We’re pleased to be sponsoring the Open Source Women’s Leadership Summit this Friday. We think the work that the RailsBridge community has done is critical to making the Ruby community more diverse and more welcoming to everyone. We know women are significantly under-repesented in the development community as a whole, and in the Ruby community specifically, and we choose not to accept this as inevitable. It was Grace Hopper, after all, who developed this whole idea of programming languages.
Pragmatically, we also see this as an opportunity. Women hold up half the sky, but until recently held down only 3% of the seats at conferences. In a market where everyone is searching for developers, we ignore this large segment of potential developers to our great detriment. Where else are we going to find the potential to double our Ruby community?
And, as our economy slogs its way out of the deepest downturn since the Great Depression, we also see this as an opportunity to even out what has been a very uneven recovery. We have at once deep unemployment and many many unfilled jobs. The jobs are there but they have moved. We are hiring as fast as we find good people and we are certainly not alone. We see RailsBridge as a way to help people develop the skills they need to move to these new jobs, and they’re high-paying jobs, too! What better community to enter than one where employers fight to pay you above the median San Francisco income?
The work that RailsBridge started is very important, and is far from done. The work takes a great deal of effort. To that end, we want to celebrate the people who are making this happen. Pivotal Labs is honored to be a sponsor, and to continue to support these fantastic programs with space, time, money and our voice.
Those of you in the San Francisco area, we encourage you to attend and help us celebrate these inspiring leaders, and those of you elsewhere we encourage you to get involved: help get the word out about this exciting movement.
Event Details on EventBrite: OpenSource Women’s Leadership Summit
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