This weekend we had Intrideans at four different events we sponsored from DC to Germany, talking about user experience, design, Ruby on Rails, and tablets. Here's a quick rundown of our experience at the events.

MoDevTablet

The first event kicked off early Friday morning. We partnered with GoMoDev to support their MoDevTablet event, and Jurgen, our Managing Director of UX, Christine Nakatani, our Director of Business Development, and Maggie, one of our superbly talented Project Managers spent the day talking with tablet developers and designers.

Last April we sponsored the first MoDevUX event in Washington DC and helped facilitate some important conversations about user experience design and application development with hundreds of industry experts.

We had the opportunity to take the stage to share some of our insight gained from developing beautiful, modern mobile applications over the years. Our presentation garnered a lot of feedback and even landed us a story in InTheCapital, DC's leading online news source for tech and startups.

The Rails community has had its share of misogynistic controversy over the last several years. Dominated by male programmers (recent statistics suggest 94% of employed Rails programmers are male), the inroads to professional Rails development for females are not exactly accessible or welcoming.

Of course, it's not just the Rails community that lacks representation from women. When only 18% of the Computer Science undergraduate degree recipients in 2010 were female () it's obvious there is a lack of female participation in the entire field of programming.

We’re excited to announce our involvement and sponsorship of Smashing Conference, taking place in beautiful Freiburg, Germany September 17-19th.

This event brings together web designers and developers for three days of intense workshops and engaging presentations from design experts around the world. We’re sponsoring the sold-out event and trekking to Germany for an epic “meeting of the minds.” (And some streusel. And beer. And sausages.)

I'll be spending the last weekend of July with passionate Ruby developers and pioneers in Burlington, Vermont - a small but charming city situated on the eastern shore of sparking Lake Champlain, and the perfect spot for Vermont's first Ruby conference.

Though this is a much anticipated retreat from the commotion of New York City (which is where I've been spending the majority of my time for the last several months), it's also an exciting opportunity for me to share some of the recent work I've been doing on spatial programming and location based apps.

Have a great idea? Do you daydream about founding a startup? Do you have the entrepreneurial spirit but don't know how to kickstart your vision?

Then join us on May 12th at the Artisphere in Arlington, Va for "A Day of Foster.ly" - an engaging event led by DC, Maryland and Virginia entrepreneurs, designed to empower startups, visionaries, innovative students and other aspiring entrepreneurs like yourself with the resources and information needed to get started and to succeed.

Last week we sponsored MoDevUX, a mobile conference in Washington, D.C. led by vanguards in the mobile development and design industry. In addition to learning about emerging trends from the diverse crowd of presenters and attendees we also shared a bit of our own "secret sauce".

Anthony Nystrom, our Director of Mobile and Emerging Technologies, shared the stage with Jurgen Altziebler, our Managing Director of UX to tackle the topic of "Development and Design: When the Two Must Act As One".

Through cultivating a culture of quality in both design and development we've gained insights on the formula for success among teams of developers and designers. MoDevUX was an opportunity for us to share those insights with the greater mobile design and development communities.

This month we're sponsoring MoDevUX and joining pioneers in mobile design and development at an event created to focus specifically on user experience and design for mobile.

November is shaping up to be one of our busiest months for events. This week our design team is in NYC for The Future of Web Design; Ted O'Meara will be in Baltimore next weekend to support Education Hack Day; Michael Bleigh just landed in NYC after presenting at Ruby Midwest, and he, along with all the Senior Partners, will be jetting off to China in two days to meet the Intridea East team in Shanghai for RubyConfChina and then to HangZhou to attend the first Intridea East retreat.

This November, a crowd of pioneering programmers will gather at Digital Harbor High School in Baltimore to create applications that provide solutions to teachers, students and schools.

The American Education system is a large, complex structure. It is often targeted as a system that desperately needs improvement, yet its proportion makes is seem impenetrable and unchangeable. As technology advances schools struggle to keep up. Teachers work to find ways to use technology on their own to improve their systems locally and to reach students in more modern and relevant ways.

In just a few weeks, our design team, led by Jurgen Altziebler, our Managing Director of UX, will descend upon Manhattan for three days of intelligent discourse on the future of web (and mobile) design at this year's highly anticipated Future of Web Design (FOWD) event.

This year we are sponsoring this remarkable event which brings over 500 talented designers together for intimate sessions on the most current topics in web design. Top industry experts will be flown in to lead two days of informative sessions in which attendees will learn about the future of everything from HTML5, CSS3, Compass, Sass, Mobile UX, iOS design, Haml, responsive web design, content management systems, branding, animations, and JavaScript, which will be followed by a day of in-depth workshops.

This weekend we'll be supporting the innovation that happens when artists and technologists collide, through our sponsorship of Betascape 2011.

Last weekend, we sponsored and presented at MobileUXCamp in DC to discuss the ways in which mobile devices are reshaping our interactions with the web. This weekend we'll be in Baltimore, supporting the incredible work that happens when artists and technologists focus their combined talents.

Thursday night you'll find Intridea at the annual Social Matchbox Startup Launch Event. We're joining an impressive lineup of companies to support this grand event put on by DC-area Startup Founders, Investors and Leaders that helps startups gain exposure by providing access to prominent journalists and investors while providing a competitive launch platform.

Thursday evening at 6pm we'll be at the US Navy Memorial Heritage Center to observe the startup presentations and offer our expertise to fledgling entrepreneurs. Intridea's Senior Partner and Co-Founder, David Naffis, will be available to answer questions, give advice and talk about Intridea's own successful launch strategy. If you plan to attend the event, be sure to stop by our table to say hello! We look forward to talking with you about web development, design, entrepreneurship, startups, and Ruby on Rails.

Last month Intridea sponsored RailsCamp New England - a Rails retreat in the western mountains of Maine. Adam and I attended the event for the second time (this was the fourth U.S. Rails Camp, and the second one in Maine) along with 38 other Ruby and Rails developers. On a rainy Friday evening we all settled in the cozy Maine house for a long weekend of geekery.

This year we're proud to be a Platinum Sponsor of Mobile UX Camp DC, a mobile technology themed BarCamp. The event is supported by other leading technology companies and will be attended by mobile application developers, content writers and marketers, and others that want to gain an understanding of entrepreneurship and innovation in the mobile space.