☀️ Coding Grace May-June Newsletter

Summer is here! Find out what's happening in around Ireland from announcements, CFPs, and diversity in tech events.

📢 Recently we have stopped using Open Collective to receive donations due to their change in pricing plans (and we don't receive enough to cover the monthly costs), thank you to everyone who donated via Open Collective, you can still support us through donating via ko-fi.

🎓 Some good news that I (Vicky) am now a QQI certified Creative Trainer (thanks to Creative Skillnet for the opportunity), and super looking forward to working on upcoming workshops/activities and collaborations. 🙌

🎤 I was invited by Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) Ireland to give a short talk about my journey into tech and its community in March. Here are my slides if you are curious: Vicky's slides 👀

📰 TechFoundHer has launched Diversity Scholarship Scheme to help ensure that people who may face financial, social or structural barriers still have the opportunity to be in the room. Taking place on Friday 29 May at the Round Room, Mansion House (Dublin), TechFoundHer Summit 2026 brings together founders, innovators, leaders, allies and change-makers for a day of ideas, connection and momentum.

📰 Diversein are hosting a series of employee support circles in May. If you are interested in any of these topics. You can register here: https://linktr.ee/furkankarayel

🙌 Great news from the Maker community, Dublin's TOG Hackerspace and Belfast's Farset Labs have been awarded funding under the Shared Island Civic Society Fund for a new cross-border project called All Island Maker Mobility, with the tagline Connecting Communities Through Making.

Over the next year, we’ll be working together on a mix of activities to bring our communities closer together. That includes site visits between Dublin and Belfast, a Maker-in-Residence exchange between both spaces, and the development of a shared STEM outreach resource that we can each bring to events and use in our own public activities.

Find the at upcoming events such as Dublin Maker, ShipItCon, and the Northern Ireland Developer Conference (NIDC), "helping more people discover what makerspaces are all about and why they matter".

It was such fantastic news that I created a fanzine about this project.

🥳 MicroPython just turned 13 this year! Here are other fun facts thanks to Adafruit newsletter:

• 17th Sept 2013: First code running on a microcontroller, on the very first prototype of the pyboard
• 2nd Oct 2013: Register micropython.org
• 4th Oct 2013: First commit in what is now the main repository
• late Dec 2013: Source code up on GitHub

And since we mentioned ShipItCon, tickets are now available and this year's theme is FRICTION. They do offer financial assistance if you cannot afford the tickets, please email team@shipitcon.com.

🧏 While we are still on the subject of events and being an organiser myself, this might be of interest to you especially if you are an organiser or know some one who is. One of the Irish Tech Community slack members posted this solution he created for GDG Devfest Ireland to make it accessible on his dev.to blog. All this started with questions from deaf people asking if they can attend the conference, and if there will be a Irish Sign Language interpreter. So share if you know an event or conference might want to use this service called VolenScribe. (Note: I haven't used it myself, let me know how you get on with it.)

💖 Community-related news relating to the Code of Conduct, recently the RIPE Code of Conduct team published the results of their survey.

The RIPE community is incredibly important, but our ability to do great things is lessened if members don't feel safe, and crucially it means new members from diverse backgrounds won't join us. – Brian Nesbit (source)

🗄️ The Digital Repository of Ireland recently announced they have added The Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI) as one of their new collections through their Community Archive Scheme

CESI has voluntarily supported ICT in Education in Ireland since 1973. Their objective is to bring together constituents interested in leveraging technology to enhance teaching and learning experiences across all levels of education.

🎧 Check out Women in Tech Society SETU Waterford’s first podcast.

Amy Comyns Haugh and Brianna Power took over the mic for an honest and fun conversation covering everything from internship tips and women in tech initiatives to what it's really like being a woman studying tech today. (source)

✨ Have you heard of Game Poems before?

Game Poems is a playable literary magazine dedicated to exploring the artistic and poetic potential of short-form videogames.

The first issue is out and you can try the issue's games here. Even though the intent to submit your application has past (May 1st), you can look forward to Issue #2 in the summer time. It's all very experimental and amazingly creative. And it relates very much to my interest in zines, and this is a way cooler augmentation of that.

✨ Here's another experimental cool way to check out various literature on a website, it's called the html review, the spring edition is out.

The HTML Review is an annual journal of literature made to exist on the web. It is edited by Shelby Wilson and Maxwell Neely-Cohen.

The archive have other editions and it's different for each one. The internal wannabe designer is very excited on how they displayed the visuals. Enjoy!

