Call for Proposals
The Gotham Ruby Conference, a one-day, single-track event in New York City, is now accepting proposal papers. GoRuCo will be held on Saturday, May 30th, 2009 on the Manhattan campus of Pace University, our hosts for the day.
It will be a technical conference aimed at highly motivated programmers interested in all things Ruby. You’ll spend the day among Rubyists, Rails developers, and language enthusiasts in New York City, home of Silicon Alley.
We are looking for individual speakers and moderated panel discussions. We will have around seven slots, depending on the quantity and quality of the proposals we receive.
Individual speakers
The majority of the day’s content will be individual talks. Our speakers will receive:
- Free attendance to the event.
- A $300 honorarium.
- A $600 travel reimbursement if you live outside of the tri-state region.
Talks should be at most 40 minutes long, including time for questions and discussion. A good proposal paper for your talk will include:
- An explanation or outline of your talk.
- A short biographical statement about you and your involvement in the Ruby community.
- Your city and state of residence.
All proposals must specify exactly who will be presenting. For example, we will not accept proposals from companies unless they specify who will be presenting on behalf of the company. Presentations may be given by more than one person, but multiple speakers will split the honorarium and travel reimbursement.
Panel discussions
We are also accepting proposals for panel discussions composed of a moderator and up to four panelists. Panel moderators and panelists will receive free admission, but no honorarium and no travel reimbursement.
Panel discussions should be at most 40 minutes long, including time for questions from the audience. A good proposal paper for a panel discussion will include:
- An explanation or outline of the topic under discussion.
- A full list of up to four panelists.
- Short biographical statements of the moderator and panelists.
- The state of residence of the moderator and panelists.
If you are submitting a proposal for a panel discussion, you should make a good faith effort to talk to your panelists beforehand and get their verbal commitment to appear at GoRuCo if your panel is accepted. We understand that last-minute changes are likely when coordinating a group. However, we reserve the right to remove a panel from our schedule if the panel changes drastically from what was originally proposed. Please make it easy on everybody by only proposing a panel if you are fairly certain that most of your panelists can make it.
Local speakers & panel moderators
GoRuCo believes in highlighting local talent. This year we are reserving at least two slots for local speakers or panels. Individual talks and panels will be considered local if at least half of the participants are from the tri-state region–that is, within typical commuting distance of Manhattan. In the past, these slots have been less competitive than the other talk slots, so if you live in the tri-state region we strongly urge you to submit a proposal.
Video
We will be videotaping all the talks and panels, and making this video freely available online. You should be okay with this if you are submitting a talk or a panel, and if you are submitting a panel, all of your panelists should be okay with this.
How to submit
Please send all proposals to proposals@goruco.com by 11:59 PM EST on March 26, 2009. You should receive confirmation that we have received your proposal within 48 hours of submitting it.
If you have any questions about the proposal process or other conference related questions, please email info@goruco.com. For more information about the conference itself, check the conference website or subscribe to us on Twitter for updates.
