Girl Geek Dinners

January TGGD – Innovation in Tough Times with Candice Faktor from TorStar Digital

Happy New Year to all you girls out there in geekland! We’re gearing up for our first dinner of 2009, and registration is now open on the TGGD wiki!

Our speaker for the evening will be Candice Faktor, Managing Director, Corporate Development and Innovation, TorStar Digital. Candice will speak to us about the role and importance of innovation in a tough economy.

An innovator and strategist in the Canadian online media industry, Candice is passionate about where the web is headed.

Most recently, Candice was promoted to Managing Director, Corporate Development and Innovation where she is charged with fuelling innovation in the company and exploring acquisitions and partnerships to drive Torstar Digital’s growth and leadership in the industry. Prior to this, Candice held the role of GM, toronto.com, one of Torstar Digital’s most prominent and trafficked consumer websites.

Candice has also distinguished herself as founder of ourfaves.com, a site that harnesses the power of user-generated content, city search and social networking, allowing users to share and discover local favourites on a citywide scale. Since its launch in May 2007, traffic has grown tremendously and the site will launch in other cities across North America soon.

Candice was instrumental in the 2005 creation of Torstar Digital. She played a key role in the foundation of several start-up ventures and partnerships including Olive Canada Network, which has become one of Canada’s most successful premium online ad networks.

Before joining Torstar, Candice spent four years with the Monitor Group, a top tier strategy consulting firm, acting as consultant to a range of international organizations.

Candice has a genuine love for new technology and media and finds keeping up with where the web is heading fun. Candice is also passionate about enjoying the city, reading, movies, traveling to new countries, spending time with her family, friends and husband Corey, learning new things and giving back to the community.

As per last months’ dinner, we’d like the evening to be open and collaborative, with lots of time for group discussion – so bring your questions for Candice and each other, and please sign up on the wiki if you plan to attend!

We also have a very generous sponsorship provided by FITC conferences for those who work in the new media development and design field – free admission for all January TGGD attendees to FITC Toronto 2009 April 25-28, a $650 value!

Snarbrjálaður tæknitátufundur

Úti er snarvitlaust veður en í faðmi björgunarsveitarinnar Ársæls voru þær hugrökku tæknitátur sem mættu á fundinn í kvöld einstaklega öruggar.

Við þökkum þeim sem mættu kærlega fyrir komuna og erum strax farnar að hlakka til þess að hitta ykkur á janúarfundinum.

Voruði ekki örugglega búnar að skrá með stafræna pennanum ykkar þann 15. janúar?

November Montreal Girl Geek Dinner: Building a Gaming Rig with Janina Szkut

Girl Geek Dinners

	Girl Geek Dinners Donne e tecnologia, un'accoppiata più che possibile. Lo dimostrano le cene per donne tecologiche, dove l'uomo è ospite. Gradito, ma in minoranza. Il servizio di E3, la trasmissione de La3 dedicata proprio al mondo della tecnologia.	From: la3tube Views: 634 5 ratings
	Time: 07:24	More in Science & Technology

AMS GGD #4 – Current Attendee List

Monday, 12 January — 7-11 PM
Flexbar @ Westergasfabriek
Pazzanistraat 1, Amsterdam

This is a list of attendees for AMS Girl Geek Dinner #4:

(Last updated: 12 January, 2009)

• Frances Brazier
• Melanie Rieback
• Gitta Mes
• Ksenia Marasanova
• Rosalie Ravensteijn
• Gudrun Wiesehahn
• Trinita Dewanti
• Marjon Wiendels
• Loredana Afanasiev
• Tanja Sihvonen
• Irene de Vette
• Sophie van Waesberghe
• Katie Lips
• Karlijn van den Berg
• Janna Schouten
• Nieske Vergunst
• Daphne Horn
• Sarah Kraynick
• Ania Chmielowiec
• Maaike Harbers
• Irene Kress
• Hendrike Peetz
• Elisa Jasinska
• Anu Määttä
• Namita Bhargava
• Annemiek Scholten
• Daphne Stibbe
• Ivana Cace
• Penny Edwards

And..

• Philip Homburg (guest of Melanie Rieback)
• Paul Stringer (guest of Katie Lips)
• Frank (guest of Janna Schouten)
• Nils Breunese (guest of Nieske Vergunst)
• Wolf Schouten (guest of Daphne Horn)
• Guido van Nispen (guest of Irene Kress)
• Timo Kouwenhoven (guest of Gitta Mes)
• Arien Vijn (guest of Elisa Jasinska)
• Bjorn Cordia (guest of Daphne Stibbe)

If you want to be added to the attendee list, please send an email to the organizers. Also, please specify if you will be bringing a male guest along.

Girl Geek Dinner #4

Frances Brazier

You do not like green eggs and ham?
(Tales of when Sam-I-Am had something else in mind..)

Date: Monday, 12 January, 2009
Time: 7-11 PM
Location: Flexbar (Pazzanistraat 1, Amsterdam)
Cost: 22.50 Euros (buffet dinner, excluding drinks)

The Flexbar is located on the Westergasfabriek terrain.

