Rails Girls Singapore: Cooler than the H&M launch

So it’s relatively unheard of in Singapore to find thirty or more females congregated at a single location at 9am in the morning, not for a MANGO sale or the launch of H&M – but to learn about web development.

Fortunately for us, Rails Girls decided to have their first international workshop here on our sunny island last Saturday (8th October). ‘Rails’ is short for Ruby on Rails, an open-source framework for web programming.

Linda Liukas and Karri Saarinen founded Rails Girls in Finland to get females started with technology and to build their ideas through web development tools. The casual and open environment makes it less intimidating for women to ask questions and seek help when it comes to understanding how web development works.

It was fabulous. Never have I seen so many programming noobs like myself gathered around their computers, entering commands on ‘Terminal’ and finally understanding about all the computing jargon that developers throw at you. It is most possibly one of the most fun and interesting ways to discover programming, and I certainly hoping for more of such events in the future.

We caught up with the organizing team (Jason, Karri and Linda) post-event to find out more.

So why did you guys decide to hold it in Singapore?

L: Serendipity! No, Jason approached us last spring suggesting that we do Rails Girls Singapore. We found Jason to be a great guy and Singapore seemed like an interesting place with a buzzing startup scene with a lot of similarities to Finland.

For example, Singapore and Finland both have a population of around 5-million, a strong education system, a high level of technological innovation and an economy previously strongly driven by large corporations. Singapore seemed familiar, but still an exciting and unexpected venue!

Any interesting differences you noticed about holding it here in Singapore and in Helsinki?

L: The girls here perhaps had a little more prior knowledge about technology than the attendees in Finland. Also, many seemed to have a lot of practical ideas that they wanted to develop further.

We were quite impressed about the level of enthusiasm that kept the girls coding well past the official ending time. Some even skipped lunch so that they could learn as much as possible! I hope we get to see some of these projects live.

Oh, and we had our first female Rails Girls coaches!

How was the experience for the organising team? Anything particularly challenging?

J: We had an overwhelming number of applicants. Selecting participants was challenging as most of the applicants have interesting and diverse backgrounds. Finding a space that can hold more than 40 participants in a central location was challenging too. Thanks to SmartSpace for hosting the event and dedicating staff to help out with logistics.

L: No, everything went very smoothly. A big thank you goes to Jason, Smartspace and Viki, we couldn’t have wished for better hosts. We were also really happy with the Singapore coaches, who were the ones really making the magic happen. Without them we wouldn’t have been half as hands-on. I hope that many of them will keep on teaching!

Do you intend to carry on organising more of such events in Singapore in the near future?

J: Most definitely! There might be opportunities to include males and expanding on design and web app development. Keep a watch on Startup Lah.

L: I hope so – let us know of any ideas or further workshops you’d like to do! At the very least we’ll set up an e-mail list for the Rails Girls participants too for questions and comments.

Any advice to the girls who want to carry on learning about RoR?

K: Just start making or trying things out. The good thing with software is that you can try and make mistakes. It only costs little bit of your time. Most developers start and continue learning this way. Also you should try other things, like design, HTML/CSS and Javascript, not just RoR.

L: Codeschool.com has Rails for Zombies, which is a browser-based learning tutorial. For the RG participants, who already know a little, Railscasts.com is an excellent resource. For a more fun twist to programming, check out Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby.

J: There are some excellent online resources. Also do sign up for Singapore Ruby Brigade mailing list for invites to monthly meet ups.

Here are some photos from the workshop:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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