Rails Girls Mombasa
On the 8th to 10th June 2017 leading Ruby Developers from around the world came together to share,inspire and learn at RubyConfKe by NairubyKE.This is where four ladies Nanjekye Captain Joannah ,StellaMaris Njage and Ceciliah Mbugua and I met and look at Ruby on a bigger view hence urge to launch Rails Girls in Kenya with the help of Joannah from Rails Girls Kampala.
Stella and Cess went ahead and started Rails Girls Meet-ups at Riara University in Nairobi, meet-ups happening every Saturday.
Story behind Rails Girls Mombasa
This is a team of ladies from Nairuby Mombasa initiated on 11th February 2017 during Nairuby Ruby workshop in Mombasa.Thanks to Bernard Banta and Mike Kimathi from Nairuby.
Rails girls Mombasa is a group of brilliant young ladies that are making ideas into reality using technology.We challenge ourselves, empower each other and help each other realize our objectives in life.We are not only a tech group but a family full of love.
Above is the rails girls organizing team Rahma Halane, Catherine Chepkirui, Raycee Mwatela,Fatima Ahmed , Asha Abdillahi and I..From Nairuby meet-ups to regular meet-ups for ladies who are part of Nairuby.First Rails Girls Summer of Code Applications were opened and with our little Ruby on Rails skills we took up the challenge to submit our applications.Chances were high that we were not going to be chosen of which we were not.
Why -:
1.We had not done much in Ruby on Rails
2.None of us had contributed to open source
before
3.This was a really competitive opportunity
However, failure is part of a success journey cc Joannah Nanjekye.Not being chosen made us stronger and want to do more on Ruby on Rails hence more Regular meet-ups which led to being given a SwahiliBox website to work on as our first project and therefore Collaboration and Teamwork added up as one of our core values.
RubyConf came at the right time to grow of our community and realize there is more we could do and Yey!Rails Girls Mombasa Workshop on 3rd and 4th November.We were super excited about this, especially Rahma who felt like she was now a CEO.It was too bad Fatima was flying back to Turkey but she was really helpful.
Thanks to NairubyKe we managed to get some of the best Ruby on Rails developers in Kenya as our Coaches cc William Wanyama Austin Kabiru Joannah Nanjekye Daniel Otieno Emmanuel Beja and Hannah Masila.And to our sponsors/partners who believed in us cc Africa’s Talking Ltd Andela, SwahiliBox ,Kleva Solutions SwahiliBox Ladies and Technical University of Mombasa.To also friends who helped us reach our target through crowd-funding .
We did it because we gave nothing but our best.However we don’t just stop it there, we want to give women a community and help them understand technology and develop their ideas.
Our meetups happening at SwahiliBox every mid and last Saturday of the month.See you there.
