---
title: "GitLab Sponsorship Update"
date: 2016-03-24 15:00
categories: culture
author: Emily Kyle
author_twitter: emilylucie
image_title: '/images/community/love-the-sun-gitlab.jpg'
---

In this post, I'll give you an update of what we've sponsored recently as well
as some insight into our priorities as we welcome more requests for sponsorship.

We’re so delighted with the interest in our [tech diversity sponsorship program][diversity]. Since we announced the program in early February, we've sponsored a number of great events.

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- [Rails Girls Brussels](http://railsgirls.com/brussels) February 19-20, 2016
- [Django Girls Łódź](https://djangogirls.org/lodz/) Feb 27, 2016
- [Rails Girls Tricity](http://railsgirls.com/tricity) March 5-6, 2016
- [Rails Girls Atlanta](http://www.meetup.com/Rails-Girls-Atlanta/) March 30, 2016
- [AlterConf](http://www.alterconf.com/) April 9, 2016
- [ClojureWest](http://clojurewest.org/) Opportunity Scholarship April 15-16, 2016
- [Django Girls Florence](https://djangogirls.org/florence/) April 17, 2016
- [SciPyLA](http://conf.scipyla.org/) Opportunity Scholarship May 16-20, 2016
- [Rails Girls Bialystok](http://railsgirls.com/bialystok) May 21-22, 2016

## Rails Girls

Rails Girls is an important program for the Rails community.
Rails Girls aims to open up technology and make it more approachable for girls and women.

Our colleagues Tomasz Maczukin and Grzegorz Bizon mentored at the recent
Tricity Rails Girls event, and there were even a few men attending to learn too!

Our GitLab CE project was accepted as a Rails Girls Summer of Code project.
We’re really excited to get involved. My colleague, Yorick wrote about
[Rails Girls Summer of Code](/blog/2016/02/23/rails-girls-summer-of-code-2016/).

We've also invested as a Gold Sponsor, and the Rails Girls Summer of Code is still
seeking support through their [crowd funding campaign](http://railsgirlssummerofcode.org/campaign/).

Photos used with permission from [Rails Girls Tricity](https://www.facebook.com/RailsGirlsTricity/?fref=photo).

![Rails Girls Tricity](/images/blogimages/railsgirls-tomazs.jpg)

![Rails Girls Tricity](/images/blogimages/railsgirls-grzegorz.jpg)

## Sponsorship in areas of low opportunity

In other news, we are also sponsoring events which have a great impact at a local level.
It's part of our [strategy][strategy] to sponsor initiatives in countries that have low
opportunity, and less access to funding.
Since we're a distributed company, it also means we can send colleagues to
participate in these events.

- [TechParty - 2016](http://techparty.faccat.br/)  April 25 - 28, 2016.
- [Cuba Startup Meetup](http://www.meetup.com/merchise/) Dates TBD

It's certainly an area we can improve, so we're looking forward to hearing your
proposals!

## Reach out to us about sponsorship

If you would like us to sponsor your next event, please check out
our [community sponsorship program][sponsorship]. You can also see
[where our team][team] is if you want to connect to someone in your local region
for attending or speaking.

[team]: /team/
[sponsorship]: /community/sponsorship
[diversity]: /2016/02/02/gitlab-diversity-sponsorship/
[strategy]: /company/strategy/