Chicago
September 6, 2025
Chicago has its own steady rhythm—each neighborhood with something different to offer. This event is for "locals" from St. Louis to Indianapolis who want to get together, learn something, and connect with others who are in search of the same.
XO Ruby is a single-day, single-track conference designed to draw folks in from the city and the region. An approachable $100 ticket price coupled with no need for a hotel or airfare means you can connect with your community without breaking the bank.
Justin Herrick
Justin is a polyglot software engineer, consultant, and educator who has been using Ruby for 15 years. They spent the last 4 years working as a staff engineer at GitHub on Pull Requests; before that, they ran their own software consultancy out of Austin, Texas. Currently residing in Chicago, Justin spends their free time cooking, playing games, and taking on new hobbies like pottery, woodworking, and home renovation. They care passionately about community and see the importance of the connections we make with those around us.
Yuri Bocharov
Yuri is a Rubyist with a passion for mission-driven work and learning. He loves taking apart the tools that he uses and then teaching others about them. And bingeing on cooking shows. Lots of cooking shows.
Aji Slater
Former circus clown and Ruby developer of 10 years, Aji combines artistic sensibility with technical skill. Key projects span healthcare standards, government modernization, and open-source maintenance. Probably not Banksy.
Erin Claudio
Erin Claudio is a Ruby developer who loves Rails 8's newest features and rock-solid security practices. When he's not crafting great user experiences or tinkering with Tailwind CSS, you'll find him integrating social platforms and generating slick OpenGraph images. Erin believes great software should be secure, beautiful, and fun to use.
Peter Bhat Harkins
Peter is a lifelong Chicagoan who has spent his 25 year career mostly in Ruby doing web dev for startups. He's always up to talk about books, bootstrapping, and teaching cats tricks. He runs the programming forum Lobsters and is starting Recheck as a worker-owned coop.
Coraline Ada Ehmke
Coraline Ada Ehmke is tech ethicist and software engineer working for equity and justice in the technology industry. When she's not trying to change the world of tech, she records and produces experiential music in her fabulous home studio. Coraline firmly believes that kindness is punk as hell.
Scott Werner
Scott has been a Rubyist since 2008 and is now the CEO and founder of Sublayer where they're building an AI agent framework among many other things.
Writer at Works on My Machine and organizer of Artificial Ruby in New York where they're trying to bring back the spirit of experimentation and play with Ruby and AI.
Fulton Street Collective
1821 W Hubbard St, Chicago, IL
Venue
Fulton Street Collective is a creative space in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood. With big windows, frequently updated art on the walls, and an open layout, your creativity will run wild.
Transportation
Whether you drive or use public transit, Fulton Street Collective provides flexible and convenient transportation options. The venue is accessible via the CTA Green and Pink Lines. The Damen and Ashland stations are both about a 7–9 minute walk from the venue and bus stops are a few minutes walk away. If you're coming from further away there is a first come first served onsite parking lot.
Nearby
