Aloha!
We’re excited to announce the formal schedule for Aloha on Rails, the Hawaii Ruby on Rails Conference! We’ve put together two amazing days of quality, relevant, timely, and thought provoking sessions. A big mahalo to our speakers for sharing their story. And a really big mahalo to all our attendees and guests who are coming to share in the discussion.
Putting together a schedule is not easy. There were a few things we had to balance to ensure a quality program.
First and foremost, we know that single track sessions are very popular with attendees. No one is forced into a potentially difficult decision of what talk to attend. Also, annecdotal evidence suggests that the entire crowd attends every session, then discussion and debate increases (a major goal of any conference) as everyone has experienced the same material.
We were incredibly lucky and humbled to receive an overwhelming amount of talk proposals. So many talks captured our theme of “Talk Story” or discussed cutting edge technologies that a single track format wouldn’t cut it. Therefore, we are attempting a hybrid Single/Dual Track conference format. As you can see in the schedule, approximately half the day will be Single Track, while the other half will be Dual Track. We tried to put the technology-specific talks into the dual track, as those are more specific and therefore focused. The higher level talks, such as those that help you excel at your career, deal with technical debt, or explore the balance between dogmatism and pragmatism in agile methodologies, will be single tracked.
In talking with other conference organizers and attendees to previous regional Rails conferences, we received lots of great scheduling feedback. One thing we heard over and over again was, “The hallway conversations are invaluable. Ensure there is a lot of time between sessions.” We heard that loud and clear, and have scheduled a 15 minute break between each session. We hope that’s a good compromise between giving attendees enough time to move between sessions and discuss what they just learned, and not too much time that the flow slows down and everyone loses momentum.
Aloha on Rails is much more than a series of technical and career sessions. We’ve scheduled additional activities to ensure attendees have a well-rounded experience and get the most out of their trip to Hawaii. We’ll start each day with a morning run around Kapiolani Park, sure to kick-start the brain and wake you up. There’s nothing like an early morning jog, with the ocean breeze, to really start your day on a positive note.
To help celebrate the event, our friends, and the fact that we’re in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Agathon Group, an international hosting provider with SaS 70 data centers, has generously sponsored the Official Pau Hana Party for Aloha on Rails! Join us for free drinks and pupus Monday evening at 6pm, across the street at Tiki’s, and watch the sunset over Waikiki Beach with your friends and colleagues.
We’re so excited to host everyone and to put on a great show. We’ll see you in Waikiki!
