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In the spirit of creating more value than you capture, I'd like to bring up Gregg Pollack from Envy Labs. This is the eighth RailsConf we’ve had, and for the last five previous RailsConf events, we’ve been lucky enough to have Greg and his team, along with many others, contribute to the recognition and appreciation of the Ruby heroes. This is the Ruby Heroes Awards.
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Thank you guys for the introduction; I appreciate it. As Ben mentioned, this marks the sixth year of the Ruby Hero Awards. In case you're wondering, last year we recognized the 2012 award winners.
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If we look back at previous Ruby heroes, it’s interesting to see that some of these individuals are now quite well-known, whereas at the time of their awards, they weren’t getting the recognition they deserved. This is a major reason why we created the Ruby Hero Awards.
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The idea originally emerged while doing a podcast. Out of curiosity, how many here listen to Ruby5? I love you guys! It's an awesome twice-weekly Ruby news podcast. When you cover individuals who contribute significantly to open-source work, you start to notice certain people putting out incredible amounts of content and open-source projects week after week without receiving any compensation. This is something they do passionately in their spare time, and we often cover it on Ruby5.
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The Ruby Hero Awards were born from the desire to give back to these contributors. We wanted to acknowledge those who go above and beyond to enhance our community, to give a little more recognition on stage along with an award.
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A couple of months ago, we set up a website, rubyheroes.com, where anyone can nominate someone they believe deserves an award. It's not just about entering their GitHub name; you actually need to provide a reason for your nomination. We don't want it to turn into a popularity contest, so it's not merely the person with the most votes who wins.
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From the nominations received, we take the top 20 or 30 nominated individuals. This year, we received a total of 890 nominations, which is pretty fantastic. We then bring together some of last year's Ruby heroes to discuss and vote on who deserves to win an award.
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Normally, we have six heroes each year, but this year we actually have eight. This includes five individuals and one organization, with three people from that organization being recognized with awards today. But before we get into the awards, I have a few people to thank.
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First, I want to thank Ben and Ruby Central for putting on this amazing conference and for helping get some of our Ruby heroes here today to accept their awards. I'm also grateful to everyone who took the time to vote for their Ruby heroes.
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I also want to thank Code School and everyone who works there. In previous years, I've used this stage to launch my own community initiatives. For instance, one year I announced the Rails 3 videos, and another year, I released a free screencasting video that is still available for anyone wanting to learn.
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This year, I'm excited to announce that we’ve released a Rails 4 Zombie Outlaws course on Code School, and today we are making all the videos available for free. This means anyone can access 10 videos covering various topics on Rails 4.
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To access them easily, I've replaced the Rails 3 videos with the Rails 4 content, so we can move on from Rails 3 entirely. I also want to acknowledge Viddler for providing the bandwidth for these videos—thank you for supporting the downloads.
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Let's get back to the Ruby Hero Awards. I have some directions for the heroes and for the audience. If you are one of the heroes announced, please come up to the stage and stand behind me. Your job is to receive a warm round of applause from everyone. Throughout the conference, I encourage you to express gratitude, as it is a powerful motivator.
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This kind of gratitude drives people in our community to do great things. If you see any of these recognized heroes in the hallways, please take the time to thank them. And if you meet anyone in the community who has helped you, be sure to introduce yourself and express your appreciation.
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Let's jump into the awards! Hero number one: some of our heroes have made a significant impact on the community. I’ll share some details about their contributions, and we’ll recognize their hard work.
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This first hero is noted for their active contributions to open-source projects and has been a notable coach at many Rails Girls events globally. They are well-known for initiating the Friday Hugs movement, which involves taking pictures of group hugs at various events. The individual I'm referring to is Terence Lee, who has made exceptional contributions to Bundler, one of the most important Ruby projects.
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Let’s all give Terence a round of applause!
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Now, moving on to hero number two. I want to read some powerful comments from those who nominated this next hero. This individual is recognized as a role model, a speaker who instills confidence in others to learn complex development skills. One person noted that her video on solid Ruby design principles significantly improved their coding quality.
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Another said her Ruby book is the best addition to programming literature in a long time. This remarkable individual is Sandy Metz, who delivered an amazing talk on testing at RailsConf. Let’s give her a warm round of applause!
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Next up is our third hero, who has made significant open-source contributions that have positively impacted the quality and capability of our applications. He is known for his friendly demeanor and willingness to teach, embodying the spirit of Ruby.
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He has been involved in the Ruby community for many years, maintaining and creating important libraries, such as the Sidekiq library for background job processing. The individual I am referring to is Mike Perham. Can we get a big round of applause for him?
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Now, let’s move on to hero number four. This individual has contributed to numerous open-source projects, including the async Sinatra library and ZeroMQ. However, he deserves recognition primarily for his invaluable work with the Rack project.
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His commitment to Rack is widely acknowledged across the community, and it has been pointed out that Rack is mostly maintained by one person. This hero is James Tucker. Let’s give him a round of applause!
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Moving on to hero number five, this individual has continuously given back to our community over the past few years. He is most renowned for his contributions to Rubinius, an ambitious Ruby project that is being increasingly used in production. He also helped build the RubySpec project, which is crucial for the future of Ruby.
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The person I am referring to was previously known as Brian Ford, but now is known as Brian Shirai. Let’s give him the recognition he deserves!
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Lastly, we have heroes six, seven, and eight. They all played vital roles that led to great progress in the Ruby community. What began as a single workshop in Helsinki has blossomed into a global movement aimed at closing the tech gender gap. Since that initial meeting in Helsinki, there have been 76 more events around the world.
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The organization that has been a catalyst for this movement is Rails Girls. Can we please give a round of applause for Rails Girls? Additionally, I want to recognize three individuals who have greatly contributed to its success: Linda Lycus, Kari Saarinen, and Henrietta Kakay.
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Thank you, all of you, for your contributions and dedication to empowering more women in technology. Please join me in applauding our 2013 Ruby Hero Awards winners!
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Your hard work and commitment to the Ruby community truly inspire us all.