🎉 A big congrats to all the winners of The Imirt Irish Game Awards 2026 which was held at Fís Games Summit in Galway. If you haven't checked out the Irish games, check out the Irish-made games on steam curated by IMIRT.

If you want to meet Irish indies, the all-island game dev event of the year is back on June 26th, and it's called Run for the Border. By the community for the community. Tickets are not out yet, but you can sign up for updates.

🎉 Let's wrap up the news with a huge celebration and anticipation, the documentary about Brenda Romero has been kickstarted successfully, a big congrats to Theresa Loong! Looking forward to watching it. 🍿

🛟 Coding Grace is a non-profit and we are volunteers running all the activities from curating events listings, running this newsletter, advocating diversity in tech through events, speaking engagements, and collaborations. As a registered company, our main expenses which includes accountancy fees, bank fees, and zoom.

💖 If you want to be involved with Coding Grace, there are different ways from offering to mentoring 🧑‍🏫, collaborating 🤝, help spreading the word about us 💬, and financial contributions 🤲.

🌈 Dublin City PPN - Community Partner, we are also a member.

💬 We are planning to move away from Discord, but for now, to keep the conversation going, join us on our Discord server:  https://discord.gg/PVNQcpH4gq

🎤 BelfastRuby: CFP

BelfastRuby CFP

This is an open call for folks who would like to speak at the BelfastRuby event in a few months, our next event after Belfast RubyFest

Google Docs

🎤 DEFUSE - DESIGN FOR USE: CFP

Call for Speakers: Defuse - Design for Use 2026

We’re looking for speakers from across design disciplines and beyond to present a talk discussing anything from the universes of interaction, design, innovation or research. The format of the event is 12 speakers x 20 slides x 15 seconds per slide. Each talk lasts just 5 minutes - it’s a rapid, challenging but fun format to get across some key points of insight you’ve found through your work. 2026 Theme Who Made This? Design rarely comes from one person, one tool, or one moment. It takes shape through collaboration, constraints, systems, and choices — some visible, some hidden. Who Made This? explores authorship, intention, and responsibility in a world where those lines are increasingly blurred. As the tools we use become more powerful, automated, and interconnected, this theme invites us to look beyond the finished outcome and ask who shaped it, what shaped it, and what values were built into it along the way. We’re looking for short talks from across design disciplines and beyond — digital, graphic, spatial, service, industrial, strategic, architectural, and more. Talks might explore how decisions are made, how responsibility is shared, how assumptions get embedded into systems, or how collaboration, technology, and process influence what design becomes in the world. This theme is not about celebrating authorship for its own sake. It is about examining the people, structures, and choices behind what we create — and what it means to stand behind them. We welcome talks that are thoughtful, honest, and generous: talks that offer a clear perspective, a lived experience, a challenging question, or a lesson worth sharing. We’re especially interested in talks that help us see beyond the surface: the hidden labour, the trade-offs, the tensions, the values, and the unintended shaping forces that give design its final form. The event will be held on Monday, 9th November 2026 in the Sugar Club, Lesson St, Dublin. Final date for submission is Monday, 8 June 2025. Due to the format of the event, we’re unfortunately unable to cover any travel expenses or speaker fees.

Google Docs

Defuse Dublin are calling for proposals based on the theme of "Reclaiming Design"

Come join the Dublin design community for a night of inspiration, innovation and insight as some of Ireland's leading experts in the field of Interaction Design share their stories and highlight some of the most compelling design challenges they face.

• 🗓️ Event date: Monday, 9 November 2026
• 📍Venue: The Sugar Club
• ⏳ Applications closes: Monday, 8 June 2026
• 🏡 https://www.defuse.ixd.ie

🎤 PyLadies Dublin: CFP

PyLadies Dublin Monthly Meetups: Call for Speakers

PyLadies Dublin are monthly meetups hosted in-person or remotely (possibly hybrid in the future).These meetups are free, and are open to everyone of a…

Sessionize.com

PyLadies Dublin are looking for speakers, workshops, and collaborations for 2026.
Some of the various things you can submit:-
⚡️ Lightning Talks
💻 Workshops
🎤 Show & Tell
⚙️ Maker activity
💟 Other ideas for an event

