Announcing the Larabelles Laracon US conference giveaway, sponsored by PlanetScale

At PlanetScale, we love Laracon, the flagship Laravel conference. After part of the PlanetScale team attended the conference in Lisbon in January, we wanted to help more folks participate and give back to the Laravel community. At the same time, we believe that broader representation at the event will only benefit developers and the wider Laravel community. Today, we are announcing a Laracon US conference giveaway with Larabelles. PlanetScale is sponsoring Larabelles, which will give three folks who have been historically under-represented or marginalised due to their gender a ticket to Laracon US (July 19-20), three nights of hotel accommodations, and air travel reimbursement (up to $600).

Attending conferences is not an opportunity available to everyone. It is a privilege. We hope to remove any financial barriers and give folks a nudge to attend. Attending conferences has many benefits, just a few of them are:

• Getting to learn about new tools and projects and learn more about existing ones
• Access to community members who you otherwise would have never interacted with in person, which can lead to future career opportunities and collaboration
• Inspiration and motivation from the conference talks and surrounding environment

Who are Larabelles?

Larabelles is a community that focuses on reducing barriers for people historically under-represented or marginalised due to their gender as PHP and Laravel developers. They ensure that the PHP and Laravel developers in their community have a pathway and a safe space to feel welcome and supported, not just at the beginning of their development career but throughout.

Larabelles has a Discord community, provides mentorship, does giveaways, maintains a directory of developers, and much more.

If you identify as part of a historically under-represented or marginalised group due to gender, I highly recommend checking them out on the Larabelles website.

How to apply?

If you identify as part of a historically under-represented or marginalised group due to gender and think attending Laracon in July might be beneficial to you, send an email to contact@larabelles.com with the subject line "Laracon US giveaway" with your name in the email along with a statement acknowledging that you will have to book your own travel and hotel arrangements, as well as visa arrangements (if necessary).

Larabelles, who will be doing the giveaway, will randomly choose who receives the three giveaway spots on June 12th, and you will receive a notification from them. PlanetScale is only financially sponsoring Larabelles, and Larabelles is solely responsible for all aspects of this giveaway.

Our ask for you

We want to ensure this opportunity positively impacts the Laravel community and need your help. Everyone can help in less than two minutes!

Share this opportunity

We want to reach as many folks as possible. There are two ways to share it:

• Send it directly to someone who might benefit from it. Tell them why they should send in an email to apply.
• Sometimes all it takes is a slight nudge.

Share it widely on your preferred social media site (Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Bluesky, your secret carrier pigeon network). You never know who might read it, and you could change their career trajectory.

Apply yourself

If you meet the qualifications, apply! Many of us know the feeling of thinking someone else deserves it more, but you deserve it too. Also, Laracon is currently sold out, so you will not have another way to attend. Send that email and give yourself a chance.

Say hi at the PlanetScale booth

For anyone attending Laracon this year, come say hi at the PlanetScale booth and grab some swag from our team. We love meeting more PHP and Laravel developers in person. Every team member from PlanetScale attending Laracon is a developer; many have written PHP for years. We would love to learn about what you are working on and see how we can help in any way.