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SALT LAKE CITY — The home of one of the oldest women's clubs in the United States will host a code and technology conference for women beginning Friday.
Rails Girls is a nonprofit, free event that teaches women and girls to build web apps using the code framework Ruby on Rails.
The two-day conference will be hosted by local web software company Big Cartel at the historic Ladies Literary Club building at 850 South Temple. The Ladies Literary Club was formed in 1877 to encourage Utah women to read and be independent.
"Big Cartel opened up applications and we were instantly flooded with the largest response Rails Girls has ever seen," said Dan Christofferson of Big Cartel in an email. "Nearly 200 women applied, forcing us to fly coaches in from all over to accommodate the final group of around 120."
The women who made the final cut will spend Saturday learning to code, building web apps, and mastering the fundamentals of "building cool things on the internet," according to Christofferson. "The Ladies Literary Club, a building that has encouraged cultured and educated women to meet and inspire each other for 100 years, is the perfect space for this event."
Rails Girls founder Linda Liukas started the free events in Finland in 2010 to inspire women to get excited about technology.