Any questions, or looking to sponsor/host our event, email: dublin@pyladies.com

🎤 ShipItCon 2026: CFP

ShipItCon 2026 Call For Papers

The theme for ShipItCon 2026 is Friction. In engineering, friction can be the heat that slows us down or the traction that keeps us from sliding off the road. We’re looking for talks that explore the resistance we face in software delivery, the “sand in the gears” of our processes, and the “good friction” that ensures quality and safety. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a rising star, we want your perspective on how we identify, eliminate, or harness friction in software development and operations. What we’re looking for: The Cost of Turbulence: How do we identify and quantify the hidden friction in our developer experience (DevEx) and CI/CD pipelines? Engineering Traction: When is friction actually good? Share insights on guardrails, “paved paths,” and the intentional friction that prevents catastrophic failures. Human Friction: How do we navigate the interpersonal and organizational resistance that slows down transformation? Smoothing the Flow: Strategies for reducing cognitive load and removing the bureaucratic hurdles that stop us from shipping. Tooling & Automation: Showcase the technologies that are successfully lubricating the path from “code complete” to “production.” Friction Case Studies: Show us a time you hit a wall—and how you broke through it (or learned to work with it). Don’t be shy! We love talks that are thought-provoking, technical, innovative, and even a little bit unconventional. Surprise us! 🤯 What’s in it for you? A FREE full ticket to ShipItCon 2026! 🎉 An exclusive speaker dinner the night before the conference. 🍽️ The chance to share your expertise with a passionate community. 🤝 In some cases, we may also be able to offer: Travel allowance for flights. ✈️ Up to two nights of accommodation. 🏨 🗓️ Important Dates: Call for Papers Opens: February 8th, 2026 Submission Deadline: May 4th, 2026 Speaker Selection: Due to the high volume of submissions, we’ll only contact speakers whose proposals have been selected by the end of May 2026. We appreciate everyone who takes the time to submit a talk! 🙏

Google Docs

The theme for ShipItCon 2026 is Friction. In engineering, friction can be the heat that slows us down or the traction that keeps us from sliding off the road. We’re looking for talks that explore the resistance we face in software delivery, the "sand in the gears" of our processes, and the "good friction" that ensures quality and safety.

• 🗓️ Conference Date: Fri, Sep 4, 2026
• 📍The Round Room
• ⏳ Applications closes: Mon, May 4, 2026
• 🏡 https://shipitcon.com

🎤 Wexford Tech Meetup: Call for Speakers

Wexford Tech Meetup Speaker

We welcome a wide range of talk topics from within the tech space. This can include topics from different disciplines such as engineering, design, product, marketing, you get the idea 😄 Don’t worry, you don’t have to finalise your talk outline for this. Just give us a rough idea of what you would like to speak about. We will reach out to chat to you about availability and scheduling, so you are not committing to anything right now!

Google Docs

coffee.coders(); (Cork)
🗓️ Tue May 5, 2026 (18:30)

Atlantec: Women of Impact: Leading with Presence and Power (Galway) 
🗓️ Thu May 7, 2026 (14:00)

Diversin: Layoff- Safe Space :Employee Support Group Circle @ TCube 
🗓️ Thu May 7, 2026 (18:00)

Diversin: Mobbing & Bullying at Work - Safe Space :Employee Support Group Circle @ TCube
🗓️ Thu May 14, 2026 (18:00)

(Online) GATHER 2026
🗓️ Tue May 19 - Thu May 21

PyLadies Dublin @ LibertyIT
🗓️ Tue May 19, 2026 (18:30)

coffee.coders(); (Cork)
🗓️ Tue May 19, 2026 (18:30)

Diversin: Invisible & Burnout - Safe Space :Employee Support Group Circle @ TCube
🗓️ Thu May 21, 2026 (18:00)

Mary Mulvihill Award 2026 and Science@Culture annual talk
🗓️ Wed May 20, 2026 (18:30)

TechFoundHer Summit 2026 - System Crash: Women Rebooting @ The Round Room
🗓️ Fri May 29

Fierce Summit @ Dogpatch Labs
🗓️ Fri Jun 5, 2026 (08:30) 

Engineers Ireland Women in Engineering Society Annual Conference 2026
🗓️ Fri Jun 19, 2026 (08:15) 

💡 If there's a way to micro-update folks of upcoming events and opportunities in-between the bi-monthly newsletter, let me know. I am still finding a solution that automatically posts to various platforms if I want to update people a bunch of new updates after publishing the newsletter. I tried updating comments after a LinkedIn post but that was too painful to keep doing. Ideas and suggestions welcomed. TIA

⏭️ Our next bi-monthly newsletter will be published in July which will include the following:-

• 📢 Announcements
• 🗓️ Events
• 💟 Opportunities 

This will be covering 🌻July and August☀️, drop us an email at contact@codinggrace.com.

Cheers,

/// Vicky 🐱🏳️‍🌈🦄