A beautiful day unfolded on March 06, 2020 when a crowd of almost 50 Women came together to code their applications at Rails Girls, Chennai.
Following weeks of preparation, The Day was finally here. The first edition of Rails Girls, Chennai was hosted at GUVI Office, IITM Research Park, Chennai. Sponsored by RailsFactory, GUVI, and The Facebook Developers Circle, the event aimed at bringing all the women with passion for Rails come, share knowledge, learn new things, and meet new people under one roof.
At 9:06 AM on the 6th of March, the conference room of the IITM research Park was embroidered in red and white colour- the flagship symbol of Rails Girls, eager to welcome the ambitious, passionate and enthusiastic group of women excited to write their first line of code. As the first girl walked into the door, our faces brightened up with a warm smile. Yes, the fun has just begun.
For most of them, it was their first-time writing codes for their application. Regardless of their backgrounds- engineering, science, marketing, culture, graphic design, or sociology- the attendees stayed engrossed for hours, asked mentors and consultants many questions and had lots of fun. The room was abuzz with red and white sightings of 1:14 male to female ratio at a tech event.
The first hour was an installation session and Ruby Session for the event. The mentors- Krishnaveni S, Saikat Kumar Dey, Sumana Paul, Poongothai Loganathan, Sharanya Sarkar, Selvavalli Sarveswaran, and Priya Ramesh assisted participants in setting up their systems to get ready to code. The coaches - Dhanuja Bharathi, Chaitali Khangar, Nithya Haarish, Amulya Tanksale, Anusha Gundeti, Parashmita Gupta, and Magesh Sathasiva Pandyan were making rounds, offering their guidance where and if required. We had a lightning talk session which involved getting to know each other.
The day of coding was kicked off by Parasmita, Mentor and organizer at Rails Girls, outlining the details for the day and putting some light on the philosophy behind the Rails Girls event. After the installation session, once everyone settled in with the coaches to start off the workshop- coach Anusha Gundeti gave an interesting session on “Understanding the basics of Ruby” to the attendees. The following hours were wonderful to watch. The camera team did a quirky job capturing the eagerness, determination, engagement and joy of attendees, coaches and mentors as they brainstormed issues and created new experiences on their computer screens using codes.
The “Basics of OOPS Concept and implementation in Ruby” session was presided over by Coach Chaitali Khangar. And, all one could hear as doing rounds in the conference room were words such as “error” and “run” – to name a few. Two and a half hours of rigorous coding sessions were followed by a delectable lunch and beverages to refuel.
The next session after the lunch break saw the lighter side of the event as organizers Arrvind Balasubramanian, Chandhana Surabhi, and Trishita Ganguly helped everyone roll up their sleeves to participate in a few games. It was a Rails exercise aimed at acquainting participants with lengths and breadths of technology by gamifying the process. Very exciting and fun-filled time! Rounds of laughter culminated into a light mood where the participants, organizers, mentors and coaches bonded with each other and shared their experiences.
The following hours were interesting to watch. Coach Amulya Tanksale took the stage and walked through “MVC architecture” and all the commonly used terminologies in the software programming world. It was an engaging session not only for people who were new to the programming language, but also to some experienced ones.
After the snacks break, Coach Nithya Haarish, and Poongothai started the last session “Rails and Implementation of Web Application”, equipping the individuals with all the basic tools and knowledge to help them build Powerful Applications like Instagram. Everyone settled in with their coaches for building a Ruby on Rails application from scratch. For few participants with no previous experience in programming, this engagement session was all about creating a cool app minus worrying about some advanced concepts that aren’t necessary to know yet.
Sometimes, you couldn’t help, but get inspired by how cool technology innovation has been inciting all around us. As the workshop ended at 6:30 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! We each took away something from that event- Amped up our coding account and made us technology wiser. After all, Rubies are a girl’s best friend.
