Ruby For Good

This weekend I had the pleasure of co-hosting Ruby For Good, a conference that brings programmers together to work on projects for a variety of charities and non-profit organizations. This year, adorable kittens were involved.

How it Works

Conference attendees stayed in the dorms at George Mason University for three days. They assembled into teams and worked on projects throughout the day. They were also responsible for preparing meals for everyone. In the evening, folks relaxed by playing board games and hanging out.

Although the format is very simple, attendees told us they got a lot out of participating, regardless of their experience levels. We are still going through the feedback surveys but here's a great blog post by one of this year's do-gooders http://rolentle.com/ruby-for-good/.

This Year's Projects

This year's projects were all really exciting. The work ranged from building an entirely new web presence, to updating an existing Rails application, to contributing to open source projects. Here's the list of groups we worked with:

• Humane Society of Fairfax
• Denver GrowHaus
• World Wildlife Fund
• Purple Door
• All Income Foods
• Balitmore Arts
• US Vote Foundation
• RSpec-Rails

It's so cool to hear a junior developer talk about their opportunity to contribute to something as widely used as Rspec!

You Can Get Involved Today!

Contribute to next year's Ruby For Good by purchasing a t-shirt - proceeds go to scholarships for future attendees.