March 24, 2010 — Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners would like to highlight Sarah Allen, Jen-Mei Wu, and Ali Crockett for Ada Lovelace Day celebrating women in technology and science.
Sarah Allen was featured on our last Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner panel discussion on mobile (watch on YouTube). When she’s not bootstrapping her startup Mightyverse and serving as Chief Technology Officer, Sarah is running Blazing Cloud, a software consultancy and training group. Sarah Allen, along with Sarah Mei, organized and led free Ruby on Rails Outreach Workshops for women that are held regularly in the Bay Area. These workshops for women have been successfully replicated across the country in places like Harvard and Hawaii.
Last year, we were excited about free Ruby on Rails classes that aimed to increase the number of women programmers and representation of women at SF Ruby meetups. This year, we are excited about the new insourcing initiative Sarah has taken to hire and train new programmers in Ruby on Rails! Check out the job posting for the paid internship here. And yes, you can still email your resumes and cover letters to Captain Recruiter because Sarah will be hiring more interns soon!
Enter Jen-Mei Wu and Ali Crockett (both pictured) who are now pair programming at Honk, a tech startup in San Francisco. Jen-Mei is a senior Ruby on Rails developer currently pair programming with Ruby on Rails intern Ali. Prior to the internship, Ali’s background was in microchips and physical computing — no web computing. After an intense week of Ruby on Rails training with Sarah and now a few weeks into her internship, Ali is learning fast! She is well on her way to become a Ruby on Rails developer.
So how do you keep up with these amazing women? Follow Ali’s adventures in learning to program Ruby on Rails, or follow Sarah Allen on Twitter, or follow the Blazing Cloud blog to hear about upcoming Ruby on Rails classes (both free and paid). Don’t worry, there are usually scholarships available for those unable to pay. This is one of many reasons why Sarah Allen is the Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner’s 2010 role model and outstanding woman of 2010 for Ada Lovelace Day.
