Our Community

The Washington DC metropolitan area has one of the largest and most active Ruby communities in the United States. This conference is put on by unpaid volunteers from the community to promote the growth of technologies like Ruby, Rails and countless others.

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RubyNation Organizers

The RubyNation Conference is staffed by volunteers from this extensive Ruby community, drawn primarily from the membership of the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group (NovaRUG).

Our Volunteers

Our organizers are volunteers who have selflessly devoted a significant amount of their time and effort to make this high-quality regional conference a reality.

  • Don Anderson - A software engineer, multi-media designer and 3D animator who is currently the lead Flash architect for Grab Networks. Don has over 17 years of experience using computers to create art and has developed projects using a wide range of platforms and languages. His current home online is www.gone3d.com. He created the 2009 and 2010 graphics for Rubynation.
  • David Bock - A Principal Consultant at CodeSherpas, a consultancy specializing in Java and Ruby software development. Mr. Bock is also the President of the Northern Virginia Java Users Group, the Editor of O'Reilly's OnJava.com web site, and a frequent speaker on technology in venues such as the No Fluff, Just Stuff Software Symposiums.
  • Navjeet Chabbewal - A software engineer with extensive experience in Java/J2EE, Ruby and Rails and open source tools. Navjeet is a member of the NovaRUG and NovaJUG user groups.
  • Carl Fyffe - Carl is a software engineer at SMSi. His primary focus is on web-based applications with experience in PHP, Java and, of course, Ruby. He has taught courses in Java and J2EE. When he isn't writing web applications for fun, you can find him watching a movie or playing a video game.
  • Karen Gillison - A co-founder of CodeSherpas, a consultancy specializing in Java and Ruby software development.
  • Gray Herter - A senior software engineer at Near Infinity developing software with Ruby and Rails. Gray runs the NovaJUG and NovaRUG user groups, and is the founder of the RubyNation conference.
  • David Keener - A systems architect for MetroStar Systems, a fast-growing consulting firm providing services to government agencies and non-profits organizations. Dave has over 23 years of experience, specializing in Ruby, Rails, Java and social media. He is a frequent public speaker, and is involved in the NovaRUG, NovaJUG and DCRUG user groups. His RubyNation responsibilities also include video production this year, for both the videotaping of conference sessions and the production of a television documentary about the conference. He also blogs regularly on Internet-related subjects at KeenerTech.com.
  • Russ Olsen - A software engineer, trainer and public speaker with a background in Java, Ruby and Rails. He is the author of Design Patterns in Ruby..
  • Arild Shirazi - A software engineer with a background in Java EE and Rails, and former protein biochemist. He is responsible for the design of the RubyNation web site, and is a member and host of the NovaRUG, NovaJUG and MacDev user groups.

Video Production Volunteers

RubyNation 2010 conference sessions are going to be videotaped (where individual speakers have granted permission), thanks to the training, assistance, advice and equipment provided by Arlington Independent Media, as well as the assistance of numerous volunteers. This effort is being headed up by David Keener, who will also be producing a documentary about the conference to be shown on public television.

  • David Keener, Producer, Writer, Announcer, Assistant Editor, Interviewer
    Don Anderson, Director, Chief Editor, Graphical Effects
    Derek Yale, Assistant Director
    Brian Long, Advisor

Studio Team

  • Rashid Abdulghani, Studio Team &mdash Technical Director
    Beth Adelson, Studio Team &mdash Camera
    Don Anderson, Director, Editor, Graphical Effects
    Bruce Godwin, Studio Team &mdash Audio
    Sarah Jean Olimb, Studio Team &mdash Camera
    Carol Sheffield, Studio Team &mdash Camera
    Ricardo Villollu, Studio Team &mdash Director

Field Team

  • Farrokh Farhad, Camera
    Daniel Nguyen, Camera
    Laura Stuart, Camera
    Wini Tse, On-Site Interviewer
    Robert Waffle, Camera

Contributors

  • Chad Fowler - A well-known writer, consultant, trainer and speaker in the Ruby community. He is the author of Rails Recipes, an influential and widely read technical book. He is also a well-known conference organizer; his blog entry on conference organization was a major influence on the formation of the RubyNation Conference.
  • Jim Freeze - The Chief Organizer of the Lone Star Ruby Conference, an annual regional conference held in Austin, Texas. Jim Freeze generously donated his time in 2008 to advise RubyNation on the many issues involved in organizing and running a quality conference.
  • Rich Kilmer - A nationally known Ruby advocate from our local Ruby community. His early speaker commitment and encouragement in 2008 really got this conference off the ground in a big way.
  • Xandy Johnson - A local Ruby advocate and co-founder of both the Northern Virginia Ruby Group (NovaRUG) and this conference. Xandy's efforts to start the NovaRUG and run it for a number of years helped grow our local Ruby community to the point to where the RubyNation conference could be successful.
  • Luc Castera - Luc is currently the lead-developer behind ShareMeme.com and has held positions at Verizon, GE, and Delphi Electronics. He has used many different languages and platforms such as Java, Tcl/Tk, C, Ruby, and C#/.NET throughout his career. He discovered Ruby two years ago and has been a big fan ever since. Luc received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Virginia before attending Georgia Tech to obtain his Masters degree in the same field. Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he now lives in the DC Metropolitan area. Luc was actively involved in the 2008 and 2009 conferences, but was out of the country for 2010.