About Rails Girls Summer of Code

Rails Girls Summer of Code is an award-winning global fellowship program aimed at bringing more diversity into Open Source. It welcomes all women and non-binary applicants who want to gain a footing in the world of coding and further expand their knowledge and skills. The focus is on advanced-beginners who want to enter programming full-time.

As a fellowship program, successful applicants are paid a monthly stipend, from July to September. This breaks down all-too-common financial barriers, allowing students to work on a worthwhile Open Source project.

Working in two-person teams, students are supported by a mentor directly involved with the Open Source project, and independent coaches with extensive developer experience.

Help make Open Source a better place for everyone

Rails Girls Summer of Code wants to bring more diversity into Open Source. According to GitHub’s 2017 Open Source Survey “[t]he gender imbalance in open source remains profound… just 3% are women and 1% are non-binary”.

To encourage more diversity, the tech environment needs to be less toxic to women, non-binary people and other minorities. Adhering to and respecting the program’s Code of Conduct is essential for anyone participating in Rails Girls Summer of Code. This ensures the program is a safe space for everyone involved.

Who is behind Rails Girls Summer of Code

RGSoC is a project run by not-for-profit organization Travis Foundation. It operates solely on the generous donations of sponsors and individuals from the community.

The scholarship program started in 2013. Since then, RGSoC has supported 205 students working in 81 sponsored teams and 28 volunteering teams. In 2018 we welcomed our first part-time teams.

Rails Girls Summer of Code is programming language agnostic, and students have contributed to an overall of 76 unique Open Source projects such as Bundler, Rails, Discourse, Tessel, NextCloud, Processing, Babel, impress.js, Lektor CMS, Hoodie, Speakerinnen, Lotus (now Hanami) and Servo.

Since its inception, Rails Girls Summer of Code has been supported by companies like Travis CI, GitHub, Google, GitLab, Envato, Basecamp, and SoundCloud to name a few. At the same time, thousands of people have backed this initiative individually.

Ways to get involved

Whether you want to learn, advise, offer teams non-technical guidance or support the program financially, there is a place for you with Rails Girls Summer of Code.

Our Roles page gives you a really good idea of how individuals and companies can get involved, either as program participants or sponsors. Here’s a quick summary:

  • Become a student: If you‘re an advanced-beginner coder and identify as female or non-binary, consider applying as a student to further develop your skills and enter the world of programming full-time
  • Become a Sponsor: So, you want to support our mission of getting more women and non-binary people working on Open Source projects? Great! There are plenty of packages and perks to choose from
  • Become a Coaching Company: For when your company is passionate about Open Source and has space and developer time to spare for a RGSoC team
  • Become a Project Mentor: You are a core contributor to a great Open Source project and want to give students the opportunity to work on it. Read all about what it means to mentor an RGSoC team
  • Become a Coach: If you’re a developer and want to support a deserving team. Find all the information about working side-by-side with students on their project
  • Become a Supervisor: Are you keen on directly supporting 1 or 2 teams with their organizational and non-coding issues, and provide moral support? You were born to be a supervisor!
  • Become an individual supporter: Join the ranks of the great people who are making Rails Girls Summer of Code a reality through their valuable donations

Get in touch

If you have any questions regarding project ideas, coaching, or getting involved, please email us at contact@rgsoc.org.

Got questions about sponsorship? We’d be happy to help. Simply email campaign@rgsoc.org.

Social Media: Follow Rails Girls Summer of Code on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

Social Coding: You can also find us on GitHub.