Abstract: Expectations — both our own and those of others — strongly influence our careers. Dealing with these expectations can be a challenge! Throughout my life and my academic career, I have encountered numerous choices, surprises, and life-lessons. Pain can be minimized by learning from others — so in this talk, I will share some of the lessons that I and my collegues have learned along the way …

Speaker Bio:

Frances Brazier is a Professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, chairing the Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems Group. She has published significantly in the areas of Autonomous Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Multi-Agent Systems, Distributed Systems, Web Services, and Human-Computer Interfaces, and is currently a member of the editorial board of “AI in Design and Manufacturing” and a new book series on Autonomic Systems. Beyond her academic career Frances has also been involved in numerous ventures including NLnet, the first ISP in the Netherlands. Frances is also the Vice-Chair of the Landelijk Netwerk Vrouwelijke Hoogleraren.

Sponsor:

The Christmas Speaker

Breaking News!

The speaker for the Christmas party is the fabulous Pia Waugh talking about…

Volunteerism – your ICT skills can make a better world.

Pia will be discussing how she came to realise that she could work in ICT _and_ contribute to helping the world. She’ll be covering her experiences in volunteerism, including he most recent projects involving One Laptop Per Child.

TGGD#9: Roundtable on Innovation was a Hit!

This is a guest post by Connie Crosby, who facilitated the round table discussion on Innovation at the last TGGD on November 20th.

There is no better time to create a community of friends who can come together and execute on your brilliant idea. – Passion is recession proof, 12Seconds blog (Oct. 9, 2008)

We had a fantastic turn-out for the first ever Girl Geek Dinner round table, with excellent participation by everyone. And the feedback has been very positive. I was invited to summarize the session for us–if I missed your idea, or if you have additional thoughts, please do add to the comments.

The Warm-Up

We started out the discussion after dinner with a warm-up exercise. I asked everyone to write words or phrases that describe “innovation” onto sticky notes. We then posted them to a wall, and we had three fine volunteers sort them by theme. This is what we came up with:

The energy just jumps off the page as you read through that list, doesn’t it? And I love that cartoon that someone added in! What struck us is that there were very few mentions of technology. It was more about ways of thinking.

Two Questions

Our second exercise was to answer these two questions:

1. How do you get new ideas?
2. How are you already innovating?

We went around the whole room on the first question, and it was amazing the number of ways that people use to either focus themselves down or broaden their thinking. There were some who tap into the subconscious by going for a walk, taking a shower, exercising or sleeping. Others changed something as a stimulus, such as learning something new or even moving some place new. Others had more practical suggestions, such as looking to areas outside their own for ideas, copying others, or walking backwards through a problem to find a solution. There were some who found playing with children opened them up to seeing things with fresh eyes. For the second question, people described their various projects and ways of working. It was good to be a little introspective.

Your Questions

We then opened the questions up to the room. Here is a summary:

1. Q: Are bad economic times an opportunity or a challenge?

   A:

   • it depends upon your organization
   • being on a smaller budget helps you stay focussed and come up with creative solutions; it is easier to watch what you are spending with $20 than it is with $100,000.
   • look for people already in your organization for hidden interests and skills and leverage those
   • it forces you to listen to your customer, become more customer-focussed.
2. Q: How do you get a conservative company to innovate?

   A:

   • persistence
   • patience
   • find someone who will listen
   • celebrate and build on small victories
   • you have to show the company that it will hurt the organization not to innovate
   • if the guy at the top cannot see the benefit, it may be too difficult in the end

My Suggestions (& Questions) for the Next Step

The number of deep thinkers in the room was impressive, and I was amazed as to how engaged in the topic everyone was. This is indeed building into a real community!

We didn’t have enough time to talk about it, but I believe the next step in making this group valuable is to find ways for us to further support each other in our projects and career aspirations. We already do that on a one-to-one basis as we meet each other and get to know what we all do. But how can we take that to a more organized level? How can we promote one another so that we all succeed?

Ideas for Another Round Table?

I believe our illustrious organizers Jenny Bullough, Leona Hobbs and Maggie Fox would like to try another round table discussion in the future. If you have a topic you would like to discuss, or if you would like to volunteer to lead a discussion, let them know.

Thank you to Leona for inviting me to facilitate this discussion. And a big thank you to PriceWaterhouseCoopers who sponsored the dinner!

Cheers,
Connie

Iceland Girl Geek Dinners

On a gloomy October day when the world seemed to be falling apart a girl on a small deserted island in the Atlantic ocean stumbled upon a BBC World Service radio program that put a spring in her step.  In the program a girl geek was interviewed on a super cool idea called Girl Geek Dinner. There was hope, there was a light, this had to be brought to Iceland.

The girl geek, Kristin, didn’t waste any time. She immediately emailed Sarah Blow (the interviewee) and a few friends and only 3 weeks later the first Arctic Girl Geek dinner was held.

