It’s been two months since (time flies!) but I couldn’t resist sharing my first-time experience at Tropical.rb, the largest Ruby on Rails event in Latin America. We’re Ruby on Rails enthusiasts here at GoGrow, and with the event being so close to us here in Uruguay, we couldn’t miss it.

The event took place on April 4th and 5th. We flew from Montevideo on the 3rd to spend the night in São Paulo, which gave us enough time to accommodate and prepare for the event the day after. 

The event was held at the Cubo Itaú, immersed in (from my point of view) a cool and safe area of this sprawling city. We stayed at the Radisson Vila Olimpia hotel, which was just steps away from the venue. We took advantage of the previous night to hang out with one of GoGrow’s employees who lives in São Paulo. Picture below! 😀

On Thursday morning, we were treated to beautiful weather on the event day.

The accreditation process and obtaining access to the facilities were quick and easy. After just a few minutes, we were in the venue. Once inside, the atmosphere was very friendly, with good coffee and pão de queijo (Brazilian cheese bread, a delicious treat). We took the opportunity to meet people and chat about Brazil, Uruguay, LATAM, startups, and, of course, Ruby on Rails.

The lobby was a bit crowded, and it was difficult to navigate at times, especially during meals. The event hall was grand, with plenty of space and good sound quality. The talks were mostly on time, although some stretched longer than desired.

Here are some pictures of us and the hall.

The biggest downside was that there were many discussions in Portuguese, and the real-time English translation could have been better. I ended up learning more Portuguese than I imagined :) 

The attendees were mostly from different areas of Brazil; many spoke English, and there were few foreigners except for some Uruguayans and from the United States.

The talks were great. The ones I enjoyed the most were Alan Ridlehoover and Fito von Zastrow’s discussion on “A Brewer's Guide to Filtering out Complexity and Churn” and “Implementing Semantic Search in Rails Using Database Vectors” by Alexandre Calaça. We had the chance to share lunch with Amanda Perino, president of the Rails Foundation, who highlighted GoGrow in the AMA for our efforts in promoting Rails in the Uruguayan community and training university students.

To wrap up the event, we had an after-party on the terrace after the second day, which was very nice. Here’s a photo with Aaron Patterson and Eileen Uchitelle, two well-known Rails Core and Senior Staff Engineers at Shopify.

After the event, we grabbed some beers at a nearby pub. We continued connecting with people like Adrian Marin, speaker and author of Avo and Friendly.rb host.

On Saturday, we took some time to explore São Paulo, get to know the city, and enjoy a day of rest. 

To sum up, the organization and talks were awesome, and I’m glad these events are possible in Latam. However, I firmly believe the talks should be more inclusive for people who primarily speak Spanish or English, as well as for people from countries from the rest of the continent, not just Brazil

Thanks to the organizers for making it possible; big shoutouts to Cirdes Henrique and Débora Fernandes. We’ll be back 🚀