Women will be empowered to help build the web when the country’s first event of a global phenomenon takes place at City of Bath College.
Britain’s first Rails Girls – which has a huge following across the world – aims to help women better understand technology and build on their ideas.
The all-day workshop will teach women new skills in computer programming and software development and give them their first taste of writing code to build web apps.
They will be taught how to break down the jargon of the web-application framework called ‘Ruby on Rails’ and how to use it to their advantage.
Rails Girls was started in Finland in November 2010, and quickly went global with over 100 events now being organised each year.
Workshops have been held as far afield as America, China, Brazil and Singapore, and Britain’s first event will be held at the College as part of the Bath Digital Festival
Katrina James, who is helping to organise the Bath Digital Festival, said the ‘coding club’ aimed to make technology more accessible to women within a male-heavy industry.
She said: “We are very excited about this as Rails Girls is a really well-known brand. Events have been held all over the world, but never before in Great Britain.
“It is for anyone who wants to find out about computer programming. As soon as you get involved in Rails Girls, you immediately get a support group across the world.
“Women will be encouraged to have a go at building an app. It’s as if they will be taught the secret code.”
Also up for grabs at the workshop is the chance to win a free three-month computer programming course run by Bath company Treehouse.
Katrina added: “Rails Girls Bath is a pretty unique opportunity, women will be actually doing the computer programming rather than just talking about it.
“The tech community is talking a lot about this event, we’re expecting it to be a sell-out.”
Rails Girls Bath will be held at the Crib at City of Bath College on Sunday March 17th from 9am to 5.30pm. It is free-of-charge and women interested in attending are asked to apply for one of the 40 places at http://2013.bathdigitalfestival.com/
The second annual Bath Digital Festival is a celebration of the City’s thriving digital scene and takes place from March 14th to March 24th.
The College’s Travel & Tourism BTEC Diploma students will be “the welcoming faces” of the Festival, which has events at about 30 different venues. It will be their job to welcome members of the public to the events, show them to their seats and answer their questions.
Katrina said: “We’re really pleased City of Bath College students are helping us, they are just what we need. Our team is predominantly tech focused so having hospitality experience will be a big help.”
