I had the privilege of spending a full Saturday on March 15th, 2013 at the inaugural Rails Girls Philly event. We got an great introduction to the Ruby on Rails Framework, got to use the tools (terminal, browser, text editor), worked toward creating an APP and had one-on-one coaching by a great group of techie Volunteers. As an attendee, I was inspired to be in a room full of other women with similar interest and with such strong desire to learn. The fact that the volunteer coaches gave up half of their weekend ( a full Saturday) to spend with us was really heart-warming and admirable. I don’t have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe how incredibly useful and eye-opening a day this was. In the video posted below you can watch a number of attendees (myself included) offer their positive reviews of the event in some touching personal testimonials.

Additionally, we actually got an opportunity to do a Google+ Hangout with Rails Girls Frankfurt. While the ladies in Frankfurt were wrapping up their day, we were just getting started, but it was goosebumps all over knowing women on separate continents were working towards similar goals, on the same day! It was just, simply put, COOL! 🙂

Some additional resources for women seeking to learn new skills or simply polish existing tech skills
Rails Girls has chapters in many countries, a great place to search for Ruby on Rails events coming to your area.
Meetup is a great place to search for groups in you state/city and by interest (women + technology), GirlDevelopIT has many chapters in major cities and great regular events, eventbrite.com is another great calendar of events site that allows you to search by interest/location; and finally, the Anita Borg Institute site is full of helpful links and information.