Knowledge should be for all, not just for the few. ThoughtWorks believes in sharing and invites you to events like Rails Girls, vodQA and more. If one finds an interesting upcoming event to be held at ThoughtWorks, Pune, I feel one should not miss the chance to be there for a day. The events conducted by them are fun-filled and knowledge-sharing, wouldn’t you like to have fun while sharing knowledge? The work area at ThoughtWorks adds to everything that happens throughout the day. Thought Workers call the place as their second home. The environment is simply awesome for events such as Rails Girls and vodQA, the two events which I attended till now.
Rails Girls, Pune (on August 24, 2013) was my first time to ThoughtWorks and was an amazing day midst a number of girls at some tech event. This event invites a maximum number of female participants as the name itself calls. This was a one-day workshop where you could dive into the magical world of Ruby on Rails. Registrations, breakfast and the keynote went well. All the attendees were supposed to occupy their table(with seats around) according to the number card that was handed over at the time of registration. There were around 8-10 participants on one table and 2-3 mentors which made a good rails girl: mentor ratio. Then there was an introductory session by the mentor which included introduction and installations. Then arises a common question “How do I start learning ruby quickly?” and here we have the obvious answer “Try tryruby.org!”. And there you go learning ruby. This was followed by work sessions throughout the day where one had to create an application and showcase the same at the end of the day. The lightening talks were again a part of the day and interesting. Not to forget, the food at lunch and cup cakes at snack time were really good. Chicken Dance was the most entertaining and happy time of the day. Now arrives the time to showcase your application, I had a thought and made a rails application “Thoughts at Thought works” which was supposed to be a portal for putting up your thoughts along with your name and a relevant picture. One of the reasons that many liked my application was that I highlighted a message from one of the lightening talks which said:
The pictorial representation of the thought left an impression and the session ended pretty well. It was an amazing day networking with many people and gaining knowledge about Ruby on Rails. As I mentioned earlier as well, a fun-filled knowledge-sharing weekend it was 😉
The second time I happened to visit ThoughtWorks was for vodQA(on October 19,2013) which was an event especially for QAs. The keynote synced well with the theme “Faster| Smarter| Reliable“. The event was well organized with three parallel tracks scheduled for 30-minute talks, lightning talks, workshops and Open Spaces. The icebreaker game was interesting which made each one interact with others. I really liked the vodQA t-shirts but they were for organizers and speakers less the participants 😦 . I attended a few talks which covered various aspects of testing but was more busy socializing with people around. Nevertheless the talks(referring to the title of talk) were drawing more of attention. One of the interesting statement from a lightening talk was “There is nothing absolute in this world apart from Absolut Vodka”.
One thing which I noticed was that Thought Workers along with doing a lot of pair programming at work, they paired up for their talks as well. Also, most of the speakers were fond of the Test Pyramid. The Open Spaces concept was another good idea which was open to all for an open discussion on the topic of their choice. And again, lightening talks were interesting. Ah, coming to the feedback part, ThoughtWorks really worked out well in keeping both the electronic as well as the paper mode feedback systems. The anchors did not miss a chance to ask all the attendees for feedback. Somewhere the credit goes to the anchors as well in conducting the event well. The day ended with some more networking.. 😉 and it was pleasing to know that people remembered me from Rails Girls event. I simply loved both the events at ThoughtWorks and looking forward to more 🙂
Anisha Narang 
Anisha nice post ! Its really good to know that the PyGirl is as well a RailsGirl 😉
I wish for a day when geek-events will lose its “male-only” stereotype & females can attend, participate, feel safe (& laugh at sexist jokes 😛 ), and there won’t be a *need* to engage girls into coding by having for-females events.
But I want to believe, these girls-only events are stepping stones to that direction. 🙂
About the post, I envy people who religiously blog with enthusiasm after the events. 😛
About the blog, the main-subheading looks a little
teen-ish(couldn’t decode if there’s any hidden/obscure message/agenda, as a purpose for it to be that way). Also, I would love posts with categorized sections/headings if more than 200 words – makes reading so much easier; and, if you want none of your readers to miss some specific points out of a post, then a TL;DR section at the top is most certainly an “editor’s choice”! 😉You write well, would look forward for more.
Or, as I fear, it will just continue being a trend that we just keep on holding girls-only events without solving the real problems.