, Saravana Moorthy, Venkatesa Madhan, Avinash Poojari, Dinesh Kumar, Sivamanikandan K managed all the people that visited our booth really well and encouraging them to participate in the fun activities and gave away exciting prizes to the winners. Very exciting, fun-filled time and rounds of laughter culminated into a light mood..
Kishore was the nucleus of our energy, endlessly interacting with all the folks and keeping everyone visiting our booth super engaged and the result was- people had a gift in their hand and a smile on their face.
The “Spin The Wheel” contest was a major attraction at our booth, a large section of people made their way towards us to scoop themselves up for some of the gifts we had kept in wrap for them to grab!
We Met a Diverse Set of People
We can’t even begin to describe the number of people we interacted with at the event. From student scholars, to people who lived half a world away, we met everyone! And keeping aside the great amount of talks, activities, laughter and fun, the amount of meaningful conversations we had really helped us gain perspective, and made us aware of the different kinds of thought processes, and the different kinds of problems and solutions that people need! We were also pleased to meet some of our speakers of the day, who were instrumental in keeping the conference hall full for the entire day.
Much Needed Lunch Break
After manning the booth for the first half of the conference, our super members were super hungry. And to top it off, the lunch space was packed full of hungry minds. The menu had a mouth smacking spread of Indian, continental dishes and celebrated fraternity from the world of Desserts. We stood very patiently in queues to satiate our taste buds, and gain some boost to keep going for the other half of the conference.
Come Drum. Drum. Drum.
The following hours were interesting to watch. After the meal, we returned back to the conference hall only to be greeted by bongo drums, Maracas and Gong occupying our precious seats. Fast forward a few minutes, there was a group of musicians playing on the stage and the entire crowd got behind them. Everyone in the hall was playing an instrument and were singing along. Such was the energetic atmosphere, it looked more like a music concert than a Ruby Conference.
Lightning Talk
Three members of our team participated in lightning talk. Premkumar S was one of the first speakers and gave an interesting talk on “Head Fake”. He was followed by Magesh Sathasiva Pandyan who kept the momentum going by delivering a talk on “Deep Work”. And, last but not the least Sameer Kumar end the session with a talk on “Import Maps”
Since all our speakers for flash talks couldn’t speak for more than 5 minutes, we had decided to make the talk an impactful one and we received an appreciative applause from the audience. It was a truly nerve-wracking experience, but we loved every minute of it!
And, the Winners are..
As the sun was prepping to set for the day, our volunteers were busy screening through the answers of the quiz participants. A total of 150+ attendees had participated in our quiz competition and based on the answers they had submitted we selected the top 15 winners. All the winners were given Alexa Echo Dot for their outstanding performance in the quiz contest.
Last Session of the Day
Finishing out the conference with a loud cheer was Narendran who started his session on “Engineering Excellence” and walked through on how to maintain engineering standards at all phases of the project to build great teams and deliver great software. The sarcastic tone coupled with relevant examples made the closure entertaining yet not oblivious to the message. That made participants think on how to contribute and engage in Ruby evolution. Though we are pretty sure that as a community, we are already a breeding ground for future updates.
Sometimes, you couldn’t help, but get inspired by how cool tech innovation has been inciting all around us. As the event ended at 7 PM, you could see a lot of content faces all over the conference room, and some curious ones willing to stay longer and keep on learning! Next followed an after party where the participants, organizers, mentors and speakers bonded with each other and shared their experiences.
Each of us took away something from that event- Amped up our coding account and made us technology wiser. After all, everybody loves Ruby.
See you next year to catch up on exciting news and features!
