ANN: Gotham Ruby Conference Call for Proposals

Hello all,

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 22, 2010 on the Manhattan campus of Pace University, our
hosts for the day.

GoRuCo is a technical conference aimed at highly motivated programmers
interested in all things Ruby. You’ll spend the day among leading
Rubyists, innovators and developers in New York City, home of Silicon
Alley. Past topics have ranged from pragmatic new approaches to design
and testing, to pioneering language application and far-reaching
abstractions.

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 your 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, we ask that
you get a firm commitment from your panelists 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 and panel moderators

GoRuCo believes in highlighting local talent. We reserve 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 [email protected] by 11:59 PM EST on
March 26, 2010. 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 [email protected]. For more
information about the conference itself, check the conference website
(http://www.goruco.com) or follow @goruco on Twitter for updates.