The biggest problem did not prove to be finding girl geeks in Iceland (a Facebook group now includes 170 girl geeks) or a place to meet. The biggest challenge proved to be decided what to call a girl geek in Icelandic. It may be indicative that girl geeks in Iceland have until now not had a proper noun to describe them. A panel of Icelandic scholars was recruited which came up with the word tæknitáta (pronunciation: thai-kn-tout ). The word literally means technology chick.  Needless to say it was an instant success.

Already the second meeting has been called.  For anyone in the area interested meeting some technology chicks and learning a bit about IT in search and rescue, please join us at the premises of the search and rescue squad Arsaell, at Grandagardur 1 in Reykjavik on December 11th at 18:00.

With warm regards from Christmasy Iceland,
Magga Dora – tæknitáta

Iceland Girl Geek Dinners

Raffle for FFM GGD #2

We are pleased to announce that O’Reilly Verlag GmbH & Co.KG will be donating three (3) of their publications for Raffle at the Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner #2 on Monday Dec. 8, 2008.
1. IT-Karrierehandbuch , Martina Diel
2. Geek Kochbuch , Mela Eckenfels, Petra Hildebrandt
3. Dein Gehirn: Das fehlende Handbuch, Matthew MacDdonald
The these amazing [...]

Girl Geek Dinners Sydney 2008 Christmas Party

Come one, come all to the Girl Geek Dinners Sydney Christmas Party.

We are having a very Aussie BBQ to celebrate the great community we have built in 2008. Places are limited so register below by the 16th of December.

When: Thursday the 18th of December at 7pm

Where: Level 9, 155 George Street, The Rocks

The Twist: ‘Tis the season to be merry! So this year, along with a host of festive food, drinks and geeky merriment, geek girls will be involved in the jolly act of giving (and receiving) with a break from the tired old tradition of Secret Santa…

We bring you: Geek Girls Christmas Swap-Off

The theme: ‘geeky’ or ‘girly’

What’s it all about? Social networking with an added twist! All you have to do is bring along a ‘gift’ based on the theme above (value $10-15), the rest you’ll find out on the night…

Hosted By: Geekdom – Queen(King)dom of Geeks

Sponsored By: Geekdom, Microsoft, Atlassian, Google, ThoughtWorks and the delightfully generous André Pang of Algorithm.com.au.

Registration Closed

Plakat til að dreifa

Hérna er plakatið sem lýsir fundinum á fimmtudaginn.  Endilega prentið út og hengið upp eða sendið áfram á tátur eða drengi sem þið haldið að hafi áhuga.

Vonumst til að sjá ykkur sem flestar á fimmtudaginn!

Great Fun at the Holiday Seattle Girl Geek Dinner

The Seattle Holiday Girl Geek Dinner was a great success. We saw a lot of familiar faces from previous events, and lots of new faces too! We hope everyone had as much fun as we did.

We’d like to give a big thank you to the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices division for their sponsorship. An especially big thanks to Dina and Megan, who made sure everything ran smoothly and put on a great evening for all who attended. Congratulations to the winner of the raffle prize, an Xbox!

Also thanks to Margaret Cobb. We really enjoyed your presentation on how your team took on marketing the Xbox to women. The demo of Lips at the end really got everybody excited.

We will be announcing the details for our January Dinner very shortly, so be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed in your favorite RSS Reader, or via Email!

Venue Change: Now Upstairs!

Just a quick note: The Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner #2 will be held UPSTAIRS in the Saal.
We received a great response from people wanting to attend that we had to change
to a larger venue.
Reminder: The event will be on Monday, December 8, 2008 at the Brotfabrik in Hausen-Frankfurt.
It starts at 6:30pm and should end promptly [...]

Öryggistátur – upplýsingatækni í björgunarstarfi

Arctic Girl Geek Dinner verður að þessu sinni haldinn í húsnæði björgunarsveitarinnar Ársæls í Reykjavík sem er í Grandagarði. Þar munum við fræðast örlítið um þá gríðarlegu tækni sem liggur að baki björgunarstarfi á Íslandi.

Á mælendaskrá eru þrír:
* Fulltrúi björgunarsveitarinnar Ársæls
* Vala Hauksdóttir, sérfræðingur í fjarskiptum
* Ríkharður Sigmundsson, sérfræðingur í staðsetningartækjum

Að framsögn lokinni munum við rölta á Sjávabarinn sem er í næsta húsi.  Þar verður sjávarréttahlaðborð á boðstólnum fyrir litlar 1300 kr.

Að venju eru strákar velkomnir í fylgd með tæknitátu. Fundargjöld eru litlar 1000 krónur en þeim fylgir einn drykkur á matsölustaðnum.

Hlökkum til að sjá ykkur!

Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner #2 in Second Life

The Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner #2 will also be held in Second Life at the Twitter Cafe in tandem with the Real Life event that will take place on Monday December 8, 2008.
The event will start simultaneously with the Real Life event.
For those people wanting to attend a Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner or a Girl [...]