WinstonYW

This year, 2015, is the fifth run of RDRC and my third time organising it. Even though it's my third time doing this, it's not in anyway easier because expectations have definitely gone up over the years, and I have to do something about the feedback collected last year. :)

The preparation started 6 months before the conference, and it always begin with the venue and dates. I picked Biopolis again because it's really affordable, and that means ticket prices can stay similar.

Then I started to invite several key speakers, one of whom is Matz. I really wanted to have Matz at RedDotRubyConf 2015, as he was here in 2011 and so I thought it would be special to have him back again 4 years later. But alas! Matz wasn't able make it for the dates (May 28, 29) which I planned for.. What? OMG!

Like I said, I really, really wanted to have Matz at RedDotRubyConf 2015! So I went back to the venue and asked for a few other open dates and luckily one of it suited Matz's schedule. Phew! And the rest was history as Aaron, Sam, Linda, Laurent and Jesse all agreed to come too!

From January onwards, the months went by quickly as we took care of the logistical challenges of the conference. Too much to say here, but did I mention I am trying to write an open source Conference Planning Guide?

Finally June 4, 5 came and went by quickly and I really couldn't have done it without the help of Guo Xiang, Jingwen, Elisha, Anna, Laurence and Cheeaun. They covered the grounds that I wasn't able to attend to and were instrumental in making the conference a success. Thank you!

Thank You Sponsors!

Our sponsors were awesome and I can't thank them enough! They just wanted to do their bit to help build the Ruby community and I hope RDRC helped them snag a few more deals or new hires!

Why are sponsorships important?

Firstly, sponsorships are boosts of confidence for what we were doing, such that organisations find it advantageous for them to be a sponsor.

Secondly, because ticket sales alone are never enough to cover the full cost of the conference, and so sponsorships are really important to make sure we don't go into red.

Thank you:

• PocketMath
• Piktochart
• Braintree Paypal
• Flowhero.io
• OpsManager
• Tinkerbox
• GitHub
• ThoughtWorks
• DigitalOcean
• Stickermule
• The Pragmatic Bookshelf
• IDA Labs

Thank You Speakers

Speakers - They are the soul of the conference. Thank you all so much!

25 Speakers - 6 Key Notes, 9 CFPs and 9 Lightning Talks.

We had topics about Ruby (and mRuby), Rails, RubyMotion, Robotics, Security, Refactoring, Optimization, Open Source, etc, and this year, we also did a Panel discussion on Ruby which was very well-received!

I learned a lot from all the talks and I hope you do too. You can enjoy the talks again as they are now available on Confreaks.

Thank you Matz, Aaron, Sam, Linda, Laurent, Jesse, Aman, André, Sau Sheong, Shipeng, Prathamesh, Laura, Juanito, Hiroaki, Christopher, Joy, Vaidehi, Paolo, Hiroshi, Tania, Guo Xiang, Radamanthus, Elisha, Grzegorz, Tomoya and Yuki!

Thank YOU!!!

As I have always said, RDRC is for you, and you, and you!

Almost 350 Rubyists from all over the World gathered together for 2-days to celebrate Ruby on the tiny island called Singapore.

Thank you for making this possible. Thank you all for your support!

Let's continue to make the Ruby community even better!

Infographics

Powered by Piktochart, one of our sponsors.

Piktochart made generating this infographic enjoyable and truly A BREEZE!!!

Resources

Just refer to Cheeaun's awesome curated list!

Closing

Honestly, imo, I felt that this was the best RDRC amongst that last 3 that I organised. First year was about making sure I don't mess up and that the brand continued to grow. Second year was about repeating the same feat (while juggling with starting my own consultancy). This year, it was about taking care of the finer details, so that everyone felt welcomed.

Things that I felt we did well:

• We have private buses that brought speakers (who were staying at the conference hotel) to Biopolis
• We have better breakfasts and tea breaks
• We have barista-style coffee/tea because developers care for their daily fix
• We have vegetarian lunch boxes for attendees who indicated on registration that they were vegetarian
• We have cleaners to make sure the venue is kept spick and span
• We did a RubyMotion workshop before the conference, and RailsGirls and Git Workshop after the conference

If I were to give RDRC 2015 a score, I would say we scored 90 marks. Haha.

Organising a conference is challenging and tiring, but at the same time, fun and rewarding.

That's all folks! :)

Drop me an email - suggestions, compliments or criticisms. Thank you!